Taking Heed with JENNIFER ELSTER
Charge
Multi-medium artist Jennifer Elster presents her latest exhibition, Take Heed, featuring raw, image and text-heavy paintings, sculptures, assemblages, and photographs, works both never before seen and others spanning over three decades of intense, highly instinctual, often prophetic artistic creation.
A journey through the apocalyptic predictions of an artist with a sparkling creepiness. Evoking urgent themes, eerie prescience, and strokes of mania, the artist probes our current times with critical analysis, offering new insight. For Elster, Take Heed makes the connection between fury and mastering one’s own mind.
“These kids are splattering Van Goghs, I’m splattering this space with things people should be thinking about and considering. We’re both worried,” she says. “Much of this work is made from sorrow and rage, but I feel calm now. I just want to get things done for our future. I’m a below-the-radar person, but sometimes you have to rise above the radar to do what’s needed.”
Take Heed is an expression of concerns over climate change, the war machine, gun violence, mental and physical health. Amid the jungle of construction lights illuminating the artwork and in what feels like a surreal cinematic experience, the exhibition speaks to our complex times with directness. The exhibit encapsulates both rage and dark humor and fights injustice, while the dates of the artworks document the foresight.
Interview by Interlocutor Magazine
Let's start with the exhibition title, Take Heed. How do you think the title itself aptly expresses the overall theme of the show?
Take Heed is a more dire, and to me personally, worn out version of pay attention – with punctuation. I think the exhibition cries out for an audience to hear, to pay attention, and yet the exhibition is a strange and somehow optimistic excursion. Cinematic too.
You've said of the exhibition, “Much of this work is made from sorrow and rage, but I feel calm now. I just want to get things done for our future. I’m a below-the-radar person, but sometimes you have to rise above the radar to do what’s needed.”
Why do you think you're in a calmer place now, despite all the world's present upheavals, and have you found it challenging to go “above the radar” to do what's needed, or has that been more of a liberating experience?
I know what it is to relentlessly try to open people's minds to what they don't want to be conscious of. That is no longer a role I burden myself with. I gave up on that. Now I'm able to enjoy my life, accept where others are at, and engage, and that in itself is liberating. This exhibit meets the person where they are at and takes them to different places. It inspires revelations.
And when I come above the radar, I will let you know how it feels. So far socializing again has been very meaningful.
When is it Enough?
Watch Out
The scope of your work that Take Heed showcases is impressive. In our 2021 interview, you called yourself a “hoarder” of sorts, so I imagine that you've accumulated a huge amount of work and personal ephemera over the years. How long of a process was it for you to assemble 30 years' worth of creations and what were some of the challenges you faced in deciding what to feature? Did you work with anyone for help in narrowing down the selections or was the process entirely on your own?
Most of the work in the exhibition is from the last seven years. Since pre-election 2016. I incorporated some of my early works such as a 9/11 tribute including a Polaroid of our view of the WTC from our apartment across the street and work with David Bowie and John Scarisbrick from my youth that is now in new iterations. I seem to naturally involve certain works from my past. I like being grounded with the past in the present. Reminders.
As far as the curation, I'm an only child and I like to work in my own head. I am accustomed to doing things by myself. I bring the work in and set it up in my methodical way. I often keep the work covered. Once the show is set, I will invite my family and the people who work on the show into the exhibit. At that point I love to hear their perspectives and feedback is appreciated because the show is already there.
Now my work will be available to purchase for the first time at ChannelELSTER.com/art-gallery and on Artsy. Most of the paintings are spoken for, but there are collectible Limited Editions Gaeclee canvases and Digital C Prints that will be available upon proposal. And you can also get a button for ten bucks in the gift shop.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Hurricane Head
Take Heed is assembled in The Development Gallery's cavernous 4,000-square-foot space. How did you approach the layout of the works at this large scale? Did you try to create a specific path/flow for a viewer to take that best complements the work or creates a kind of narrative journey, or was the setup more informal?
