UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991–2015; That Instinctual Oral Response

Frances Stark, Chorus Girl Folding Self in Half,  2008; Paper collage, graphite on paper. Collection Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, Promised gift to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Digital Image © Whitney Museum of American Art

Preview the exhibition:  http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/uh-oh-frances-stark-1991-2015

UH-OH: Frances Stark 1991–2015, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, is the sole East Coast venue for the most comprehensive survey to date of the Los Angeles-based artist and writer. Organized by the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, UH-OH touches on a wide range of subjects that reflect Stark’s roles as an artist, mother, woman and teacher.

Push, 2006, Collage, latex paint, tape, and graphite pencil on panel; 80 × 89 1/16 in. /

Nearly 120 works — from early carbon-copy drawings and intricate collages, to more recent video installations and digital slide shows — provide an in-depth examination of her ongoing interest in communication. The exhibition title refers to the link between the mind and the body and that instinctual oral response, “uh-oh,” when we go beyond what’s acceptable, are faced with a complex problem or have shared too much information. The moment of reveal is seen again and again in Stark’s works, and the artist takes this spontaneous utterance as inspiration to go beyond our initial reactions and to look deeper, think harder and listen more carefully.