Alison Ruttan: Chromophilia

*sound design by Jesse Goffin

Monique Meloche is pleased to announce her first solo show with Alison Ruttan. Ruttan’s sexually charged photo-based work and sculptures may be familiar to Chicago audiences from previous exhibitions with Beret International Gallery in the mid-1990s. Since that time Ruttan has refined and delved deeper into her exploration of pornography as source material and will exhibit her most recent videos in a series animated from original pornographic film footage. Beyond the inherent sexiness of the subject matter, Ruttan manages to balance a serious historical study of modern painting with Disneyesque comic genius.

The title CHROMOPHILIA, adapted from David Batchelor’s book Chromophobia about the problem of color in the Western cultural imaginary of the last two centuries, offers and interesting entrée into Ruttan’s highly charged oeuvre. While the last video bob,bob made reference to Miro, Ruttan’s frieze-like double projection revels in its relation to Matisse’s Dancers both coloristically and gymnastically all set to a soundtrack sampling Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite.” Also on view is a single-channel video manipulating obese porn titled NANCY in reference to the vintage comic. Sexy, comic, and serious-this work shows an artist deliberately toying with conventions and creating significant work dealing with the history of modern painting and the public and private self.

Ruttan currently teaches at the University of Chicago. Her video bob,bob was included in an ongoing exhibition at Virgin Airlines San Francisco International Terminal this year. Other recent group shows include “Aural Sex” at Catherine Clark Gallery and “Peep Show” at the Living Room in SF, “Because Sex Sells” at Nikolai Fine Art in NY, and “Out of Line” at Chicago Cultural Center