Lovay Fine Arts is pleased to present a solo exhibition by the pioneering Brazilian artist Gretta Sarfaty (*1947) in the section Back to the Futur, curated by Heike Munder and Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.
The booth features a selection of historical photographs from 1975 to 1977, bearing witness to her critical exploration and subversion of stereotypical representations of women.
These photographs stem from the artist’s practice of “auto-photos” and belong to her two most important series: Transformations (1974–1977) and A Woman’s Diary (1976–1977). In Transformations, Sarfaty focused on distorting her own facial features, evoking a sense of disquiet around femininity and asserting her right to her own body. In A Woman’s Diary, she deconstructed parts of her body, transforming and editing them through transfer and repetition as a critique of the media’s mechanical reproduction of the female image.
In the 1960’s and 70’s, female artists began to break down the hegemonic male gaze more visibly by taking over the representation of the female body through their own perspective. Sarfaty choose the strategy of creating fictional characters through self portraiture. A practice she called Auto-Photos. In front of her camera, Gretta Sarfaty is disguised and mimicks various clichés of women types. Not only she criticizes the cultural construction of women representation, she also proclaims herself as an autonomous artist.
Subsequently, the artist’s two most important series are A Woman’s Diary (1976-1977) and Transformations (1974-1977). In the first one she lets her body form almost abstract signs, organized in sequence, while in the second she focuses on distorting her facial features. In both cases, she deconstructs her body parts, transforming and editing them by transfer and repetition.
In 1979, she was one of the few women participating at a formative performance festival at Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The Journées interdisciplinaires sur l’art corporel et performances included Dan Graham, Lea Lubin and VALIE EXPORT among 30 other artists.
Selected solo and group exhibitions:
Musée du Palais du Luxembourg; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Art Institute of Chicago; Internacionaal Cultureel Centrum, Antwerp; Galleria Diagramma, Milano; Keith Green Gallery, New York; Nuno Centeno Gallery, Porto; Central Galeria, São Paulo; Sartorial Contemporary Art, London; Leeds College of Art and Design; Centro de Arte y Comunicacíon, Buenos Aires, Museu de Arte de São Paulo.
Collections:
Museum Seralves, Porto; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; The Hall Foundation, Connecticut.
