Roundabout

Debra Pearlman

How do the power struggles inherent in the games we play as children affect us in adulthood? What separates followers from leaders, the confident from the hesitant? Surveying recent art by Debra Pearlman, this exhibition explores such questions in works built around images of children at play in public spaces—like boys desperately clinging to an old-fashioned roundabout—that resonate emotionally, politically, and art-historically.

Historian and critic Nancy Princenthal writes in the show catalogue, “All that glitters is pitch dark in Debra Pearlman’s photo-based paintings, where joy rains down in buckets, along with sorrow and shame, each state mitigated by an innocence that is itself cast in doubt. . . . Whether by framing or cropping, or by simple circumstance, she seldom pictures children looking at the camera—that is, at us. Partly that is out of caution and a reluctance to violate privacy. But primarily the choice is of forgoing identity the better to focus on iconic postures and gestures that reveal internal experiences, even when they involve public or social encounters.”

EVENTS DURING THE EXHIBITION:

Sunday, Sept. 17, 4-5pm: Panel Discussion with Nancy Princenthal and David Ebony.
Sunday, Oct. 1, 4-5:30pm: An evening of poetry with Jennifer Firestone, Sarah Riggs, Reagan Upshaw and others.

About the artist:

Debra Pearlman is an artist based in Brooklyn. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, New York Public Library, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Smith College Museum, among others. She is the recipient of The Meredith S. Moody Residency at Yaddo, a grant from The Peter S. Reed Foundation, a Special Editions and an Individual Artist Grant from the Lower East Side Print Shop, and a grant from The Foundation for Contemporary Art. Pearlman received an M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts.

GALLERY HOURS:

Thursday - Sunday, 1 - 6pm, or by appointment. Please email hanne@fivemyles.org, or call 718-783-4438.

DIRECTIONS:

Take 2, 3, or 4 trains to Franklin Avenue. Walk two blocks against the traffic on Franklin. Walk ¾ block to 558 St. Johns Place. FiveMyles is within easy walking distance from the Brooklyn Museum.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

FiveMyles is in part supported by the New York State Council for the Arts, Public Funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Council Member Crystal Hudson, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, the Joseph Robert Foundation, and the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.