MinerAlert
MinerAlert
No Room for Baggage: Photographs by Liz Cohen
October 16-December 13, 2008
Project Space
Curated by Kate Bonansinga
In No Room for Baggage on display in the Project Space at the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts from October 16th – December 13th of 2008, photographer Liz Cohen documented in photographs the result of a three-year process of total transformation -- of the body of a car, and of her own body.
The photographs documented Liz Cohen’s genre bending project Bodywork featuring an East German Trabant (a soviet era commuter car) that she rebuilt into a lowrider/tranformer. With an elaborate set of hydraulics, the modified car expanded to the proportions of a Chevy El Camino and functioned as a focal point for Cohen’s various roles as mechanic, stylist, director, photographer, bikini model and cultural commentator. Her “trabantamino”, along with exhaustive documentation of its transformation, has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Cohen immersed herself in the male-dominated world of auto mechanics at Elwood Body Works in Phoenix, AZ. With no previous experience she set about completely transforming the body of the Trabant. At the same time she submitted her own body to a rigorous diet and training program and became her own low-rider bikini model, photographing herself posing with her car in the style of auto-shop pinups. Her work pushes the boundaries of feminism and popular culture in its exploration of both gender and process.
Liz Cohen is a recent recipient of a Creative Capital Grant and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Traveling Scholars Award. Cohen was recently named the Artist in Residence for the photography area at Cranbrook Acacdemy in Detroit, MI.
Liz Cohen, Trabantimino, 2008
Liz Cohen, Welder, 2008No Room for Baggage and associated events sponsored by the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for Visual Arts at UTEP in collaboration with the NMSU Department of Art.
