Bad Girls, Good Girls
Prints by Ann Chernow
at The Print Center, in Philadephia
Ann Chernow is a master of blending opposites. Past cinematic moments are overlaid with contemporary feminine attitudes; heroines become temptresses, and illusions are made familiar. By conflating these counterparts, Ann Chernow addresses concerns of the human condition.
In her prints, Ann Chernow appropriates charged cinematic moments from American movies of the 1930s and 1940s. She almost exclusively selects film-stills that feature a female character or a group of women. Although periodically a male character is incorporated into the scene, the male gaze is always present outside the picture plane. Most of Chernow's women glance out of the picture to meet his gaze-some seductively, others with vengeance and a few with confidence.
In the exhibition at The Print Center, in Philadelphia, Bad Girls, Good Girls, Ann Chernow empowers her women by adding text to each image. The women appear as objects of desire but at the same time, loudly voice their own desires, anger or revenge. Once again, Chernow blends opposing elements. The film goddess becomes an ordinary woman who is in the process of seeking and forming an identity. How her story ends is not revealed, rather it is left to the audience to complete.
Ann Chernow has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe and has been listed in Who's Who in America; Who's Who in American Art. Chernow's work is in public collections that include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Museum, Yale University Art Gallery and The National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Currently at The Print Center:
Forgotten Wisdoms: Prints by Linda Schwarz
Alone Together: Photographs by David Graham
BAD GIRLS, GOOD GIRLS: PRINTS BY ANN CHERNOW
February 28 - May 3, 2003
THE PRINT CENTER
1614 Latimer Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
