Sara Greenberger Rafferty

Rafferty’s work combines the traditions of comedy and popular entertainment with the keen visual vocabulary of conceptual art. Rafferty borrows heavily from theatre, using elements such as stage props and sets to create work that plays off of practical jokes, gags and the absurd.

Rafferty’s video "De/Feat" (2005) documents a 12-minute performance in which the artist attempts to put on a standard-issue straitjacket all by herself. The video teeters on the verge of hilarity, all the while subtly alluding to the polemics of mental institutions and the art of illusion. In a reversal of the classic Houdini escape, Rafferty enacts an equally challenging stunt. The earnest effort is compelling. The spectacle of seeing a young woman trying to restrain herself is equal parts hysterical and pathetic, and the end result is slapstick torture of the most incredible and pitiable proportions.

In addition to the video, a selection of recent drawings will also be on view. Based on historical photographs, prints, and performance documentation and almost exclusively black-and-white, Rafferty’s drawings depict morphine injections, pies-in-the-face, levitation, rage, and other acts.

Sara Greenberger Rafferty
De/Feat
Kurator: Nu Nguyen