ITHACA, NY — “Spectacle Spectacular: Cautionary Tales and Other Stories,” a display of drawings and paintings by Dawn Hunter, will be the first show of the new academic year at Ithaca College’s Handwerker Gallery. The exhibition will open Wednesday, September 2, and run through Sunday, October 11. A reception will take place on Thursday, September 3, from 5 to 7 p.m. There will also be an artist’s talk on Wednesday, September 30, at 4: 30 p.m. All events will take place in the Handwerker Gallery and are free and open to the public.

 

“I create visual representations of our often complex and ambivalent psychological relationship with the messages about gendered identity that are disseminated through popular culture,” Hunter said. “Having conducted extensive research on fashion photography in the latter part of the 20th century, for example, I’ve been particularly struck by the persistence of one particular seductive promise: that by recognizing their bodies as malleable objects that are always capable of improvement, women can attain greater status and power, and lead richer, more exciting lives. Self-advancement comes, in other words, through self-objectification — at least according to this enduring pop-culture myth. . . . My goal is to make the myth-building work of popular culture and its various paradoxes and contradictions more visible.

 

Images and an artist’s statement are available at: www.dawnhunterart.com/index.html.

 

The Handwerker Gallery is open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and weekends from noon to 5 p.m. The gallery is closed to the public on Tuesdays but can accommodate group or class visits by appointment.