Kokkinos uses the apparently benign "safety pitch" that underlies the promotional strategies of children's products as the starting point for her sculptural installations. In one piece, a customized highchair exposes the dark side of safety as a form of coercion. How are notions of safety promoted and framed differently in public and private spheres, especially with regard to the socialization of young children?
Penelope
Kokkinos
visual artist
SAFE
Saw
Gallery, Ottawa
Jan.14 - Feb.15, 2000
Kokkinos works by reconstructing fragments and modified chunks of recognizable
consumer products into what may be described as highly altered 'ready-mades'.
By using her materials as carriers of ideological and social meanings,
her physical manipulations are intended to turn the original syntax against
itself. In this way, she aligns herself with a deconstructive tradition
in art making.
SAFE was conceived as a playful but critical investigation
of identities, objects and environments. By filtering adult experiences
through historical, psychoanalytic and cultural analyses, Kokkinos refigures
familiar, apparently neutral environments, as normalizing. The result
is a group of works that is, both literally and figuratively, dark. By
making the familiar strange, it gives pause for reflection on our own
sense of security.
Marcus Miller, Programming Coordinator, Saw
Gallery
