Got a chance to go to Jill Greenberg's show "Glass Ceiling" at Clamp Art NYC before it's closing. The work depicts underwater images of women wearing bright swim suits and high heels; hinting of fashion imagery, but with rigid poses, a sense of frenzy, and the figures' heads visually cut at the water's surface. The beauty of the images gives way to a provocative metaphor pointing to the duality of women in the modern culture as they push to break through to less suffocating roles. The distortion from water, light, and luscious color creates a graphically disturbing effect, bordering on violence in some examples...
In an adjacent room was a series of stunning, large scale horse portraits also by Greenberg... By instinct, I got the connection, but it took me a bit to grasp the full concept of control and oppression suggested by the combined subjects. In the front of the gallery was a single sculptural object placed among the photos-- a glass pump, reflective of the footwear in the water photos. Another object depicted in the expanded horse series was a bridle bit. Suddenly the whole story made sense. Creatures of grace, beauty, and inherent sexuality being controlled by devices to serve the wants and needs of others, or the culture as a whole.
I have always, probably like many people, associated Jill Greenberg with her ultra slick crying kid portraits that made her famous -as well as both heavily critiqued and admired- in the digital photography and advertising world. Many people emulated her post-production style, with its polished, almost metallic, hyper-realistic surfaces. 'Glass Ceilings' gave me a new perspective of her images and inner workings of her conceptual mind, however. I'm generally not a big a fan of overly dramatized feminist art (played out in the 90's in my opinion), especially when it's too literal, but Greenberg's 'Glass Ceiling' gives the viewer visceral beauty and gorgeous lighting and color, while making her statement in well constructed provocative metaphor; both subtle and explosive in the right moments. I'm glad I caught this show in person before it came down. The images were powerful and the installation was impeccable.