October 17 – November 23, 2014
Presented by Washington Project for the Arts
at VisArts Rockville, Rockville, MD
Participating Artists: Ingrid Burrington (Brooklyn, NY), Bean Gilsdorf (San Francisco, CA), Katie Hargrave (Chattanooga, TN), Leslie Holt (Hyattsville, MD), Benjamin Kelley (Baltimore, MD), Jennifer Levonian (Philadelphia, PA), A. Moon (Silver Spring, MD), Sebastian Martorana (Baltimore, MD), Dustin Nelson (Queens, NY), Jacob Rhodes (Brooklyn, NY), Stephanie Williams (Alexandria, VA), and Jenny Walton (Washington, DC)
The word intimacy refers most often to human relationships, acting as a metric of the physical closeness, emotional bonds, or personal knowledge shared by two people. It can describe the accumulation of knowledge about complex topics or–as in the phrase intimately aware–a familiarity with difficult truths. While intimacy is often reciprocal, it’s not unusual to be bound tightly to objects, people, or knowledge we would prefer to avoid or forget.
Highlighting artists whose work touches on intimacy in complex and unexpected ways, Strange Bedfellows explores how proximity to others–whether physical, emotional or intellectual—shapes our individual identities, civic life, technological development, and physical spaces.
above image: Sebastian Martorana, Yours, Mine, & Ours, 2010, Italian Carrara Marble, 36″ x 60″ x 8″, Photo Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum