Melanie Flood

Notions

April 10 – May 22, 2022
Opening reception: Sunday, April 10, 3–6pm

Masks will be required for entry, and there will be limited capacity in the gallery;
RUSCHWOMAN asks for the collective safety of her visitors that all in attendance are
vaccinated, and even better, boostered.
Lobby and patio spaces will serve as (springtime) accommodations for any crowd overflow.

Following the opening, gallery hours are available by appointment only.

Please contact thewaves@ruschwoman.blue to make arrangements
to visit RUSCHWOMAN during the run of the exhibition.

I’m redecorating the bed
sink seafoam in shallow

darling, who cares
if desire is only desire
for repetition

begin again on that
who can say by what
a life is wasted?

suit my air satin
I fantasize a bedroom
mouthing must it look good
feel good to be pleasure…

each time I desire
not an exact repetition

but a rehearsal
of air
crescendo rolling
and stopping rococo….”

–Excerpted from Rachel Rabbit White’s “Infinity Spring,”
Porn Carnival. Wonder Publishing, 2020. Print, p. 193.

“Of course I was then losing her twice over, in her final fatigue and in her first photograph, for me the last; but it was also at this moment that everything turned around and I discovered her as into herself . . . in a sense, I never ‘spoke’ to her, never ‘discoursed’ in her presence, for her; we supposed, without saying anything of the kind to each other, that the frivolous insignificance of language, the suspension of images must be the very space of love….”

–Excerpted from Roland Barthes’ “The Little Girl,” Camera Lucida. Print, p. 71–72.

“He came back to us with stories of bedrooms filled with crumpled panties, of stuffed animals hugged to death by the passion of the girls, of a crucifix draped with a brassiere, of gauzy chambers of canopied beds, and of the effluvia of so many young girls becoming women together in the same cramped space. In the bathroom, running the faucet to cloak the sounds of his search, Peter Sissen found Mary Lisbon’s secret cache of cosmetics tied up in a sock under the sink: tubes of red lipstick and the second skin of blush and base, and the depilatory wax that informed us she had a mustache we had never seen. In fact, we didn’t know whose makeup Peter Sissen had found until we saw Mary Lisbon two weeks later on the pier with a crimson mouth that matched the shade of his descriptions.

He inventoried deodorants and perfumes and scouring pads for rubbing away dead skin, and we were surprised to learn that there were no douches anywhere because we had thought girls douched every night like brushing their teeth. But our disappointment was forgotten in the next second when Sissen told us of a discovery that went beyond our wildest imaginings. In the trash can was one Tampax, spotted, still fresh from the insides of one of the Lisbon girls. Sissen said that he wanted to bring it to us, that it wasn’t gross but a beautiful thing, you had to see it, like a modern painting or something, and then he told us he had counted twelve boxes of Tampax in the cupboard.”

–Excerpted from Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Virgin Suicides

Since she was young, RUSCHWOMAN always wanted a sister. She remembers sitting in a public library one summer reading about quantum physics and imagining that plumes of this fugitive energy would manifest in shades of purple, fuchsia, and pink—a super spectrum that had washed special effects scenes in Ghostbusters movies and X-Men cartoons.

RUSCHWOMAN is giddy to announce a forthcoming installation of recent photographic works by the Portland-based artist and gallerist Melanie Flood. A friendship that began as penpals exchanging letters, expressing wishes, and admiring the purple-throated-purple-hearted project of Flood’s called Notions, that series has been reconceived to respond to RUSCHWOMAN as a site, made to hold the achronological and fleeting encounters with cultural institutions and technologies by which the feminine is produced, by which (certain) bodies are made to perform the feminine.

In textile markets, the “Notions” section denotes where one can find trimmings, buttons, embroidery flosses, fasteners, needles, thread rippers, sequin fringe, or lace. A compelling argument for the space occupied by femininity within our society advances from this terminology: simultaneously (quantum) both the finishing touches and also the most foundational, initial moves toward form. In Melanie Flood’s Notions, new experimental studio photographs are placed in hushed conversation with re-photographed images from various stages of the artist’s life. School dances, ripe orchard branches, distorted nude shower scenes, undergarments, and a softly touch-and-go sign chain of other delicately aloof sidelong glances into the mechanics of womanhood populate the project.

In Girls (Self Portrait), 1996/2020, the artist herself is depicted as adolescent, seated surrealistically on the steps of a building that has been inscribed as an/the institution for “GIRLS.” In Long Beach, WA, 2020, a disheveled clothing boutique with an exterior colored in several clashing shades of magenta has named itself with an awning slogan: “THIS SHOP IS EVERY HUSBAND’S NIGHTMARE.”

When RUSCHWOMAN opened her doors in 2021, it was with a posthumous display of the artist Chiara Fumai’s photograph featuring text from Valerie Solanas that read: “A MALE ARTIST IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS.” Issuing from the consecration of a pastel witch sisterhood, for these coming months, RUSCHWOMAN celebrates Melanie Flood, her keen conceptualism, and her stirring affect by becoming a shop that is every husband’s nightmare.
Lead on, lavender lady, lead on.

About this project, the artist writes: “Over the last two years, I’ve mined my own photographs, made from 9 to 42 years old, to construct a personal timeline of aging, femininity, self-awareness or lack thereof, and humor of feminine demands. These photos taught me that my experiences are not unique; my frustrations are universal. In the arrangement and editing of my images, I find my voice.

When I look back, I realize that I still struggle with the same exact things: body image, male gaze, sexual shame, frivolity/necessity of gendered garments. Not much has changed in three decades of ideals; there is always something on our bodies to improve. My newer work exploits my own teenage naivete to investigate self-representation, self-branding, self-discovery and melts it with the insecurities of middle age. I’ve made my private teenage moments of expressing agency and exploring sexuality public by presenting images I made as a young girl. Juxtaposed with all my photographies, I don’t aim to create a linear body of work; everything is a notion, a suggestion, a nod, images come in and out of the final edit, images are fluid.”

Melanie Flood (b. New York) is an artist and gallerist based in Portland, Oregon. She holds a BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University. In 2008, Flood founded New York-based Melanie Flood Projects (MFP), a contemporary gallery with a photography concentration. In 2014 Flood re-imagined MFP in downtown Portland, expanding beyond photography and focusing on solo presentations of an array of artists; recent exhibitions include Clifford Prince King, Pacifico Silano, Rose Dickson, Ido Radon, Rachelle Bussières, Maria Antelman, and Dru Donovan. Flood has been an arts professional for over 20 years, holding positions early in her career as Photo Editor of The New York Observer and Managing Editor of zingmagazine. Most recently she has served as Director of the Paige Powell Archive, overseeing a major collaboration between Paige Powell and Gucci with exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, London and Tokyo.

Flood’s work and projects have been featured in Art in America, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Photo District News, among others. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Regional Arts and Cultural Council Grant, Precipice Fund Award, Oregon Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, and The Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Exhibition Grant. Her photographs have been acquired by private collections and public institutions nationally.

RUSCHWOMAN is located at 2100 S Marshall Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60623. After the opening weekend, Speculative Magenta Hauntology will be viewable only by appointment. Those interested in visiting the exhibition may contact the gallery through her website ruschwoman.blue/info, where directions to the space whether by driving or public transit are also available.

RUSCHMAN
4148 N. Elston Ave.
Chicago IL 60618
www.ruschman.blue
eric@ruschman.blue
(859) 409-0549

RUSCHWOMAN
2100 S. Marshall Blvd.
Chicago, IL 60623
www.ruschwoman.blue
thewaves@ruschwoman.blue
(859) 409-0549

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Tags: Chicago, Melanie Flood, Notions, RUSCHWOMAN, South Lawndale