The layout came about over time. I am an arranger, so I am meticulous about the placement of each piece. The exhibit is a proper art exhibition, but also feels like an intense mental experience for the participant. I put footprints out for people to follow, but no one does. People just start exploring.
One of the show's most striking pieces is an installation that incorporates your styling work in a photo shoot with David Bowie from 1995 for his 1. Outside album, focused on the intense character of Ramona that you created with him and the character in a photo that screams in paint GET AWAY FROM ME - could you talk a bit about the ways that you took the materials from the original project and assembled them in a style that best captures the knife-wielding serrated rage of the Ramona character?
Ramona was a character created by Bowie and his team for the storyline of his conceptual album. There were about five characters. John Scarisbrick was hired to do the photography and brought me in. David and I spoke several times on the phone and for long periods before we went to London to meet him and do the photo shoot, which took place over five days.
On the original shoot I turned Bowie into Ramona by cutting a piece of fabric and adding a bullet belt and armor. In 2020 I then painted on that image as a 25 year commemoration of the original work. And then for this exhibition I cut pieces and had them come out from the image creating a web of sorts. To celebrate I went into my hoard and found the original cut piece, and bullet belt and they are on display. I also have the knife and stockings though not in the gallery at this time. Bowie was the last person to touch/wear the cut piece aside from me, so it is encased.
There is an array of cut pieces for sale in the gift shop as it's a signature style of mine. www.JElster.nyc
Untitled
The exhibition's hanging construction lights and dangling ceiling and ductwork are a part of the show. What attracted you to this construction site-like aesthetic and how do you think it helps to underscore the themes of the exhibition?
The aesthetic is a perfect disorder for this body of work. I will forever love the image of this exhibition in my mind.
Many say it reminds them of old school New York art world. That's the world that I am from.
Jennifer Elster Take Heed live performance
You will also be incorporating live performances into the exhibition, which may include spoken word, live music, and performance art. Your next live performance is on December 15. Will you be performing solo or will there be other live guests? Is any of it rehearsed/structured or will it all be more spontaneous?
The opening was primarily me performing and some of it was rehearsed, but most of it wasn't – I ran out of time. The musicians Eimi Tanaka and Mike Handelman joined me on songs.
At some point I will start incorporating other performers and I have some in mind. That will be fun too!
Take Heed will be on exhibition through January 5, 2023 at The Development Gallery
JENNIFER ELSTER bio
Jennifer Elster is an artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, performer, and musician. Her work, in all mediums, uses language and images to pierce the truth in unexpected ways. With a street edge and sophistication, Elster approaches her art with an untrained, raw, and aggressive style all her own, evident in both of her solo art exhibitions, The Retrospective of an Extroverted Recluse and The Wake the F*ck Up Show. In her work, it is as if she is a watchdog for society, worried for us all. She has stood up for many social justice issues over the years, from protecting the vote to writing an online campaign supporting net neutrality with Gloria Steinem. She has released the first songs from her upcoming album of love and experimental songs and performed art at the New Museum, signs and symbols, Catinca Tabacaru, Central Booking, and The Development.
In her youth, Elster put herself through college at NYU by styling David Bowie, Chloe Sevigny, Trent Reznor, + others and also worked at Conde Nast — known for her aesthetic and wild imagination. Elster began her work in film. She went on to write, direct, produce and star in the feature film Particles of Truth, which played on Netflix and in New Voices on The Sundance Channel. She created her two upcoming film series, In the Woods (and Elsewhere) and Into the Cave (and The Mad Pacer) –a glimpse into the bizarre landscape of her films began as an online cinematic art experience, ItW Pathway, which featured the late Glenn O’Brien, Jorgen Leth, Will Oldham, and others, with original vocalizations written by Elster and performed by Yoko Ono. Elster was born and raised in New York City, where she continues to live and work.
