"It's a Girl!" exhibition review

Exhibition title: "It's a Girl!"
Artist: Sarah Maple
Location: Aubin Gallery
Dates: 9 February - 9 March 2012


Located within a complex on Redchurch Street in Shoreditch that also includes a clothing store and a movie theatre, the Aubin Gallery is a small, clean space that brings to mind the popular white cube aesthetic of contemporary art galleries and evokes associations with struggling young artists. It is in this setting that Sarah Maple, a Muslim and British artist, is having her second solo show, entitled “It’s a Girl!”. Curated by Beverly Knowles, the show features twenty-two new works from Maple that contains feminist overtones as well as contemporary art world critique. Born in 1985, Maple emerges into an art world that has already been shaken and stirred by feminist movements both political and artistic. Specifically in the United Kingdom, it is also an art world that has been touched significantly by the “YBAs”, or Young British Artists, that include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. The context of the exhibition space, Sarah Maple’s own background, and the art world of the past thirty years should be taken into account when viewing “It’s a Girl!”.

Installation shot with Self Portrait with my Cat and Grandparents, Sarah Maple, 2011

            When I attended the exhibition’s opening night, the smell of fresh, wet paint pervaded the small gallery. A portrait of Sarah Maple stood as a greeting and hung adjacent to the wall text that introduced the artist and her artist’s philosophy. The gallery had concrete floors and the walls were painted white. I experienced the exhibition by first going right and found myself in a room of paintings of varying sizes. Some were large and thus placed on their own wall and others were smaller and grouped together. Music was playing and as I progressed into the next room, I found myself in a smaller room partitioned by a half-wall. On one side, there was a video playing of a girl dancing in front of paintings placed on the floor and leaning against the wall.  Moving past the video, the walls changed from white to a bright pink. This was Sarah Maple’s “Disney” room, with light boxes displaying photographs of Maple dressed up as various Disney princesses in roles ranging from Sleeping Beauty performing an operation to Belle managing a football team. Graduation portraits of Maple as the Disney princesses were placed on a ledge as if it were a family mantelpiece. 

Installation shot with Disney Princess Graduation series, Belle the Football Manager, Ariel Conducts Business Meeting, and 

Sleeping Beauty Performs an Operation, Sarah Maple, 2011

After I exited the “Disney” room, the walls returned to white and in place of paintings were Sarah Maple’s photographs. Turning to the right, the entire back wall was covered with a huge photograph of a clothed male and the artist herself in a nude suit with big breasts and generous pubic hair. On the walls leading up to this are smaller photographs, one a topless image of Maple with her breasts blurred and the other a photograph of a woman and young girl reading magazines. To the left are more photographs, including a triptych depicting Maple in various costumes holding signs with different catchphrases and opposite that was a the photograph that has been used in the Aubin Gallery’s marketing schemes: that of the artist revealing an unshaven underarm. The final photograph in the room was a close-up of the artist’s bare torso featuring the words “Votes for Women” spelled out with colored rhinestones.

Self Portrait with my Cat and Grandparents, Sarah Maple oil on canvas, 214 x 178 cm, 2011

An Artist and a Female Artist, Sarah Maple, vinyl wallpaper, 325 x 435 cm, 2012

I found the exhibition to be well curated. The works were not crowded on the walls, but instead were given enough space for the viewer to carefully consider each work piece by piece. Bigger works of art such as Self Portrait with my Cat and Grandparents and An Artist and a Female Artist (featured above) were rightfully given their own walls due to their size. It was interesting that the curator chose to split up the works by medium, but I thought that it worked to highlight Maple’s skills across painting, video, and photography. Each room allowed the viewer to consider Maple as a painter, then a video artist, and then a photographer. It also revealed that Maple has a keen eye for when a medium should be used for a certain topic. Her paintings seemed to deal largely with women’s issues (menstruation and beauty pageants), her Disney light boxes dealt with gender roles in pop culture, and her photographs seemed to focus mostly on critiques of the art world as it is today. There are a few exceptions, of course, as it could be argued that her photographs, Votes For Women and Lollypop Lollypop, (featured below) also deal with women’s issues. The only issue I found to detract from the experience of viewing the works was a lack of labels identifying the titles. Though there was a sheet that I found after I had gone through the exhibition with tombstone information such as title, dimensions, and date, it could still be unclear as to what the works were titled. Perhaps the curator felt that labels would distract the viewer from experiencing the works and connecting with the themes, but as some of the titles (such as the Britney Spears work featured below, If I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore) were integral to understanding the work, I felt that labels should have been added.

Installation shot with Votes for Women and Lollypop Lollypop, Sarah Maple, 2011

If I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don't love you anymore, Sarah Maple, oil and acrylic on canvas, 170 x 190 cm, 2010

It could be said that images such as the Disney works and the Britney Spears painting are easy works for a commercial gallery such as the Aubin Gallery to sell. They are funny and they are “hip” and in tune with popular culture today. Indeed, they contain the “shock value” characteristic that is prevalent among most contemporary art today. It seems as if Maple’s humor is meant to be a way for viewers to more easily digest her works. Even works such as Menstruate with Pride and Untitled with Skirts Up (both shown below), though shocking and perhaps disturbing, contain such ridiculous situations as to be thought hilarious. 

