Reviving Venus presents a survey of works made by two queer female artists based in New York City, Gal Cohen, and Luciana Pinchiero. It incorporates mixed-media paintings, an installation assembled from enlarged digital prints combined with ready-made objects, and a shelf installation constructed of miniature found objects and collages. In this show, Cohen and Pinchiero reconnect with historic female sculptural representations, charging them with new meanings while breaking free from the male gaze - Reclaiming their HerStory.
Cohen and Pinchiero share an interest in historical artifacts representing the female body. ey both use found archival images of female sculptures as a reference for their works. Cohen looks at archeological catalogs of Upper Palaeolithic female figurines collectively named "Venus figurines." She is fascinated by these prehistoric sculptures, which are considered the most ancient form of representation of the female body in humankind. e artifacts carry various meanings, such as fertility amulets, religious/shamanistic objects, or symbols of matriarchal societies. Cohen freely depicts them onto the canvas and infuses them with her own narratives and emotions to create layered mixed media paintings. e outcome is complex visuals that invite the viewers to re-engage with this past recollection of prehistoric artifacts in a personal way. PinchierocutsoutimagesofsculpturestakenfromaHellenistic Greek history book. She focuses on figures from an essay called "Bravery of Women" written by Plutarch. It describes a group of maenads, women devotees of the god Dionysus, from the town of Phocis. Lost in the forest during a night of ritual dancing and intoxication, the maenads fell asleep. Awakened in a hostile neighboring town of Amphissa, they found themselves surrounded by Amphissa’s women forming a human wall, standing together to protect them. Pinchiero brings this forgotten narrative of heroic female solidarity back to consciousness, reviving it by printing the cut-out of the maenads' figures at a human scale and then adding ready-made symbolic objects to form a loor installation.
In this exhibit, Cohen and Pinchiero use different modes of media and artistic strategies to manipulate existing imagery. Altered and reconstructed, these visuals of iconic objects are embedded in the presented works. Reviving Venus conjures past female narratives that have been marginalized by centuries of dominant western patriarchalism, reclaiming them from the forgotten history books to be put in the center stage. Subverted through the alternative queer female gaze, they are revived with another layer of interpretation.