APRIL MARTEN: FRANCES WASN’T A SAINT

Monica King Contemporary, 32 Lispenard Street, New York, NY

September 6 - June 20 - October 12, 2019

Frances Wasn’t a Saint features a wide range of artworks including dynamic still images, multimedia sculptural installations, and a video work deriving from extensive isolated performances enacted by the artist.  An ongoing inquiry into identity and the societal and power structures that we allow to shape it – Frances is real, although we cannot touch her. “I call her a ghost because she is not an invented persona, Frances references the real: an ambiguous female figure who lived, a grandmother I couldn’t really know, but who is talking to me and through me now,” states April Marten. “In conversation with this “ghost,” I allow her to take form in my body through performance. My performances extend from the referent while quoting from our culture’s hyperrealities including fairy-tales, grand narrative ideologies, biblical myths, social constructions, and manufactured desires.”

Image: Performance Still of the Artist in a live performance accompanying the exhibition on Saturday, September 7th, 2019