If medicine is an art – can art be medicine? The answer is a resounding yes at Torrance Art Museum where two exhibitions are also about medicine.
Provocative, healing and thoughtful both the museum’s galleries feature art that literally and figuratively dissects medical intervention and practice, the body’s capacity to heal and be healed , chronic illness, pain and acceptance, and the state of American medical care.
Gallery Two presents a vivid, compelling exhibition created by patient artists in Art and Med.
Curated by Ted Meyer, the show features work by Ellen Cantor, Ayin Es, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Siobhan Hebron, Cathy Immordino, Rachael Jablo, Daniel Leighton, Krista Machovina, J. Fredric May, Bhanva Mehta, Dylan Mortimer, Kathy Nida, Alice Marie Perreault, Jane Szabo, Susan Trachman, James T. Walker, and Meyer himself.
Intense and beautiful, viewers see beautiful, heart wrenching and beautiful photographic images of a complicated pregnancy from Cathy Immordino in “Cry for Help;” “Two Mirrors,” a wall sculpture offering a look inside Alice Marie Perreault’s role as advocate and caregiver; and Daniel Leighton’s vivid iPad painting radiating pain and healing – and the admission of same – in “Opening Up.”
Also on exhibit is the delicate mix of Ayin Es’ “Inherited Shock,” a woven wonder of oil, pencil, embroidery, thread, wire, paper, and pins on canvas; Dylan Mortimer’s zen garden and glitter reimagining of an ambulance ride in “Gates in Proximity to Paradise;” and Meyer’s own sinuous skeleton figure in “Structural Abnormalities” among so many other fine works, including dream-like photography from Jane Szabo, and terrific sculptural work from Krista Machovina among more.
For over a decade Ted Meyer had curated art shows focusing on artworks by patient-artists as a means of teaching future doctors and current medical workers about the lived experience of chronic pain and illness.
These patient-artists create work that depicts the myriad of ways their illnesses affect day-to-day living, physical health and mental well-being. Like all important art, patient artwork makes strong statements about the human condition. These works are personal in their creation yet universal in their scope. They make up some of Meyer’s favorites from his times as Artist-in-Residence at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Over 10 years he has curated some 40 different exhibits tied to the school’s core curriculum, producing beautiful exhibits that are also both compelling and informational ones.
In Gallery One, the medical world is both personal and more political in Body Politics. Curated by Max Presneill and Sue-Na Gay, this potent exhibition examines not only the disabled body, but how it is seen both socially and politically. The presenting artists include Panteha Abareshi, Emily Barker, Yadira Dockstader, Mari Katayama, Katherine Sherwood, and Liz Young.
Emily Barker’s witty and scathing “Good Medicine is Bitter to the Mouth” offers pithy commentary on health in the U.S.
There are heartbreaking installations dealing with medical billing, how the physical body is treated, specimens and body parts, and the general treatment of those with disabilities or infirmities. It’s an achingly strong show.
View these two powerful exhibitions through September 9th, along with videos in the museums screening room, featuring Surrealist Vacations In The Subconscious 2023— a video art exhibition, curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne / The New Museum of Networked Art, inspired by the Manifesto of Surrealism by Andre Breton.
TAM is located at 3320 Civic Center Drive in Torrance, Calif.
- Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis
