December Issue 1999
The City Gallery Presents Works by Barbara G.S. Hagerty
The City Gallery in Charleston, SC, will be showing a photographic exhibition by visual-essayist Barbara G.S. Hagerty from Dec. 3 - 31. The Purse Project is a photodocumentary of people and their pocketbooks.
The Purse Project is a conceptual art project combining black-and-white photography with narrative. Linking image with language, the visual with the verbal, the project explores the myriad aspects and connotations of a familiar, utilitarian object which is common to western civilization females and which cuts across all socio-economic, age, and attitudinal lines: the purse. Ordinary and equotidian, the purse is also highly invested with symbolism. The purse as art form, as extension of the body, as physical outpicturing of psychic, interior contents, as metaphor for the womb, as coda for wealth or value, as three-dimensional autobiography, as independent object distinct from its owner- these are some of the explorations of the Purse Project.
A Charlestonian, Hagerty graduated from John Hopkins University, Baltimore, with a Masters in Creative Writing. An essayist and columnist who has appeared in numerous newspapers and periodicals. She regularly writes in Skirt magazine. A fascination with observing human conditions has led her to use essays, poetry and, more recently, photography to describe the subtle sociological puzzles she sees. This exhibition was seen in New York at the Nancy Brown Studio this past August sponsored by Oroton, a handbag manufacturer. Hagerty received an artist grant from the SC Arts Commission to put this show on and allow it to travel next to the Centre for Women in Charleston in Spring 2000.
Steven Nicoll, Gallery Consultant, describes Hagerty's work: Some artists prefer to escape from decorative rumination and explore society at large. Hagerty wrote two essays observing women and their purses, describing the relationship with pocketbook and owner. This " mondainc" appropriation as subject matter became so fertile for Hagerty's pen alone that it required her to pick up a camera and produce imagery. She finds her subject "...through word of mouth, serendipity, putting notices with my telephone number in Skirt, even stopping strangers in the street." If possible, she shoots a full roll of black and white 35mm film, so to achieve the eventual selected picture and transcribe an accompanying narrative from interviews. This manifestation of 8"x 10" photo-portraits in regular frames accentuates diversity. To display a variety of personalities with their echoing appendages is what Hagerty seeks. It calls to mind what is a documentary; whether, one can actually capture a real moment or how contrived is a record of an occurrence. As we are indeed at the "fin-de-sicle", this show highlights the omnipresent fetishisation we experience with materialistic worship. But Hagerty's eye in the public is incisive and full of spirit. Bring your purse, for you may be the next subject of this nascent project.
For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call the office of cultural affairs at 843/724-7305.
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