"More Weight"
On View: July 9 - Oct. 26, 2018
Rachel Stern
Rachel Stern, "Vision," 2018. C-print, 30" x 42"
The Kniznick Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition by Philadelphia-based artist Rachel Stern. In “More Weight,” Stern addresses the conflation of histories with their representations through imagery, storytelling and literary interpretations. The phrase “More weight,” was famously uttered by Giles Corey of the Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts as he lay beneath a pile of stones, refusing to confess to any crime. His punishment is eternally written upon his gravestone, beneath his wax museum tableaux and detailed in "The Crucible." Stern capitalizes on our fascination with macabre history with all its trappings and complexities, building and arranging a queer-washed world from the language, logic and images surrounding these events.
Weaving the “real” and “unreal,” with the pageantry of kitsch and the deliberation of vanitas still lifes, “More Weight” presses us to examine how a bizarre enactment of the Law, generations removed, can reveal itself as deeply flawed and driven by greed, fear and hysteria, but also how the re-telling of histories might be intentionally distorted.