Idée Fixe

Gavin Benjamin, "Heads of State No. 32"

November 15, 6-8 pm

Gavin Benjamin Mona Cliff Thea Wolfe

This is an exhibition exploring the way artists Gavin Benjamin, Mona Cliff, and Thea Wolfe interpellate identity and defy the commodification, obsession, and fertilization of the “Other” in relationship to the self through their artwork.

Idée Fixe is a term understood as a mental preoccupation, a passion, or an idea on which we fixate.

Mona Cliff explores her Indigenous heritage through meditation and the spiritual imbue of the materials she uses. “Bead work and fabric appliqué form the foundation of her practice, and she creates from a place of intuition, exploring her identity and lived experience.” (Cliff, artist statement) This is powerfully represented in her beaded gas mask series Past/Present/Future.

“This work reflects the present world we face—where we came from, and who we came from—because #Indigenous #Futurisms is not just about the future. Our ancestors were Indigenous futurists; we were always in their prayers, and now we walk with our future generations in mind.” —(Cliff)

In relation to the concept of Idée Fixe the “Other” is defined through the writings of Simone de Beauvoir in her book The Second Sex: “Women, as subjects, can only arise out of the knowledge of man.” This same concept can and has also been applied to the way we view race in relation to “whiteness” and sexual preferences in relation to “straight.” This is based on the assumption that there are norms. It is these norms that our society and political views have become fixated on, when in fact these “norms” are not norms at all, but simply perceived as such.

This indicates that it has become so deeply rooted in our consciousness to use this harmful mechanism of “us” vs. “them” in our daily vernacular. We must use this knowledge to address the inequalities of dominant culture that have become romantic obsessions—almost a monomania of our own political convictions regarding what it means to be human.

In Gavin Benjamin’s series , Heads of State he examines European Renaissance works from the 15th to 17th centuries, such as The Art Collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels. Benjamin states, “I wanted to create a forgotten family tree from the African point of view.” In these Heads of State photo collages and silkscreens, he uses recognizable European noble elite silhouettes filled with self portraits, images of pop culture, and political references.

Wolfe’s elaborate, hyper-real paper collages fit into the narrative of Idée Fixe, as she immortalizes three women in her Ghosts of Dead Wrestlers series. These women embody real-life experiences as well as cultural metaphors of how the lines between persona and true self can become so blurred that identity is defined by the consumer, the viewer, and the popular ideology of the time.

These subjects are not meant to be fetishized, franchised, or consumed. They are to be acknowledged as autonomous in their own person-hood and cultural practices.

In an attempt to reject the “other” as “other” and the negative space that has been constructed within our society, Benjamin, Cliff, and Wolfe all bring humanity, beauty, and power into their subjects in unique ways.

Opening November, 15th 2024 6-8 pm

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