Molly Surno

Molly Surno’s Ivar continues her questioning of body politics and voyeurism through a lush installation that transforms the storefront at The Suzanne Geiss Company into a tropical landscape featuring 16mm film projections. Taking its title from an unpublished essay by the late Mike Kelley, “Empathy, Alienation, and the Ivar,” the installa- tion examines issues of fetish, desire, and fantasy symbolized here through the creation of a tropical other. Surno dissects dynamics of the gaze by implicating viewers in a conscious voyeuristic diorama in which the tableaux is encountered through a peep hole. Surno’s installation delves into the double bind of looking by creating a space that probes into alienation arising from the collision of fantasy with symbolic power.

ABOUT MOLLY SURNO Surno (b.1984) was born and raised in Los Angeles. She received her BA from University of California, Santa Cruz and an MFA from Columbia University. She currently lives and works between New York and Los Angeles. In addition to exhibiting her own work around the country and world, Surno founded Cinema 16, an experiential, avant garde film series. The series has been presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMa/PS1, The Kitchen, and numerous other institutions.