New Works: Dresses and Books

“I am entrusted with the dress. Non-violence of these garments: the Sonia garment doesn’t turn against the body, doesn’t attack it, doesn’t try to show off. Doesn’t shy away, doesn’t get defensive. Some garments are shields, some are mirrors, shimmery, dazzling, that attract and repel gazes, garments like armour, garments that square the body off, set it straight, garments that are ready for anything. I’ve had some. Not many. I’ve never been fond of them. I slipped them on to go to war.”

- Hélène Cixous, 1984

Rachel Uffner Gallery is pleased to present a selection of recent plastic works by Sara Greenberger Rafferty. For her fourth solo show with the gallery, Rafferty substitutes her persistent interest in moments both public and performative for those private and domestic.

Her last show with the gallery (Untitled, 2014) contained works representing bathrooms and stage doors, which functioned as screens for private preparations. Rafferty’s works from 2015 and early 2016 shift more closely to the arena of the domestic. To the notion of externalized interiority, Rafferty has added images of books, diaries, online clothes shopping, and, fittingly, designer dresses and undergarments. Here she expands on the presumptively facile realm of apparel and fashion that has been present in this body of work – Rafferty explores these symbols of both global capitalism and so-called individuality that are worn on the body until stained, frayed, or otherwise worn-out.