carajudeaalhadeff





CARA JUDEA ALHADEFF

Viscous Expectations 50 x 50 cm, c-print, 2003	Red Room # 1 50 x 50 cm, c-print, 2004

Birds in her Throat she was Dreaming 50 x 50 cm, c-print, 2003	Waking into the Transient Membrane of such Delicious Moisture 50 x 50 cm, c-print, 2003

STATEMENT My color photography is a theater of psychological and physical transformations which reveal a luminescent excess. This excess combines both the “civilized” and the animalistic. The word monster shares its root with the verb, to demonstrate. I choreograph scenes set in both quotidian and mythical environments. These constructed relationships frequently subvert notions of domesticity; for example, my current series, The Gestation Project, in which I photograph 10-30 pregnant women in public spaces such as the zoo, hair salons, bookstores, nightclubs, boxing rings, empty auditoriums. The woman’s pregnant body represents the simultaneity of inside and outside. Her private is undeniably public. Her body is raw and exposed and contained at the same time. Life within her is clearly visible from the outside. Because her corporeality cannot be concealed, the pregnant woman is exempt from societal constraints that obscure body awareness. The pregnant woman is the ideal subversive (challenging cultural norms) in our society because her womanness is utterly present. She is sexual without objectification--the embodiment of sexual and corporeal empowerment. She is the alchemist who embodies and transgresses notions of difference; opening the door for identification and disidentification from others. By juxtaposing bodies and body fragments with organic and synthetic materials and environments, I play with the illusory distinctions between “them and us”: the familiar and the unfamiliar, what is supposedly comfortable and what puts us on edge. The pregnant woman, like the environments in which she is photographed, is both quotidian and surreal. Her body exudes with the excess of intimacy. My work explores this eroticism as a tool for cultural resistance. The photographs’ characters, which include my own body, become hybrids of machine and animal which populate dream-like worlds. Through a visual carnal language, these polymorphic bodies are engaged in ambiguous ceremonies. Frequently, for the characters, these silent spectacles evoke self-awareness and discovery. Similarly, the audience has an opportunity to read their own story into the photographic scenarios. Our improvisational communication underlies my exploration of eroticism. For me, eroticism is any intensely satisfying sensation of connectedness to oneself, to others, and to one’s environment. It is continually born out of the recognition of the self in relation to the whole and the mind in relation to the body. This notion of eroticism resists homogenized social relations and self-censorship. Eroticism can be a key to examine the unconscious mind by interweaving the very interactions that are often prohibited or suppressed under social norms. Life and death become interchangeable. I construct a seemingly irrational cohesion of fragments with sensuous objects, shapes, and colors. The quotidian in relation to the sensual sets up a ritualistic narrative. My photographs tell contradictory stories about a precarious, almost dangerous, inverted domesticity. I create ambiguous environments in which the characters might appear as though they just had an orgasm, are in a deep (death-like) meditative state. These egoless, emptied bodies become a catalyst to unravel social values and cultural assumptions—laying bare the possibility for intimacy, vulnerability, and inevitably power and strength. Cara Judea ALHADEFF, San Francisco, March 2005

