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Mary Reid Kelley

The Syphilis of Sisyphus

November 11, 2011 – January 7, 2012

Mary Reid Kelley & Patrick Kelley, The Syphilis of Sisyphus, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Maux de Tete, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Chiffonnier's Vins, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Mogadora, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, La Nature, Diana Assassinee, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Ophelia Va Nager, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Belle Dame Sans Nez, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Sisyphus on Staircase, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Diderot's Study, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Marie Antoinette's Bed, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Robespierre, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Dandy Saltimbanque, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Marat's Bathroom, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Napoleon on the Banks of the Vulgar, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Sisyphus (Chiffonniers Vins), 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, 18th Brumaire, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Haussmann's Slum, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Marie Antoinette Saltimbanque, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Cafe Maux de Tete, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Sisyphus' Gown, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Charlotte Corday's Gown, 2011
Mary Reid Kelley, Dandies' Coats

Press Release

Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce “The Syphilis of Sisyphus,” a new short film by Mary Reid Kelley with artist Patrick Kelley. The exhibition will include a wall-sized projection with costumes and drawings used in the film’s creation. Reid Kelley’s second solo exhibition at Fredericks & Freiser encompasses a heightened level of visual complexity as it continues her exploration of language, history, anomie and sexual politics.

Set in 1852, “The Syphilis of Sisyphus” records the monologue of a young, pregnant Parisian as she traverses the garrets, alleys, and hospitals of her city. Her pun-filled polemics burlesque the Romantic-era contest between ‘Nature’ and ‘Artifice’ that dominated both politics and aesthetics at the time. In imagining the characters and spaces of Paris on the verge of Haussmann’s modernizations, the film collages three 

centuries of urban visuals, including the Turgot Map, photographer Charles Marville, Honoré Daumier, and Fernand Léger.


About the Artist
Mary Reid Kelley graduated with a MFA from Yale in 2009. Since then she has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and London. She has been included in numerous group shows including “Fast Forward 2: Media Art from Sammlung Goetz” at the ZKM, Karlsruhe; “The Dissolve”, Site Santa Fe Biennial; and “Ludicrous” at the ICA, Philadelphia. In 2011 she was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy and will be the subject of an upcoming episode of the PBS documentary series Art21 about her making of “ The Syphilis of Sisyphus”.