I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers: Math Bass, Julie Bena, Ellen Lesperance, Sarah Peters, Amy Pleasant, Christina Ramberg, Ana Roldan, and Alice Tippit
June 9–July 8, 2017


Adams and Ollman is pleased to present I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers and Her Eyes Are Like Doves Beside Streams of Water, two exhibitions featuring painting, drawing, text and sculpture which represent or reference the body, in parts, as code, sign or symbol.

The exhibitions respond to the metaphors of "blason anatomique," a 16th century poetic device wherein the female body is dissected into fragments. In these anatomical love poems, eyes, breasts, lips, thighs are isolated and glorified; as various parts of a woman's body are desired, the whole is ordered, divided and subsequently, ruled.

Like the "blason anatomique," the artists included in these exhibitions often focus only on a fragment–a head, torso, or finger. However, in so doing, the artists do not objectify or catalogue, but rather construct a new monument or totem, one which reimagines the figure's erotic, surreal, contentious, and formidable potentialities. Using a combination of oppositional, defiant and hybrid forms and employing abstraction, among other devices, these artists approach the subject through the lens of history, language, design, science fiction, craft and architecture to take over the blason tradition and reclaim a space for the body, one that is contemporary, subjective and subversive.

installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


installation view: I Was A Wall, And My Breasts Were Like Fortress Towers


Ellen Lesperance
Land of Feminye III (Lilac), 2016
gouache and graphite on tea-stained paper
41 x 29 1/2 inches
ELes 78


Sarah Peters
Portrait with Open Mouth, 2014
bronze, Edition 1 of 5, with 2 AP
12.5 x 7 x 8 inches
SP 17.1


Alice Tippit
Echo, 2017
oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches
atippit0059


Alice Tippit
Plume, 2016
oil on canvas
18 x 15 inches
atippit0061


Julie Bena
2 Fingers, 2017
ceramic
19 x 6 x 3 centimeters
JBena 02


Julie Bena
L’eternelle insatisfaite, 2016
lace embroidery
50 x 30 centimeters
JBena 01


Ana Roldan
Negative Bodies 1, 6, 18, 22, 2016
painted neon
dimensions variable


Ana Roldan
Negative Bodies 1, 2016
painted neon, original + 1 AP
AR 01


Ana Roldan
Negative Bodies 22, 2016
painted neon, original + 1 AP
AR 04


Math Bass
Newz!, 2017
gouache on canvas
48 x 46 inches
MB 331


Amy Pleasant
Torso #1, 2016
ceramic
8 5/8 x 8 1/2 x 11 3/4 x 1/2 inches
APle 01