Organized by SITE SANTA FE, Janine Antoni brings together a substantial range of the artist’s work from 1993 onward, and will include at least 17 objects and three short video projects. Among the works exhibited will be a new piece specially commissioned by SITE Santa Fe, with a working title of Tightrope. Antoni is currently developing the piece, which will include a performance component and will also result in the production of a permanent object. Tightrope will be the featured centerpiece of the exhibition. A special artist’s book, based on Tightrope and designed by Janine Antoni, will be published by SITE Santa Fe on the occasion of the exhibition.

Janine Antoni has built a significant international reputation as an artist. As one of the youngest recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship (the “MacArthur Genius Award”) in 1998, her work has received substantial attention both in this country and abroad. Process, and the artist’s own body, are at the center of her work, which incorporates inventive uses of sculpture and ritual. Antoni’s artistic language is rich and delicately nuanced, often making humorous and thought-provoking references to art history, ideas of feminine beauty, and fetishistic behavior. Antoni has contributed greatly to the field of performance art, while at the same time producing a body of art objects that have a powerful, enigmatic, sustaining quality.

Much of Janine Antoni’s work is a thoughtful and ongoing exploration of her relationship to her family, especially to her mother. Her piece Umbilical (2000), features a spoon cast from her family silverware, with the bowl connected to a cast of the space inside of her mouth. The handle of the spoon is connected to an impression of her mother’s hand, illustrating the progression of having been fed by her mother to inheriting the family silverware. In Mom and Dad (1994), a series of photographs records Antoni’s use of prosthetic makeup to transform her mother into her father, and vice versa. She then poses the two of them in various combinations for formal studio portraits. Such pieces are thought-provoking at the same time that they engage viewers with a playful, intimate humor.