NEW YORK, NY.- CHART opened their gallery’s second solo exhibition with New York-based artist Carrie Schneider this January 19th, which will continue through February 18th, 2023. I don't know her centers on two major new works: a 16MM color film and two unique chromogenic photographs made in–camera that span 400 feet. The photographic and moving image works exemplify the artist’s ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations and the principle motif of image transmission and proliferation.
For I don't know her, Schneider produced a multiple portrait as a means to explore subject authority and formation. Situated on two levels of the gallery, the floor-to-ceiling film installation and an amorphous photographic scroll reveal an ecstatic combination of visuals that span one hundred and sixty three frames. The stills are bombastic surfaces comprised of painted and collaged elements interwoven with images of the artist's hands holding up a phone. Once animated, the film projection reveals the artist Mariah Carey emphatically shaking and nodding her head—a clip excerpted from an interview during which Carey is asked to offer an opinion about another singer and actress.
Conceptually devouring and elevating the operation of a meme, Schneider formally dissects the technical and material processes involved to create the underlying and often sensational realities of her narratives. In the same way that the artist has portrayed creative authority and posed relationships among artists in the past—namely, through the framing device of subjects holding and reading another author's work, as in the series Reading Women (2012–2014)—Schneider, here, looks to another artist who commands and precisely orchestrates her image.
The film’s soundtrack is created by the composer, musician and multimedia artist Cecilia Lopez, and reflects Lopez’ work in sound and performance installation and the creation of sound devices and systems. The composition is audibly striking in its mixing of Carey’s lead singles Fantasy (1995), Honey (1997) and Obsessed (2009). Lopez’ digital rendering and sampling of the singer- songwriter’s vocals and hooks, overlaid with staccato transitions and the sound of a running projector is an analogous and collaborative contribution to Schneider’s image constructions, as it equally emphasizes the hidden mechanics and the undisclosed work of image and sound composition.
The exhibition expands on multiple ongoing themes in Schneider’s work, among them: self-portraits that reference feminine icons who share the artist’s name (Carey/Carrie), feminine relationality and authorship, and the formal image processes involved in their making. Encompassing this focus, Schneider looks to the subject of an iconic producer and composer who, like herself, references and has notably introduced novel influences to her medium. As an additional collaborative element, I don't know her includes a booklet companion with contributions by fellow artists and writers Abigail DeVille, Aristilde Kirby, Carmen Maria Machado, Emily Mello, Lee Conell, and Shayla Lawz, as well as a visual score by Cecilia Lopez. — Olga Dekalo
