Beverly Semmes
at michael klein
October 26 - November 30, 1996
This is Beverly Semmes' year. Last summer
she had a show at the Virginia Museum of
Fine Arts in Richmond; in the spring, a new
Semmes installation will open at the Wexner
Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. To
this add the impressive Semmes installation
at Michael Klein in New York--an enormous
dress made of billowing yards of silvery
material filling a large part of the
gallery space. The glitzy gown slowly rises
up and down on mechanical pulleys attached
to the 12-foot ceiling. Semmes is
preoccupied with scale, and her work is a
big tribute to woman power.
Rounding out the exhibition, several large
and beautiful, terra-cotta vessels painted
pink and placed on the floor look like
thimbles for a giant seamstress. The woman
of Semmes' imagination may be "every
woman," but like the long-lost dress that
once adorned the sacred statue of Athena in
the Parthenon of ancient Athens, this
outfit was made for a goddess.
