Kathe Burkhart: The Liz Taylor Series: Selections from 1983–2007

Alexander Gray Associates

Elizabeth Taylor’s multiple personae–actress, vixen, Hollywood royalty, serial wife and divorcée, party girl, charitable humanitarian, entrepreneur, rebel, dominant woman–acts as a media-based mirror of contemporary female identity. For Kathe Burkhart, Taylor becomes a doppelganger in her paintings, in which tabloid, paparazzi shots and publicity stills from Taylor’s films are emblazoned with profanities that reclaim female sexuality and power. “I locate my position as oppositional on several levels: as a critique of representation, particularly that of women and also as a rupturing of idiomatic packaging/presentation devices,” notes the artist.