leslie friedman:  

I Am StilL Me and You and I Are Still We

February 6-29, 2024*

FIRST WEDNESDAY OPENING: Feb 7, FROM 6 - 9PM

ARTICULATE ARTIST TALK: SUNDAY, Feb 11, AT 4PM.

NORMAL GALLERY HOURS: TUE - SUN, 12PM - 6PM

FOLLOW US AT BRGALLERY FOR UPDATES AND IMAGES!

*Note: BRG will be closed on Tuesday, Feb 13th for the Mardi Gras holiday.

At the heart of Leslie Friedman’s work are issues of identity. More specifically, she examines the distortion between “how we represent ourselves and how others see us.” With a powerful visual vocabulary of appropriated images from popular culture and current events, the personal is transformed into the universal with an aim towards dialogue about identity politics. An artist and educator, Friedman specializes in printmaking, sculpture, and installation.

I Am Stil Me and You and I Are Still We is a continuation of a body of work called Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah which debuted at Baton Rouge Gallery in May 2018 in the inaugural show Smoked Whitefish. This work is an exploration into questions of identity, social inclusion and exclusion, and gender and cultural stereotypes in the form of large-scale wall hangings, jackets, patches, flags, and more. The work here centers around a paradoxical fictious all-female, all Jewish biker gang in which participants need not be female nor Jewish to join.

As a heteronormative cis-gendered Jewish woman, while on many levels I pass in contemporary popular culture, I am very aware of the echoes of my own minority status, and the screams of others. The question of how to define the edges of a group is one that plagues both conservative and liberal factions alike. From radical feminist groups excluding transwomen to ultra-orthodox Jews claiming only those born to Jewish mothers, these divisions have the effect of pushing away collaborators, alienate sympathizers, and perhaps undermine the values of the group all together. How do we at once celebrate these differences, but also cross these boundaries both created by us and for us? Many of us know the power of feeling included in something bigger than ourselves. In a time for movements, hate crimes, and war, how do we come together to create our chorus of shared voices (rather than a unified voice)? In I Am Still Me and You and I Are Still We, I attempt to reconnect and remind the viewer that, despite our identities, however politically hotbed they might be, we are still the individuals we have always been; the friendships we forged before are as valid today as they have ever been. As we say “yaddah, yaddah, yaddah”—a phrase used by the speaker to skip over or even dismiss elements in a story—we become the Yaddah Yaddah Yaddahs, a group calling for all of those skipped over to join together. 

In this project and others, you can see how I am infinitely curious about how we represent ourselves and how others see us. Parody, appropriation, and collage-techniques tie together what I make in the studio to larger movements in contemporary culture. Primarily working with techniques in printmaking, I am also interested in alternative materials, installation, and sculpture.

I Am Still Me and You and I Are Still We is my cattle call to all of those out there struggling with our current times, but still yearning for connection, driven to action. 

Friedman is an active participant in the alternative gallery scene, having co-founded the Philadelphia-based art collective NAPOLEON in 2011 and is a current member of Good Children in New Orleans, LA. Since moving to Baton Rouge in 2016, she has served as Assistant Professor of Art at Louisiana State University. Her work has been seen nationally  and internationally with highlights including solo shows at Space 1026 (Philadelphia, PA), Millsaps College (Jackson, MS), and Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE).

This exhibition is presented alongside the latest works from Kathleen Lemoine, Craig McCullen, and Van Wade Day. All works from these artists are on view, free of charge, during regular gallery hours (12 - 6 p.m., Tue - Sun) from February 6 - 29, 2024.