Jessica Hoffman : Forever and After

EXHIBITION EXTENDED

Through Friday, December 9th

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SPECIAL POST* Performances

Saturday, October 15
Sunday, October 16

1:30 & 4:30 pm

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110 CHURCH gallery is pleased to announce Forever and After an exhibition featuring the conceptual and performance art of Jessica Hoffman.

Hoffman's work considers the connection/disconnection between discarded artifacts of communication and memory. If old letters, photographs, or videos are connected to past events in our lives — what happens when they are discarded or lost? Hoffman uses obsessive or meditative actions to explore how we classify, organize, and recall the contexts and memories attached to these objects. 

Slideshow is an investigation of memory, using a collection of found slides from the 1960s and 1970s shot throughout Europe and the United States by the same person. I removed the central content from the slides by scratching into the emulsion, leaving only a pile of scratchings that hold the memory of the lost image and blank spots on the slides, looking like ghosts.

Each performance – 4 total - of Slideshow focuses on themes found throughout the collection of slides – interesting architecture, sculptures, people on the street, etc.  The scratched slides conceal important information, such as a large Gothic church in the middle of the shot, at the same time revealing smaller details that may have been overlooked, like the woman standing in the corner with her dog.  The viewer, therefore, is only shown what I have decided to keep on the slide, leaving me as the last one to have viewed them in their entirety and original context. 

Talent Show is a split screen video piece using footage shot at a school talent show on the left and my own version of the performances on the right.  This piece explores the desire to imitate performers that we idolize and show off talent that may or may not exist. 

Dear Mad, I really like your hair today! Love, Johnny is an installation inspired by a box of hundreds of love letters found on the street.  This piece is an investigation of young love, infatuation, and obsessive behaviors.  The letters are mostly mundane, often repeating the same thoughts and expressions, and are all folded neatly in exactly the same way.  To mimic the obsessive nature of the letters I collected my hair and preserved each strand in individual glassine envelopes.

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Jessica Hoffman lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.  In 2010 she received an MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  She received a BFA in Photography from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC in 2003.  She has also studied at the Fleisher Art Memorial, Project Basho, and the Maine Photographic Workshops.

Currently, she is a Conservation Bench Technician in the library at the American Philosophical Society and a Production Assistant at Current Designs.  Ms. Hoffman previously worked as a graduate teaching assistant in Research Practices, Book Arts, and Non-silver Photography and developed and led a workshop in alternative photography to high school students through the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Art Lab for Teens program. 

Her work is influenced by scientific theory and practice and the relationships created by the interaction between humans and communication technology.  Her installations include work in several mediums, among them video, photography, books, and paper.  She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in galleries and at book fairs.

images: Slide Show, Talent Show, and Dear Mad, I really like your hair today! Love, Johnny 

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