Leslie Friedman
Untitled Installation, 2010, acrylic, linoleum, and wood, approx. 17’ x 18’ x 5’
Work Sets You Free, 2010, acrylic ink on linoleum, approx 7’ x 7’
Artist Statement
For its visually dazzling decoration and intellectually for its information overload,
the strategies of Pop influence my art making. By way of screen-printed repeat
patterns on wallpaper and linoleum tile, I transform spaces into bright, glossy,
sparkly surfaces with subversive content below. As a student of both art and
political science, I am intrigued by the power of a visual vocabulary to set the stage
for political dialogue. I see my role as a visual director employing both fine art and
industrial methods. Screen-printing offers a seamlessness that allows imagery to
be peeled away from its original sources and built into something else altogether.
However, I believe the subtle interventions of my hand relay the message that
these works reference the commercial, but are never intended to exist in the real
world—these pieces are the labor of one person and the fantasies she is realizing.
Moreover, I work in a modular fashion. The pieces I make stand alone, but are
stronger when pieced together and allowed to shape the environment. Additionally,
perceiving my work as modules liberates me to create an artwork and then see how
altering its presentation enhances its content. In that way, I am engaged with my
work at all the varied stages of making.
Of late my primary project is the exploration of Jewishness in contemporary
America. As a secular Jew, I am fascinated with the burgeoning pride young
Jews have with their cultural identity, even if the religious aspect of that identity
is nil. My work centers on the problems with cultural or ethnic pride and the
appropriation of specifically cultural icons by the mainstream. For example,
what would the world look like if, instead of saying, “all those suburban white
kids, always trying to act black,” people said, “all those suburban white kids,
always trying to act Jewish?” What would the world look like if we eroticized the
stereotypical Jewish nose as much as we did a Latina backside? Thus, I create
artifacts of a dream world in which Jewishness is being sold to America. These
objects and patterns are a perverse advertising pitch. What underlies the bold,
colorful, pop motifs is the question of whether or not it is possible to glorify (and
conversely demonize) any ethnic group by way of negative or positive stereotypes.
What come to light are the hypocrisies and deficiencies that reside within any ethnic
group when we let individuals represent the whole and the problem with seeing
cultures as entirely good or bad.