“Applebroog pursues issues that transcend gender – issues of innocence and vulnerability, of self-knowledge and mortality.  She does not want us to forget the reality of mass murders and political terrorism or to accept nuclear weapons as a fact of life.  Applebroog does not offer solutions.  Rather, she makes us see what’s there – the poignancy, the devastation, and the potential for goodness.  This is political art of the highest order.”

Ruth Bass, excerpt from Ordinary People, ARTnews  (May, 1988)

In a post-truth era, with surging racism, chauvinism, sexism, transphobia, and other alarming trends, Ronald Feldman Gallery announces an exhibition of work by Ida Applebroog (1929-2023).  Finding inspiration from an expansive psychological perspective, this acclaimed artist is known for her razor-sharp explorations of contemporary life. Her art transforms current events into human events by employing carefully selected examples of individual lives as representations of collective society – in short, an inside-out versus clinical (outside-looking-in) approach.  By presenting emotionally-charged “mid-situations” – narratives with undefined beginnings and ends, and, later on, loaded juxtapositions – Applebroog masterfully empowers viewers to use their hearts and minds to “finish” the work by determining the meaning for themselves.  Singular and affecting, Applebroog’s art offers a space for visceral experiences as a path for engaging with a spectrum of issues, and a doorway into the diverseness of the human psyche.

You what? focuses on work created by the artist in the 1980s and early 1990s – a fascinating period of development and maturation into greater scale and complexity.  During this time, Applebroog had eight solo exhibitions at the Ronald Feldman Gallery, who represented her work between 1981 and 2005, featuring it in a total of twelve solo exhibitions.

In Shake (1980), Applebroog depicts a decisive moment: the meeting of two well-dressed couples who are framed by curtains, as if seen through a window or on a stage.  Classic for its voyeurism and “instant coffee” style of drawing (intentionally minimal and generic), the work is augmented by a shadow panel which echoes the subjects’ formality and constraint.  Another vellum work, Not This Time (1982), composed like a comic strip with multiple frames in a long row, is not an action sequence: the image of a woman seated beside her suitcase is carefully repeated seven times.  The text “I’d better not” and “Not this time” suggests tentativeness and doubt, while the repetition clearly describes the event as a recurring pattern.  Does this silent struggle represent the very real limits of oppression and abuse that one can endure?

Several large paintings are included in the exhibition.  Rainbow Caverns (1987) is among the first the artist imagined as a combination of several paintings united into a single work.  Here, a solo, duo and trio of figures are repeated three times, respectively, each on their own predella-like panel.  They join a giant female body builder, posing in profile, in surrounding a domestic scene of a matronly woman knitting in an armchair. Surrealistically, the floor around this central image morphs into a corn field occupied by a flock of birds.  Camp Compazine (1988), with its large side panels extending out from the wall, is Applebroog’s first example of a 3-D composition.  Immediately grabbing the viewer’s attention, is a homunculus trapped in the mouth of a giant, calling to mind Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son.  A pair of executives, who look to be mirror images of each other, a young man seated on a stool but facing away, and a protester carrying a sign reading “GOD” complete the periphery, and in the center is a gang of turkeys.  Landscape is incorporated almost as a parody; the fields are not nostalgic places where people coexist within the harmony of nature, but rather emotional terrain.

In the artist’s first catalogue, her friend and dealer Ronald Feldman writes:  “Applebroog’s ability to get us to project [ourselves] into her work is exceptional.  She sets the stage; we are the players.  Drawn in to figure out what’s going on, we soon realize that what’s going on is us.  We are more directly participants and less observers than in the roles provided for us by Vermeer or Rembrandt.  Our excitement is provided through direct self-discovery rather than through an unraveling of the secrets of the personages in the paintings.  As we enter Applebroog’s work our breath becomes more present and frightening.  We realize we are hiding secrets not only from each other but, more importantly, from ourselves.”

Ida Applebroog’s work has been the subject of many monographs and museum exhibitions, and is included in the most prestigious public collections in the U.S. and abroad.  She was acknowledged as a genius when she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1998.  In addition, she received an Honorary Doctorate from The New School University/Parsons School of Design in 1997, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the College Art Association in 1995, among many other distinctions of excellence.

Gallery viewing hours are Tuesday through Thursday, 1pm – 5pm, or by appointment.
For more information, contact Cat Zhou at (212) 226-3232 or catherine@feldmangallery.com