Tara Downs

Sep 18 – Oct 24, 2020

96 Bowery, Floor 2

A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism

Press Release
–
The New York Times

Vikky Alexander, Magenta St. Sebastian, 1981. Archival inkjet print, acid-free black museum board, Plexiglas, 39 × 51 inches / 99 × 129,5 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Chaises longues (Dichroic), 2020. Dichroic glass (diptych), 32 × 18 × 48 inches / 81,3 × 45,7 × 121,9 cm (each)

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, The Story of the Eye, 1981. Archival inkjet print, acid-free black museum board, Plexiglas, 60 × 26 inches / 152,4 × 66 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Glass chair and table (Dichroic), 2020. Dichroic glass, 36 × 16 × 16 inches / 91,4 × 40,6 × 40,6 cm (chair), 14 × 14 × 14 inches / 35,5 × 35,5 × 35,5 cm (table)

Vikky Alexander, Glass chair and table (Dichroic), 2020 (alternate view). Dichroic glass, 36 × 16 × 16 inches / 91,4 × 40,6 × 40,6 cm (chair), 14 × 14 × 14 inches / 35,5 × 35,5 × 35,5 cm (table)

Vikky Alexander, Glass chair and table (detail), 2020 (alternate view). Dichroic glass, 36 × 16 × 16 inches / 91,4 × 40,6 × 40,6 cm (chair), 14 × 14 × 14 inches / 35,5 × 35,5 × 35,5 cm (table)

Vikky Alexander, Between Dreaming & Living IV, 1985. Archival inkjet print, tinted Plexiglas overlay, 36 × 26 inches / 129,5 × 66 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Descent, 1982. Archival inkjet print, acid-free black museum board, Plexiglas, 12 × 24 inches / 129,5 × 66 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Rose Obsession, 1983. Archival inkjet prints, tinted Plexiglas overlay (diptych), 36 × 48 inches / 91,4 × 121,9 cm (total)

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Glass bed (Dichroic), 2020. Dichroic glass, 28 × 48 × 60 inches / 71,1 × 121,9 × 152,4 cm

Vikky Alexander, Glass bed (Dichroic), 2020 (alternate view). Dichroic glass, 28 × 48 × 60 inches / 71,1 × 121,9 × 152,4 cm

Vikky Alexander, Glass bed (Dichroic), 2020 (detail). Dichroic glass, 28 × 48 × 60 inches / 71,1 × 121,9 × 152,4 cm

Vikky Alexander, Between Dreaming & Living X, 1985. Archival inkjet print, tinted Plexiglas overlay, 36 × 24 inches / 129,5 × 61 cm

Vikky Alexander, Between Dreaming & Living X, 1985 (alternate view). Archival inkjet print, tinted Plexiglas overlay, 36 × 24 inches / 129,5 × 61 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Between Dreaming & Living XI, 1985. Archival inkjet print, tinted Plexiglas overlay, 24 × 36 inches / 61 × 129,5 cm

Vikky Alexander, Between Dreaming & Living XI, 1985 (alternate view). Archival inkjet print, tinted Plexiglas overlay, 24 × 36 inches / 61 × 129,5 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Between Dreaming & Living VII, 1985. Archival inkjet print, tinted Plexiglas overlay, 36 × 26 inches / 129,5 × 66 cm

Exhibition view of Vikky Alexander: A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism, 2020. Downs & Ross, New York.

Vikky Alexander, Sale, 2020. Vinyl, Dimensions variable

In Jill's neighborhood there was a giant billboard advertisement for a perfume called Obsession. It was mounted over the chain grocery store at which she shopped, and so she glanced at it several times a week. It was a close-up black-and-white photograph of an exquisite girl with the fingers of one hand pressed against her open lips. Her eyes were fixated, wounded, deprived. At the same time, her eyes were flat. Her body was slender, almost starved, giving her delicate beauty the strange, arrested sensuality of unsatisfied want. But her fleshy lips and enormous eyes were sumptuously, even grossly abundant. The photograph loomed over the toiling shoppers like a totem of sexualized pathology, a vision of feeling and unfeeling chafing together. It was a picture made for people who can't bear to feel and yet still need to feel. It was a picture by people sophisticated enough to fetishize their disability publicly. It was a very good advertisement for a product called Obsession.

– Mary Gaitskill, "The Dentist," Because They Wanted To, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 137

The work of Vikky Alexander (b. 1959, Victoria, British Columbia) has been presented in significant exhibitions at venues including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver; Dia Art Foundation, New York; White Columns, New York; Musée d’ art moderne et contemporain, Geneva; Downs & Ross, New York; New Museum, New York; Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Seattle Art Museum, Seattle; Kunsthalle Bern, Bern; International Center of Photography, New York; Cooper Cole Gallery, Toronto; Canada House, London; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Barbican Art Gallery, London; and Yokohama Civic Art Gallery, Yokohama. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Musée d'art moderne et contemporain, Geneva; Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Deste Foundation, among numerous others. A graduate of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, she lives and works in Montreal, Quebec. Upcoming presentations include exhibitions at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles.