Barbara Siegel at A.I.R

The six-part installation that constituted Barbara Siegel's second solo exhibition at A.I.R. (she last showed there in 1997) highlighted the New York City-based artist's empathetic response to American culture in all its diverse and remarkable guises. Working with a wide variety of materials, from cheesecloth to steel wool, and often incorporating audiovisual components, Siegel pays tribute to out-of-the-ordinary individuals, including bearded ladies and the sole permanent resident of the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2.

Under the title "Sideshow," Siegel's pieces, dating from the past five years (with three works from 2006), conjure the elements of a spectacle. Women with Beards (2006) consists of 12 graphite portraits drawn on antique fabric pinned across the gallery wall in an irregular configuration. Names and life dates of some of the women (a mix of famous 19th-century ladies and contemporary performers) are embroidered onto the cloth; their dark and bushy beards, made of steel wool and copper wire, are affixed to their chins with filament. Siegel's interviews with Jennifer Miller, a former member of the Coney Island Side Show and founder of Circus Amok, and Lucia Leandro Gimeno, a social activist, add an aural/oral dimension to this gallery of haunting countenances that speaks to exploitation and stigmatization.

In Sea Queen (2001), Siegel evokes the life of Bea Miller, an 84-year-old woman who decided to live aboard the QE 2 after her husband died in 2001. The piece consists of a fleet of 57 small folded paper boats (one for each year of Miller's marriage) covered with various texts related to her life at sea, set on the floor and on a platform that echoes the shape of the ocean liner.

Wally's Clam Bar (2006) pays tribute to Hector G. Wallace, a Coney Island sign painter whom Siegel befriended after reading about him in the New York Times. The wall work re-creates an eatery using wood, photo gel transfers and lights; an interview with Wallace completes the piece.

Another Coney Island resident, Melvin Burkhart, a.k.a. "The Human Blockhead," renowned for hammering nails up his nose, also receives his due in two pieces in the show. Here as elsewhere, Siegel blends documentary and art, conjuring the somewhat shocking talents of this man in a manner that both educates and engages--without the shouting of the boardwalk barker to distract us.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning