Schorr reads Donegan’s act as “simulation of total abandon” in order to question “who owns women’s pleasure—whether it’s made by men, or by a woman’s own body.” In a 1997 interview, Donegan discussed her own intentions: “firstly, to make a video that used sex in a style antithetical to the MTV jump cut” by using duration and fulfillment to reclaim “female agency.”
Jim Richard’s ninth exhibition at Arthur Roger Gallery brings together four of his former students—Cheryl Donegan, Amy Feldman, Wayne Gonzales, and Lisa Sanditz—to share the gallery space with him. It has the collegial feeling of a school group project, with the artists putting in their own individual contributions, but this is one where the teacher joins in too.
For most of his career, Jim Richard’s paintings amounted to “art about art,” only instead of art history, they suggested settings for short stories where the artworks themselves were the protagonists. These new works are similar but they also allude to the way digital technology now makes everything in the world seem more accessible yet somehow less real, as elusive as pixels on a computer screen.
The New York artist Cheryl Donegan exhibits pacesetting works at the New Museum spanning twenty-three years.