Susan Choi
Sterilized Cherry, 2004
Dvd, 4 Minutes
Video Still
Susan Choi
Sterilized Cherry
September 9 through October 9, 2004
Fredericks Freiser Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of a new video animation and drawing by Susan Choi. The artist has been in group exhibitions at Richard Telles Gallery, Los Angeles, Dan Bernier Gallery, Los Angeles, and with Fredericks Freiser Gallery in New York. She was included in the 2002 Gwangju Biennial, Korea.
Susan Choi’s four minute video animation couples the image of the infantilized Asian sex kitten with Nabakov’s Lolita. Choi layers images mostly of herself in schoolgirl drag and Sue Lyon (Kubrick’s Lolita) to a tune sampled from Nelson Riddle’s original movie score. Animated ornaments (flowers, logos, handbags) are added to the mix, blowing across the screen like cherry blossoms. We find Choi’s school girl lying on the grass, swinging on a swing, and otherwise measuring out her Manga–influenced seduction dance.
As in her drawings of women in the landscape, Choi conflates all things Asian whether Korean, Japanese, or Hawaiian into an overall cultural fetish. The narcissistic self-commodification of the female gaze is present, as well as the echo of Kenneth Anger.
Choi seems to reframe the old Chaucer query of “What do women want?” by pointing to the curious intersection of seduction and self-absorption.
Fredericks Freiser Gallery is located at 504 West 22nd Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. For further information and/or photographs please contact the gallery by telephone at (212) 633-6555, fax at (212) 367-9502, or email fredericksfreiser@nyc.rr.com. Find more information on this exhibition or any of our artists at www.fredericksfreisergallery.com
