artnet:

Meeting Orly Genger

“If I could put my body into my work, that would be the ultimate.” -Orly Genger. 

Over the past few years, Genger has become well-known for her incredible large-scale installations, created from seemingly endless coils of rope. The artist crochets shapes into works that recall Modern masterworks.

Made of 1.4 million feet of hand-crocheted lobster-fishing rope—enough to span the length of Manhattan nearly 20 times over—her latest installation, Red, Yellow and Blue, is on view in Madison Square Park until September. Don’t miss it!

The artist grew up in New York City with parents who collected Modern Art. She later attended Brown University, where she discovered and fell in love with sculpture. 

Now, we’re very excited to host Orly Genger for an ArtTable breakfast at our office on June 19, 2013! ArtTable was founded in 1980 and is dedicated to the visual arts and to advancing women’s leadership in the field. 

I find the top photo annoying/troubling for numerous reasons:

1) the pose
2) the lighting
3) the out of focus, under-lit workers in the background

It just made me feel a little gross to see her reclined that way, seemingly without a care in the world, while people behind her work away.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I don’t know Orly personally, the context of the shoot, or how she treats her employees. Would like to give her the benefit of the doubt, and it’s really awesome that she’s committed to helping advance women in the field. But yeah, this is a little weird to me. But increasingly so is the general idea of the artist photographed with their work in general. There’s rarely a graceful way to do it.