Overview

Self portraits and body casts of dancers/costumes in handmade paper. These works are part of a long tradition of portraiture, artist self portraits and death masks in art history. The ""life casts"" of the artists' face and body merge self-portraiture and gestural use of sheets of paper with the figure exerting its presence. The ""Circus Costumes"" were commissioned for a dance performance at Santa Monica College in 1989. The cast paper sculptures were Velcroed to the leotards of the dancers and serve as extensions of their bodies into portions of their costumes. They become metaphors for the dichotomy between our jobs/functions and our inner lives. At the end of the performance, the dancers remove their costumes, exerting their independence from the demands on their lives.

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9781733071932

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"Their preoccupation with the pathetic fragility of the human body manifests in a yet more brittle way in the Personae, which present themselves as bodies disappearing into or emerging from masses of paper. This is especially true of the ""Paper Becoming Me"" sub-series from the mid-1980s and the subsequent ""Circus Costumes"" works, cast off the bodies of dancers posing in mid-movement. The dynamic of these works builds on the minimal and monumental ""Life Casts"" and the intimate ""Chest"" and ""Hip"" works. In contrast to the victimized passivity of the Angels, the figural presences in these subsequent pieces are active, even brave-seeming, plunging into or emerging from their paper shrouds with a vigor that at once asserts their vitality and exposes them to destructive forces - forces which Bleifer's compositions imply are a constant factor in the human condition. Peter Frank, Art Critic and Curator, 2017"

Their preoccupation with the pathetic fragility of the human body manifests in a yet more brittle way in the Personae, which present themselves as bodies disappearing into or emerging from masses of paper. This is especially true of the Paper Becoming Me sub-series from the mid-1980s and the subsequent Circus Costumes works, cast off the bodies of dancers posing in mid-movement. The dynamic of these works builds on the minimal and monumental Life Casts and the intimate Chest and Hip works. In contrast to the victimized passivity of the Angels, the figural presences in these subsequent pieces are active, even brave-seeming, plunging into or emerging from their paper shrouds with a vigor that at once asserts their vitality and exposes them to destructive forces - forces which Bleifer's compositions imply are a constant factor in the human condition. Peter Frank, Art Critic and Curator, 2017

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