Jennifer Pastor: The Perfect Ride

Los Angeles–based artist Jennifer Pastor’s latest project, The Perfect Ride, on view from October 6, 2004 through January 2, 2005, is the Whitney’s final offering this year in The Contemporary Series curated by Debra Singer. With a sensibility that falls somewhere between Pop art and kitsch, Pastor’s new work reinterprets strangely unexpected and banal subject matter through meticulously crafted work.

Created over a period of several years, The Perfect Ride is a three-part installation that features an enlarged, sculptural, pseudo-scientific interpretation of the human inner ear; a steel, aluminum and cast-fiberglass sculpture inspired by the circulation system of the Hoover Dam; and a projected line animation depicting what would be a perfect, but literally impossible, ride on a rodeo bull.

Linking these seemingly disconnected forms is the idea of armatures, which can balance and direct systems of movement or circulation. Instead of proposing a clear narrative link between the installation's three components, Pastor indirectly explores instances of man's triumph over nature-- scientific, athletic, or cerebral--as well as the attendant notions of awe and "perfection" that such grandiose feats may inspire.

Pastor's meticulous attention to detail is evident in The Perfect Ride, her first major installation since The Four Seasons. While her works often appear to have the look of a prefabricated object, she always extensively researches and then recreates her subjects by hand. Pastor’s intricate craftsmanship skews boundaries between reality and fantasy as she renders familiar subjects into unsettling new objects. Her works offer a surface spectacle that trigger a rich web of associations, as well as skepticism towards the limits of perception.

About the Artist Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Jennifer Pastor lives and works in Los Angeles. She graduated with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1988 and received an MFA from UCLA in 1992. She is currently Professor of Visual Arts at the University of California at San Diego. Pastor first received recognition in the mid-1990s when her installation titled The Four Seasons (1992-6) was featured in solo exhibitions in 1996 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. That project was then also exhibited in many important group shows in the United States and Europe, including the Whitney’s 1997 Biennial.

Pressetext

Jennifer Pastor: The Perfect Ride
The Contemporary Series
Kurator Debra Singer