Tribeca native Jennifer Elster offers personal mementos in retrospective exhibit

Multidisciplinary artist Jennifer Elster fills the entirety of her gallery space with paintings, photographs, pieces of clothing, and a variety of items from Elster's professional and personal life over the past three decades that are meaningful to her latest exhibition, The Classics. There are several different sections of the show that focus on specific periods of her life. For instance, "The Garden of Artifacts" features mementos to her father include a photograph of him catching a fish and a cassette of Bob Dylan's album Blood on the Tracks that was his last gift to her. Also featured in the Garden of Artifacts are items from her time working as a stylist for musicians including David Bowie and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. These include outfits worn by Bowie designed by Elster for his 1995 album 1. Outside that features him dressed as a detective and wearing a dress. In another section is a blue jumpsuit worn by Trent Reznor for a magazine photoshoot. Elster expresses her deepest, innermost feelings and perspectives of the world around her and the crises that have plagued our nation in this past quarter of a century. A poem she wrote entitled We Don't Want This For Our Future, Do We? reflects on the ravaging disasters that have been fueled by climate change such as Hurricane Ida in 2021, which engulfed Elster's vacation home and she found herself in the midst of. A notable painting entitled War Head is very much reminiscent of Munch's Scream The darkness and swift brushstrokes convey the horror and anxiety felt around the world when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. There is a section of the exhibition devoted to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Elster and her husband were living in the area and had a very close-up view of the towers that she cherished and witnessed the plane crashes first-hand and remembers the smell of smoke and devastation around her in the days after, the sadness literally hitting home for her. She includes a polaroid photograph of the view of the twin towers from her apartment taken in 1995 as well as newspapers from the day of and the day after the attacks on the front page. In other sections of the exhibit, Elster conveys her anxieties about the many problems of the world, her anxieties about them, and the importance of taking action to do more. Such examples include paintings with messages like "How Do We Not Answer The Cries of The Day?" and "When Is It Enough? When We're Dead?" On somewhat lighter notes, the exhibit includes photographs of the beauty of rural America such as Elster in Lancaster, PA as a child and a section that depicts the feeling of being in a dentist's office with X-rays and molds of Elster's teeth reflecting on her experience getting braces. At the Development Gallery, 75 Leonard St. through Sept 26.IMAGE: THE GARDEN OF ARTIFACTS By Jennifer Elster (photo by Alison Martin)

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