Melissa Jordan: Laddering

Time Equities Inc. Art-in-Buildings is pleased to announce the newest exhibition at the West 10th Window: Melissa Jordan, Laddering.

Melissa Jordan’s work explores the physicality of photographs via layered images. These works question the flatness of the image and the way we experience them in our digitally-driven daily lives.

In Laddering, Jordan transforms the West 10th Window into a lightbox, layering saturated photos of partially blurred or obscured women. Bright light shining through the glass of the window brings to mind the glow of a bus stop advertisement board, while the warm, otherworldly colors shining through Jordan’s prints give the window a religious quality, referencing Madonelle street corner shrines in Rome that light dark intersections at night. The female faces in Laddering are intimately close, pushed up against the window, but the hooded figures resist eye contact with the viewer. The glossy women, truncated at the chest, evoke the flat and airbrushed women found in print ads, existing between model and artificial mannequin.

Cut-outs in the layered prints destroy this sleek façade, interrupting the display to reveal hidden depth within the window. Referencing a ‘ladder’, or the small catch in a pair of stockings that leads to an inevitable run, Laddering is built upon a distorted surface, as though the image is printed on an imperfect cloth, rippled in motion. Jordan implies that the holes running through the prints have the potential to unravel, distorting their own pictorial surface and imposing a sense of discomfort on the viewer.

Next up at the West 10th Window: David Stein, Christina Watka, and Jeff DeGolier.

For press inquiries please contact: Monique Peterson, QUINN | mpeterson@quinn.pr | 212.868.1900 x387

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The West 10th Street Window is curated by Natalie Diaz, Jennie Lamensdorf, and Eliana Blechman and is sponsored by the Time Equities Inc. (TEI) Art-in-Buildings Program. TEI is committed to enriching the experience of our properties through the Art-in-Buildings Program, an innovative approach that brings contemporary art by emerging and mid-career artists to non-traditional exhibition spaces in the interest of promoting artists, expanding the audience for art, and creating a more interesting environment for our building occupants, residents, and their guests.

Photos by Melissa Jordan.