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ALLISON KATZ
While life is in your body, you have the rein of all thoughts in your hands
– Petrarch
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Aromatherapy I
“I want to give women an artificial perfume. Yes, I really do mean artificial, something synthetic, that has been made. I don't want a flower, I want a perfume that is a paradox, a composition." (Chanel, on her intention when creating No. 5)
How do you say nose in Spanish?
Hmm… No se.
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Vertigo
2020 is a number as much as a state of mind. L O O K at how 2 0 2 0 contains within itself a pair of looking glasses, spectacles, two eyes, the portal x 2. Concave or convex, we are mirrored by the number as it looks back: “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
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Bikini
Fans
always ask
for an auto-
graph.
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Blake’s depiction of Puck (1786) helped define the look of fairies today. Previously, they existed along a shape-shifting spectrum, with more to watch out for. The size of a thumb, the size of a small child, taking over the body of your neighbour at a relative’s funeral, popping up at a crossroad to guide you in the wrong direction, etc.
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Annie and Eddy
As soon as the lockdown door bolted, and social distancing became de facto, I thought about how well painting conforms to not-touching. Noli Me Tangere – Do Not (Desire To) Touch Me. There is a tradition of painting the episode when Jesus (who has just resurrected) tells Mary, who thinks he’s the gardener, not to touch him. Stay back: motif, and subtext. Painting as the ultimate hands-off haptic feast. Cixous: “Eyes are miraculous hands” and “The world is given to her in the hand of her eyes” and “Eyes are lips on the lips of God.”
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Cancerian
Free Will Astrology by Rob Brezsny for the Week of March 25th, 2021
"While he was alive, Cancerian author Franz Kafka burned 90% of everything he wrote. Was his attitude toward his creations caused by the self-doubt that so many of us Cancerians are shadowed by? Was he, like a lot of us Crabs, excessively shy about sharing personal details from his life? In accordance with astrological omens, I urge you to at least temporarily transcend any Kafka-like tendencies you have. It's time to shine brightly and boldly as you summon your full powers of self-expression."
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Mood board
I made one painting on paper per day in December 2020. To keep a record. The month was spooky; starting with a dream about a drunk koala (Monday December 1st), a pregnancy test (Tuesday December 2nd), an invite from Miu Miu to leave the following day for Paris to be photographed for SS ’21 (Wednesday December 3rd). I asked them to send me something, anything, to visually explain what they were asking me to do. I’m 40, 5’2”, no experience, baby legs, I emailed back.
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Study for The Cockfather
Eros, egg of the world, on repeat
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The card with no name
The card with no name (Card 13) cuts the past… is coping with change… highlights the essential… puts things in perspective… opens a new path…
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Ganapati
The brain is the largest and most important sex organ
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All Works
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This group of works on paper by Allison Katz made between 2006 and 2021 exemplify the artist's engagement with the complex and at times contradictory nature of contemporary artistic production. For this online presentation, Katz has written accompanying texts for a selection of images. Her work embraces the ambiguity of communication with a playful and inquiring touch that expands the conventional notion of an artist’s “signature style.”
In May 2021, Nottingham Contemporary will present the London-based artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the UK; the show will travel to Camden Arts Centre, London in 2022, and will be accompanied by a catalogue. A comprehensive monograph on Katz’s work was published by JRP|Editions, Geneva in 2020.
