Pace Prints will be hosting a book signing with Nina Chanel Abney on Thursday, May 8 from 5-6 PM to celebrate the release of her latest book, Big Butch Energy/Synergy. The event will take place in our gallery at 536 West 22nd Street and will be open to the public.
Published in conjunction with the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, the book features Abney’s recent exhibitions at both institutions.
In these exhibitions, Abney mines cinematic and media representations of student Greek life to explore how gender perception and performance is inspired by the legacies of social ritual and visual culture. The complex compositions reference scenes from popular slapstick comedy films such as National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and Porky’s (1981), while citing traditions of Baroque portraiture and fraternity composites. Inspired by her experience as a masculine-of-center woman, with this body of work Abney asks how viewers gender a figure in a work of art.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the gallery and a presentation of recent works by the artist will be on view.