Menstruate with Pride, Sarah Maple, oil on canvas, 215 x 275 cm, 2011

Untitled with Skirts Up, Sarah Maple, oil on canvas, 40.5 x 51 cm, 2011

Overall, Maple’s latest body of work deals with women’s issues in a popular culture vein, making references to beauty pageants, menstruation, puberty, celebrity scandals, and gender roles. Her color scheme of bright colors throughout her works hint at lightheartedness and her deft use of humor is evident in such pieces as Menstruate with Pride, and Plug it in Baby. Other pieces such as the photograph, I’m an edgy contemporary artist, has a more subtle touch of humor, as the shark and the caption allude to Damien Hirst and his famous formaldehyde sculptures. 

I'm an edgy contemporary artist, Sarah Maple, C-type photograph, 100 x 66 cm, 2011

Works such as the Disney light boxes and graduation photographs work well to engage the viewer, as anyone born in the last sixty years or so should be well aware of Disney’s princesses. Her greatest strength is to take images one would be familiar with and turn them on their heads. Her painting of the infamous Britney Spears incident would connect with anyone familiar with the pop singer, but the title, If I loved you it was because of your hair. Now that you are without hair, I don’t love you anymore, provokes a response deeper than amusement or shock.  It is almost as if Maple is tauntingly reminding the viewer, and society, of their fickleness in their opinions of celebrities. Viewing Maple’s work caused me to think about how society operates and why things are the way they are. For instance, why is the crowd in Menstruate with Pride so shocked at the act of menstruation? Every woman experiences menstruation, but it is taboo to discuss it in public. Why is it funny to me that in Untitled with Skirts Up, the young girl’s pubic hair is present but in the teenage girl, all traces of pubic hair are gone? Why, in the title, An Artist and a Female Artist, is the “female” specified, but the “male” adjective is notably absent? As Maple herself has said, “When people see my work, I want them to feel something. If it doesn't do that then I don't see it as serving a purpose. And people always react, whether they love it or hate it."[1] Hopefully other viewers will also have questions about the work and in turn, question society as it is.

Maple has been quoted as being the “heir to Tracey Emin’s throne”, but Maple has denied the association and has said herself that she is “not the new Tracey Emin”.  In an article from the Independent, she states "It's a bit lazy as comparisons go… It's like she's the only woman artist people can think of."[2] Furthermore, Margaret Harrison, a feminist who works and lives in San Francisco and Cumbria, has stated that Tracey Emin has completely rejected feminism.[3] Maple, on the other hand, “discovered” feminism for herself and this discovery rejuvenated her career after a four-year dry spell.[4] After seeing her photographs, I saw a closer connection to Cindy Sherman, who was famous for photographing herself in different costumes (including nude suits, as seen in a work from the 2011 Venice Biennale)—just like Sarah Maple. 

Installation with Untitled, Cindy Sherman, 2011

Tracey Emin’s body of work deals largely with her personal life and has been characterized as being “confessional” art. Works such as Everyone I Have Ever Slept With and My Bed draw from personal and painful experiences, which is markedly different from Maple’s work. 

Everyone I have ever slept with, Tracey Emin, mixed media, 1963-1995

My bed, Tracey Emin, mixed media, 1998

Though Maple has, in the past, drawn on her religious background as a Muslim in works featuring her dressed in a burka, she uses her religion to make a statement on society as opposed to a statement about her personal experiences. By taking a look at her website, it is clear that Maple largely deals with women’s issues, critiques of the contemporary art world, and her own religious background. Comparing it with this exhibition, one can see that she is heading in a new direction and continuing to produce work from themes she has touched on before. The most notable work that is new to her oeuvre is the Disney pieces. “It’s a Girl!” is an important exhibition because it marks Maple as an emerging artist to watch and hints at a promising career. By keeping in touch with popular culture as it evolves and having an understanding of women’s issues and gender politics, Maple has an inexhaustible wealth of resources upon which to draw.

In conclusion, while it may be argued that Maple is a worthy contender for Tracey Emin’s throne, Maple should be viewed as an artist in her own rights. Descended from the likes of famous feminist artists like Emin and Cindy Sherman, Maple continues to keep feminist issues and contemporary art world critique at the forefront in a fresh and humorous way. While her works are meant to make people laugh, they are also meant to make people think.

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[1] Alice Jones. “Sarah Maple: ‘I’m not the new Tracey Emin’”, The Independent, 28

January 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/art/features/sarah-maple-im-not-the-new-tracey-emin-6294299.html

[2] Jones.

[3] Margaret Harrison. “Essay by Margaret Harrison”, Sarah Maple website, 18 January 2012, http://www.sarahmaple.com/about.htm

[4] Alice Jones. “Sarah Maple: ‘I’m not the new Tracey Emin’”, The Independent, 28

January 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/artsentertainment/art/features/sarah-maple-im-not-the-new-tracey-emin-6294299.html