Sanja Ivekovic at MoMA

I had the pleasure of attending a press preview of Sanja Ivekovi's new exhibit, Sweet Violence, at the Museum of Modern Art this week.

Sanja's work involves a lot of manipulation of existing images (especially advertising and propaganda) to drive home messages about feminism, history, and media.

Some highlights for me included Tragedy of Venus, a collection of photographs which juxtaposed images of Marilyn Monroe with the artist's own photographs where tries to mimic the star's poses. Another was Double Life, in which the artist paired print advertisements of beautiful women wearing sunglasses with the personal stories of abused women.

Lady Rosa of Luxembourg is one of her most well-known and controversial works. We saw it in person, and got to hear the the museum director and the gallery curator discuss the work. Lady Rosa of Luxembourg came to be when Sanja's original idea for an art work was denied. She erected this monument as a critique of the original, incorporating ideas about the treatment of women.

We also got to experience the artist's performance piece, Practice Makes a Master. This piece featured a single female dancer wearing a plastic bag over her head, falling again and again as a cut from Marilyn Monroe's cover of the song "That Old Black Magic" played and a spotlight flashed on and off. At 18 minutes, the song played a couple times, slowing down gradually. By the end it was quite disturbing and reminded one of a torture chamber and a cabaret act all at once.