As an appropriate complement to Women’s History Month, the Mishkin Gallery’s new exhibit, “What is Psychedelic” featuring artist Aura Rosenberg, opened on Friday, March 10th.
The exhibit consists of artworks from throughout Rosenberg’s career, starting with her work as a painter in 1970, and spanning to her more recent focus on photography, film, sculpture, and installation. As we move through the exhibit, we experience the metamorphosis of Aura’s career as an artist. But regardless of the medium or the decade, there is consistently an amplification of the very same chorus of diverse voices we aim to capture in our conversations around DEI. We can see this in her serial work from the ‘90s, addressing topics such as male sexuality and the dichotomy between masculinity and vulnerability, or in her contemporary work, exploring the idea of memorials and the memorialization of Jewish culture in her series Berlin Childhood and Statues Also Fall In Love.
“Rosenberg’s practice challenges how images produce and reproduce notions of spectatorship, gender, family, and history—that is, the conditions of everyday life. In this way, she examines how vernacular images naturalize and normalize meanings through which people understand themselves in the world.”
Addressing and reframing what images can say in themselves, Rosenberg plays with the idea of gender roles, sexuality, the physical body, love, culture and community. The multidimensional way Rosenberg explores identity reminds us of the intersectionality we address with DEI. Reiterated through the technique of layering, seen within the physical paint in The Window, and the layering of time in her films Berlin Childhood, we are presented with the paradoxical complexities her work presents—both asking and answering a question. Aura invites the viewer to engage in the conversation and reflect on these questions through the lens of our own lives. There is clearly a dialogue within the work itself, but how does the viewer participate in that dialogue?
“Aura Rosenberg’s work playfully questions accepted notions of gender, family, history and artistic identity. A CUNY graduate herself, Rosenberg shares over 50 years of work that embraces collaboration across an array of media. Faculty and students interested in queer and feminist studies, Jewish studies, art history, public monuments and more will be particularly surprised by her unique approach in empathetically engaging with these topics.” – Alaina Claire Feldman, Director and Curator of the Mishkin Gallery
Since the origins of art, images have and always will hold a multiplicity of meanings, but Rosenberg shows us how an image can alter meaning, even deeply established meanings and associations. Creating the muscle memory of questioning culturally and historically established meaning is integral when engaging with artworks, or as this show reminds us, considering the role that DEI can play in institutions like Baruch College.
—Emily Mack
Student, Masters Program in Arts Administration and Program Assistant, Weissman Associate Dean’s Office