New works by Cindy Rehm
Winslow Garage
3540 Winslow Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90026
September 19-October 10
Opening Friday, September 19, 7-9pm
Unleashed and raging, she belongs to the race of waves. She arises, she approaches, she lifts up, she reaches, covers over, washes a shore, flows embracing the cliffs least undulation, already she is another, arising again, throwing the fringed vastness of her body up high…
Hélène Cixous, The Newly Born Woman
For her first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Rehm has taken the title of a cryptic and sparsely documented work that dancer Hélène Vanel performed at the opening of the 1938 International Exhibition of Surrealism. While details vary, all accounts describe the work as an erotically charged hysterical fit performed on disheveled beds beneath Duchamp’s coal sack covered ceiling. The evocative photographs of Vanel’s performance served as the symbolic inspiration for Rehm’s new series of drawings that continue her exploration into the complex relationship between the female body, representation, and myth.
While The Unconsummated Act has been noted as the first surrealist dance, Vanel has been nearly erased from history and multiple sources report that she perished in a concentration camp. In fact, she lived into her eighties and in later life penned a memoir of her rich life in the avant garde of Paris and London.
The exhibition is accompanied by an artist pamphlet featuring a collage by Rehm and a text by Sara Fowler.