CURRICULUM North American, born in 1971 in Boulder, Colorado; lives in San Francisco EDUCATION: 1993-5 Pennsylvania State University (PSU), PA Bachelor of Philosophy degree with honors in Corporeal Politics (self-designed interdisciplinary major); minor in Photography; Summa cum laude First time student graduated in both Scholars' and Bachelor of Philosophy Degree 1990-2 Sarah Lawrence College (SLC), NY SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS: 2006 Photographic Center Northwest, Seattle, WA Erotic Art Museum, Hamburg, Germany ST’ART 06 (Strasburg Art Fair, France – presented by the Erotic Art Museum, Hamburg) 2005 Voyeur Project View, Lisbon Van Campen & Rochtus Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium 2004 Moving Benefit, 848 Performance Space, San Francisco ODC Theater, San Francisco From There to Here-Captive Nomads, Durchgang Gallery, Hamburg, Germany 2003 Thicker than Water, Flatfile Photography Gallery, Chicago 2002 Performance Panoply, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, San Francisco 2001 Tongue and Trigger, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, San Francisco 1999 The Beauty of Disorder, Venue 9, San Francisco 1998 Gravity Sag, Venue 9, San Francisco Inside the Visible, Crucible Steel Gallery @ cellspace, San Francisco Corporeal Politics, Luna Sea, San Francisco Matter Adheres to Matter, Oakland Federal Building, CA 1997 Viscous Expectations, SF Art Commission, City Hall, San Francisco 1992-5 Five solo exhibitions, Pennsylvania State University GROUP EXHIBITIONS: 2006 Artists Gallery, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 2005 Artists Gallery, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 2004 Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY PHOTO San Francisco, represented by Freddie Fong Gallery, San Francisco 2003 Armory Show, represented by The Budget Gallery, San Francisco Recent Acquisitions, Atelier Studio Gallery, San Francisco 2002 Blood Show, Quotidian Gallery, San Francisco What’s New, Atelier Studio Gallery, San Francisco Picturing Modernity: Photographs from the Permanent Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Politically Incorrect, Flatfile Photography Gallery, Chicago 2001 Botanica: The Verdant Garden , Flatfile Photography Gallery, Chicago Poor Walls, Quotidian Gallery, San Francisco 2000 Emotionally Annoyed, ESP Gallery, San Francisco Women’s Work Jubilee, Footloose Productions, San Francisco 1999 Wall to Wall Nudes, Sande Webster Gallery, Philadelphia 1998 Face, Queer Cultural Center, San Francisco Queer and Kinky Danger, Gay and Lesbian Historical Society, San Francisco Troubling Customs, Ontario College of Art & Design and Katherine Lane Weems, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Annual Members’ Exhibition, Berkeley Art Center, CA 1997 Generations, A.I.R. Gallery, New York Texas National’97, Juried by Starn Twins, Stephen F. Austin University, TX 1996 Death and Rapture, Luna Sea Women’s Exhibition, San Francisco Art of the State Pennsylvania 1996, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA A Woman’s View, Painted Bride Gallery, Philadelphia Photography ‘96, Abington Art Center, PA 1995 Not the Same Old Photo Show, Pennsylvania School of Art and Design Body of Evidence: The Figure in Contemporary Photography, Cleveland State University Museum International Exhibition of Erotic Art, Griffin Gallery, Miami, FL 1992-5 Ten group exhibitions, Pennsylvania State University 1992 Wall of Portraits of Women by Women, University of Wisconsin, Madison Undressing Our Wholeness: A Celebration of Women's Art, Sarah Lawrence College, NY PERFORMANCES: 2004 In-Sight, collaboration with Kunst-Stoff Dance Company (photographs projected onto floor-to-ceiling sets, surfaces and objects), ODC Theater, San Francisco 2002 Up to Code, Oberlin Dance Company, ODC Theater, San Francisco 2001 Tongue and Trigger, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, San Francisco 1999 The Beauty of Disorder, Highlight of Women’s Work, Venue 9, San Francisco 1998 Gravity Sag, Women’s Work Series, Venue 9, San Francisco Meet the Beat, The Luggage Store, San Francisco Salon 455A, Studio Valencia, San Francisco 1997 Corporeal Politics, Luna Sea, San Francisco 1995 Torrid Zones, Pennsylvania State University PUBLIC LECTURES: 2001 Still Life: The Immobile Object, UC Berkeley Foto Forum, Guest Lecturer, SFMOMA 1997 Viscous Expectations, San Francisco Art Commission, City Hall 1994 Sephardic Jews: 1300 Years of Identity and Assimilation, University of Northern Iowa Women in a Transnational World, Rutgers University, NJ Ethnicity: Global Perspectives, National Association for Ethnic Studies and Kansas State University ,MI Celebrating Women’s Studies, University of Delaware, MD Third World Feminisms, Pennsylvania State University Artist Talk Series, Pennsylvania State University 1992 New Perspectives on Jewish Identity and Black Jewish Relations, Sarah Lawrence College, NY The Sephardim in the Americas, Sarah Lawrence College, NY BIBLIOGRAPHY: 2005 Performance Art Journal (pending) FOTO, Belgium (pending) 2004 Efemmeral Flesh: Corporeal Utterances, Poetry by Jill Nagle and photographs by C.J. Alhadeff, Mel Blardo, shiloh burton, Brett Fisher, and Jill Nagle, Audacity Press, CA Mein Heimliches Auge, Das Jahrbuch der Erotik XIX, Konkursbuch Verlag Claudia Gehrke, Germany Art and Opposition, San Francisco Chronicle, May Von Dort Nach Hier, Szene Hamburg , April Art on the Milky Way, Hamburg : Pur, April Flow, Poetry by Anne L. Francis and photographs by C.J. Alhadeff, Fast Back Books, CA San Francisco Armory Show, Best of the Bay, Bay Guardian 2003 Tip of the Week, New City : Chicago , The Reader, January Documentary by Japanese film maker, Aoi Tabata 2002 “Runway,” Feature Profile on European Television French-American Television, Public Broadcasting 2000 Here Kitty, Kitty, SF Weekly, February Critic’s Choice: art, San Francisco Bay Guardian, February Emotionally Annoyed, Editorial Profile, citysearch7.com, January 1999 Varieties of Naked Experience: Particulars of the Human Body in Recent Art, New Art Examiner, October Inside the Visible, San Francisco Bay Guardian, June New Art Examiner, March 1997 For Art’s Sake, SF Chronicle, November 1996 “Negotiating the Discursive Body,” Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women 1994 Interpreting Our Imagination, Voices of Central Pennsylvania 1995 Definitely Not the Same Old Photo Show, Happenings, Intelligencer Journal, November Student, like the masters, must face censorship, Daily Collegian, January Voices of Central Pennsylvania , May, June, July, August Daily Collegian, June, October artsave/People for the American Way , annual edition Sarasota Arts Review, February Voices: January, February, October Daily Collegian: January, September, Artist Tests Community’s Limits, October The National College U Magazine: April Artsword, vol. 3, No. 1: spring issue The Subject: The Body, The Cleveland Free Times, October Bodies real and surreal, warts and all, The Plain Dealer, October Happenings, Intelligencer Journal, November 1992 New York Times, February GRANTS AND AWARDS: 2002 Nominee for John Gutmann Photography Fellowship 2001 Four month Residency at Jon Sims Center for the Arts, San Francisco 1998 Award of Excellence, Manhattan Arts International, NY 1995 First Prize National Association for Ethnic Studies, Student Research Competition Honors medal for highest distinction, PSU First Prize Photograph, International Exhibition of Erotic Art, Griffin Gallery, Miami Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award in Women's Studies Program, PSU 1995&’3 Honorable Mentions, Zoller Gallery Undergraduate Juried Exhibition, PSU COLLECTIONS: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Numerous Private Collections Represented by SFMoMA's Artists Gallery, Fort Mason, San Francisco Caroline Pagès is Cara Judea Alhadeff's agent in Europe. She is based in Lisbon: [email protected] LINKS: www.carajudea.com http://catsearch.sfmoma.org/search/catsearch/?sp-p=all&sp-f=ISO-8859-1&sp-a=sp10026505&sp-q= cara+judea+alhadeff http://www.photography-now.com/artists/K18443.html www.kunst-stoff.org

North American, born in 1971 in Boulder, Colorado; lives in San Francisco