via eyelevel.si.edu on 7/18/09
Looking at 1934: Lily Furedi's Subway
June 18, 2009
In Lily Furedi's homage to the New York subway, part of the current exhibition 1934: A New Deal for Artists, I'm captivated mostly by the woman applying lipstick on the far left—so much that I want to create a narrative for her. Unlike most of the other women in the car, she doesn't wear a hat, but rather wears her hair in a style Martha Graham often wore, called "squash blossom." (Graham copied this style from American Indian women she met in the Southwest.) It also reminds me of Princess Leah at the same time. I wonder then, is the woman in the painting a dancer on her way to rehearsal, or perhaps a performance? This I do know: Martha Graham and her contemporaries were as much products of the times as were the visual artists represented in 1934. Dancers responded to the challenges of the day through movement, turning the art form on its head.
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