Sarah Halpern @ Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn - The Changing Room

Sarah Halpern: The Changing Room
Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn
October 23 – November 29, 2015

Microscope Gallery presents The Changing Room, the second solo exhibition at the gallery by Sarah Halpern featuring new works on paper and installation that utilize imagery – both still and moving – from film related sources including classic Hollywood movies and books that were made into movies. Inspired by a joke her father would repeat when family members said they needed “to change” before heading out the door: “Don’t change, I like you just the way you are”, Halpern reflects upon notions of transformation involving identity, society, relationships between the sexes and in the mediums themselves. In both works on paper and moving image, Halpern frees Hollywood characters and scenes from their usual contexts.

In many of the nine works on paper, text passages from a vintage copy of Cornell Woolrich’s novel “The Bride Wore Black” (1940) – also the inspiration for the 1968 François Truffaut movie in which the protagonist repeatedly disguises herself to avenge each of her husband’s murderers – are combined with settings and characters from other iconic works such as John Ford’s “Stagecoach” to create new and alternative identities and story lines. Backs are turned, scenes are duplicated at different scales, and faces, including those of stars Jean Harlow and Bette Davis, have been removed or otherwise obscured through coloring, cut out, scratching or other methods as a way to convey invisibility though paper, allowing them to serve as surfaces for the projection of dreams, expectations, and social concerns of today.

Similarly, Sarah Halpern combines text from the 1958 novel “The Leopard” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and footage from the 1963 movie of the same name directed by Luchino Visconti in her video/16mm film moving image installation “Chapters”. A two and ½ minute hand-processed color film containing shots of the pages of the artist’s vintage copy of the novel as well as reshot footage from the movie projects onto a laptop screen, on which a video of the famously glorious 45-minute ballroom scene is playing.

Elements of dualism and the process of death and regeneration – also referenced in The Leopard famous quote “everything needs to change, so that everything can stay the same” – are echoed in the rotations of the dancers, images repeated on both film and video meeting on a single screen, as well as in the text from the turning pages projected onto the computer’s keyboard. The artist adds: “The story of the disintegrating aristocracy during the time of the Italian Risorgimento is also used as a metaphor for the shifting dominance of one medium over another throughout the last hundred years; from printed books and film, to computers.”

SARAH HALPERN works with paper, 16mm film, 35mm slides, sound and performance. Her work often finds sources in classic cinema imagery in the form of books or celluloid film, and has been previously shown at The Museum of Moving Image, The Kitchen, Participant Inc, Anthology Film Archives, the New York Film Festival, and Microscope Gallery, among others. She holds a B.A. in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College, and was a recipient of the 2014 MacDowell Colony Fellowship. Halpern lives and works in Ridgewood, Queens, NY.

MICROSCOPE GALLERY
1329 Willoughby Avenue, 2B, Brooklyn, NY 11237
www.microscopegallery.com

Sarah Halpern @ Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn - Paper Plexus

Sarah Halpern: Paper Plexus
Microscope Gallery, Brooklyn
April 20 – May 19, 2013

Microscope Gallery presents Paper Plexus, the first solo exhibition of works by Sarah Halpern at the gallery. Using a palette of primarily black, white and the color of fading book pages, Sarah Halpern’s new and recent paper collage works draw inspiration from the Brooklyn-based artist’s active practice and interest in cinema and film – a medium she works with regularly, along with music, slide projection, and video.

Sarah Halpern’s eight collages on view are meticulous compositions interweaving cut-outs of text and images from writings on film theory, movie fan magazines as well as passages from books by S. J. Perelman. With a passion for comedy, puns and absurd pairings, the artist gives shape to alternative scenarios where perspectives collapse; text – often used simply as image – is displayed in varied sizes and directions; and characters that float free from flat surfaces cast real shadows. Sarah Halpern says of her works, “In film, I carry out an idea or movement through time. With paper I present time and movement within a single fixed image.”

Several of the collages in Paper Plexus are inspired by the artist’s discovery of “The Film Classic Library” – a series of complete re-constructions of Hollywood movies in book form – from which she has appropriated, among others, images of Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor starring in John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon”. Freeing these references from the confines of character and plot structure, Sarah Halpern creates a layered conversation concerning film iconography and male/female relationships.

Also of significance, is the concept of the Macguffin as articulated in films by Alfred Hitchcock as a specific object driving an entire movie from start to finish. Transposing this idea into her compositions, Sarah Halpern uses minimal elements, usually surrounded by area of white of black space, in her attempt to isolate such object or image in her own work.

SARAH HALPERN works with 16mm film, collage on paper, 35mm slides, music and performance. Her work is largely focused on cinematic time and the active role of the viewer, and has been shown previously at venues including The Museum of Moving Image, The Kitchen, Participant Inc, Anthology Film Archives, and Microscope Gallery. Sarah Halpern holds a B.A. in Film and Electronic Arts from Bard College.

MICROSCOPE GALLERY
1329 Willoughby Avenue, 2B, Brooklyn, NY 11237
www.microscopegallery.com