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Keren Moscovitch

Sun, Moon, Egg

Feb 16th—May 1st, 2023
OPENING RECEPTION Thursday, Feb 23rd, 6—8pm

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 2 PM—6 PM. Admission is free. Viewing is by appointment only.

To download the Press Release, please click here.

Penumbra Foundation is pleased to present Sun, Moon, Egg, a solo exhibition by the multimedia artist Keren Moscovitch. 

Isolated in rural Virginia during a pandemic summer, Moscovitch felt her psychical paradigms around life, death and time shifting. For several months, as her relationship to the question of motherhood evolved, she gathered up the earth under her feet, ritualistically extracting a native clay to form temporary and temporal fertility sculptures. As she photographed them, the still too-wet clay collapsed under its own weight, changing shape under the hot sun. At the same time, she developed a series of cyanotypes, and the relationship between hand, earth and sun became very palpable. Moscovitch’s ecological concerns are far from environmentalism, rather, she is interested in what philosopher Timothy Morton refers to as “ecological intimacy” - close contact between objects in the world, including human objects.

Known for her largely collaborative and relational practice exploring intimacy and sexuality through physical, linguistic and relational interventions and documentations, Sun, Moon, Egg considers relationality on a more internal level. The cyanotypes evoke both celestial forms, which have historically been perceived as intertwined with the reproductive cycle, and an imagined interiority of the body. The fertility sculptures operate anthropologically as documents of ritual and the physicality of desire. Simultaneously, environmental photographs point to the natural environment as source and foil to the technological qualities of human creativity, both biological and spiritual. In the center of the gallery is an unfired clay sculpture made of hand-harvested wild clay, and represents the physicality of the body that photographs sometimes evade.

The process of working with these materials was so basic, so prehistoric, and yet somehow new to me as an incorporated element of my intimate subjectivity. The cyanotypes in many ways represent questions and ambivalences while the fertility sculptures represent tangible intention. Environmental photographs of my surroundings allowed me to sink into the physical and emotional substrate of my inquiry. This summer of pre-motherhood was about more than art practice. I had formed a little ecosystem for my thoughts, that included the natural and built environment around me, and my interventions and collaborations with its elements.  

– Keren Moscovitch

About the artist

Keren Moscovitch is a New York-based multimedia artist, curator and scholar researching radical intimacy through the embodied and linguistic experiences of sexuality, family and the body. She holds a PhD from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts; an MFA in from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where she currently serves on the faculty; and a BA from  Georgetown University. She also teaches at Parsons School of Design at The New School. Her film One More Way to Sink Into My Heart celebrated its world premiere in 2019 in Sydney, Australia at the Sydney World Film Festival, where it won best documentary feature. Other notable exhibitions, performances and performances have taken place at Experimental Forum in Los Angeles, Blow Up Film Festival in Chicago, LABA House of Study / 14th Street Y Theatre, Satellite Art Fair in Miami, Largo das Artes in Rio de Janeiro,  Grace Exhibition Space, The New School for Social Research, X Anarchist  Art Fair, Leiden International Festival of Photography, United Photo Industries, Bruce Silverstein Gallery, I-20 Gallery, Foley and Sasha  Wolf Galleries, SLAG Gallery, Studio 150, Vlepo Gallery, (the) Slap and  Tickle (me) Gallery and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender  and Reproduction. She has been featured in publications such as Der Spiegel, The Huffington Post, Playboy, Policy Mic, New York Magazine, Descry, Time Out New York, The Kansas City Star, Quest, Visual Arts Journal, Peek, Domino, Zeek and Industry. As a writer, she has been a contributor to ARTPULSE magazine and various academic journals. Her upcoming academic book Radical Intimacy in Contemporary Art: Abjection, Revolt and Objecthood will be published in summer 2023 by Bloomsbury Academic. 

www.kerenmoscovitch.co

About Penumbra Project Gallery
The 300 square-foot Project Gallery offers emerging and mid-career artists a place to present new work. The exhibitions are developed in conjunction with Penumbra’s editorial or educational programming.  

About Penumbra Foundation
Penumbra Foundation is a non-profit organization that brings together the Art and Science of Photography through education, research, outreach, public and residency programs. Its goal is to be a comprehensive resource for photographers at any level, artists, students, professionals, historians, researchers, conservators and curators.  Penumbra specializes in advancing the use of historic and alternative photographic technologies for contemporary image-making.