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197

BEVERLY SEMMES (American, active since 1989) RED IN LANDSCAPE (SIDE VIEW) signed, dated and edit...

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BEVERLY SEMMES (American, active since 1989) RED IN LANDSCAPE (SIDE VIEW) signed, dated and edit...
BEVERLY SEMMES (American, active since 1989) RED IN LANDSCAPE (SIDE VIEW) signed, dated and editioned "Beverly Semmes 1998 1/5" in black ink on verso Cibachrome print 8 3/16 x 13 3/8 in. (20.8 x 34 cm) 1998 this print is number 1 from an edition of 5 PROVENANCE Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, DÜSSELDFORF Private Collection, MASSACHUSETTS EXHIBITED NEW YORK, Susan Inglett Gallery, PHOTOGRAPHS, January 7 - February 13, 1999 (another example exhibited) DÜSSELDFORF, Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, RECENT PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO, October 26 - December 31, 1999 ULM, GERMANY, Kunstverein Ulm, BEVERLY SEMMES, 1999 (another example exhibited; reproduced on show leaflet) Widely praised for her surreal sculptures of women's clothing, Beverly Semmes has fashioned enormous garments that cascade across gallery floors and create veritable landscapes of fabric. More recently, Semmes has produced a number of striking photographs that expand her sculptural practice by locating fabric and fashion in actual landscapes. In the present work, for example, one glimpses a rock-like form in the center of the image. Cloaked in a brown floral pattern, this object harmonizes with the surrounding field of sagebrush. The rumpled bolt of red fabric, however, is clearly displaced. Its artificial radiance surpasses that of even the brightest wildflower. Here the artist cleverly contrasts nature and culture by depicting both the integration and dislocation of man-made fabrics in an outdoor setting. Richard Martin has suggested that "Semmes's interest in the earth, ecology, and the use of natural materials may be a key to her interest in the metaphor of clothing. The green optimism of the earth's renewal is akin to fashion's process of continuous evolution, thus the calibration of fashion season, often in accord with the round of the year. For Semmes, clothing, however gargantuan or reshaped to the needs of arresting our attention as art, is a natural habit" (Richard Martin, "Material Meditations," MATERIAL DREAMS, exh. cat., New York: The Gallery at Takashimaya, 1995, p. 35).
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