Altered Egos: Making Art as An(other)

Altered Egos: Making Art as An(other)
July 9 – September 5, 1994
Santa Monica Museum of Art

Unlike writers who simply adopt a pseudonym, the visual artists in this exhibition assume or appropriate another identifiable personality as an integral part of their artistic process. Some construct a more in-depth, fully developed singular fictitious identity while others prefer to produce work under multiple personae.

The Altered Egos installation started with an historical section that included the famous photograph of Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Selavy (1920) and photo-documentation of contemporary performance artists who have used alter egos: Adrian Piper’s Mythic Being, Lynn Hershman’s Roberta Bretimore, Eleanor Antin’s multiple roles as Eleanora Antinova, the Nurse and the King of Solano Beach and Paul McCarthy’s early role-playing performances such as The Sailor.

The exhibition then continued with more contemporary works by Vernon Fisher (M. Moon), Maxine Henryson and Hunter Reynolds (Patina du Prey), Komar & Melamid (Nikolai Buchumov), Charles LaBelle (Charles Bon) Annabel Livermore (as herself) Theresa Pendlebury (various personalities) Brian Tucker (sci-fi guy) Jan Tumlir and Kevin Sullivan (Paul Varnac).