Mireille Mosler, Ltd. is pleased to announce Nathania Rubin's first solo show Dreaming Anne, an exhibition of videos and drawings.
Nathania Rubin creates drawing animations depicting Anne Frank as narrator on various topics, ranging from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to Sigmund Freud'... Read more
Mireille Mosler, Ltd. is pleased to announce Nathania Rubin’s first solo show Dreaming Anne, an exhibition of videos and drawings.
Nathania Rubin creates drawing animations depicting Anne Frank as narrator on various topics, ranging from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to Sigmund Freud’s concept of polymorphous perversion. Rubin’s Anne Frank is an unsettling hybrid of the historical figure and the artist herself. The interplay exists on an aesthetic level as the templates of Anne’s face and hair are animated with Rubin’s eye and mouth movements. On a conceptual level, the content and thought conveyed in the videos are filtered through the artist’s imagined sense of what the historical figure’s concerns and thought patterns might have been.
The video Dreaming Anne is accompanied by a recording of Neil Young’s Dreaming Man performed by Rubin. Both the drawings in the animation and the lyrics dually express adolescent optimism on behalf of the protagonist and the artist. In My Girl: A Case Study, Anne Frank and Sigmund Freud discuss the curious case of a third party who has undergone an unexplained abduction resulting in a sexual transformation. Like Anne Frank’s character who is hybridized with the artist, the character of Freud in the drawing animation is hybridized with the artist’s father, a New York psychoanalyst. The iconic image of Anne Frank at her desk is the visual reference for the drawing animation I Was Building Something When U Called . Anne, clearly posing in front of the camera, conveys both her and the artist’s intent on writing and then coping with interruption. Anne on Hades presents us the imagined response of Anne Frank to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The Frank/Rubin personage expresses incredulity with Orpheus, while the lovers’ ascension is depicted in claymation.
In addition to the videos, linoleum cuts and charcoal and pencil drawings of Anne Frank will be on view. The multiplicity of Anne creations emphasizes the artist’s fascinating obsession. The amalgamation of the artist and her iconic subject creates a magical but disturbing universe of a young woman. There is a striking contrast between the gravity of Anne Frank as subject as well as the expressionist drawing style and the playful narratives that emerge. The discrepancy in tone creates an eerie nether region between seriousness and frivolity, between tragedy and hope. Neither extreme seems to capture the human experience, though both sides pull at individuals throughout their lives.
Nathania Rubin was born in New York City in 1978, where she currently lives and works. She is a recent graduate from Queens College, CUNY’s MFA program and received a BA in philosophy from Haverford College.
Dreaming Anne will be on view at Mireille Mosler Ltd., 35 East 67th Street from February 4 through 27, 2010. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm. For more images and information, please contact the gallery at (212) 249-4195 or info@mireillemoslerltd.com.
