In Poorly Watched Girls, visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra explores the ways that our popular entertainments theatricalize women in trouble—spiritual trouble, emotional trouble, and romantic trouble. Inspired by an opera, a film, and a ballet, Bocanegra, whose work involves large-scale installation and performance, draws on the breadth of her practice to create a multidisciplinary contemporary art experience. Blending elements from performing and visual arts—textile, collage, performance, staging, video, and original music—she blurs the boundary between the black box of the theater and the white box of the museum. The exhibition, Bocanegra’s largest to date, is the culmination of her collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum.
About the Artist
Suzanne Bocanegra is an artist living and working in New York City. A recipient of the Rome Prize, she has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Tiffany Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her recent work involves large-scale performance and installation, frequently translating two-dimensional information, images and ideas from the past into three-dimensional scenarios for staging, movement, ballet, and music. Bocanegra’s work has been presented in the United States and abroad, in such venues as Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles; the Serpentine Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Hayward Gallery in London. Her theatrical, video and film work has been presented at the Bang on Can Festival, the New Haven Festival of Art and Ideas, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and as part of the Wordless Music series in New York.
Recent Press:
October 5, 2018–February 17, 2019
Opening Reception:
Friday, October 5, 2018, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Public Programs:
Adult Workshop: JUMPSUIT with Abigail Glaum-Lathbury and Maura Brewer
Saturday, October 13, 2018, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Gallery Walk-through and Behind the Scenes Tour
Wednesday, October 24, 2018, 2:30 – 3:30 PM
Adult Workshop: Traditional Indian Block Printing with Padmini Govind
Saturday, November 10, 2018, 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
A Conversation with Suzanne Bocanegra and Hal Foster
November 28, 2018, 6:00 – 7:00 PM
Teen Happening: What Lies Beneath?
Friday, November 30, 2018, 3:30 – 5:30 PM
Gallery Walk-through with Executive Director Susan L. Talbott
Thursday, December 13, 2018, 6:00 – 7:00 PM
Family Program: Watchful Eyes!
Saturday, January 19, 2019, 1:00 – 3:00 PM
Farmhouse/Whorehouse: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra Starring Lili Taylor
Friday, February 8, 2019, doors open at 6:30 PM
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, John and Richanda Rhoden Arts Center, 118-128 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102
Film Screening: Night with Nuns at Lightbox Film Center
Thursday, February 15, 2018, doors open at 6:00 PM 3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
All programs at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107, unless otherwise noted.