Jane Gennaro
“I had the pleasure of meeting Jane Gennaro in her upsate New York studio where stimulating conversation led to a tour of her private home - a cabinet of curiosities on a grand scale. And Jane herself - perhaps the most eccentric woman I have ever met, along with sane, grounded, gentle and funny.”
— Sandra Botnen, curator
Jane Gennaro is the perfect artist to launch this thirty day journey because her art speaks to that unknowable quest that lies at the heart of every collector. She reminds me of an aristocrat explorer gathering bugs, flora and animal parts from far flung places (in her case, nooks and crannies of the New York Subway and the bucolic hills of upstate New York). Cabinets overflow with personal artifacts and spare rooms are used to stage vignettes depicting cycles of life, death, recovery, and rebirth. I have stepped into a world steeped in adventure, humility and playful self discovery through the gathering of symbolic objects. Together they create a language, and from there they create a story that is fascinating, exciting, and not yet complete.
To kickoff this journey, getting to know thirty artists in thirty days, I am choosing the most accessible of Gennaro’s works, a series called “Feed the Models”. These images start out as fashion magazine cutouts, used to makes stencils of misshapen bones in awkward poses, embossed on dibond. The images were first seen in 2011 at a show titled after the series, “Feed the Models” and exhibited at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. I have seen three of these pieces hanging side by each above an extra long sofa in New York City. The impact was dramatic, the work has wall power and set a tone for the space as both sexy and sophisticated. ME WANT!
In addition to sexy and sophisticated, Jane is the ultimate environmentalist. “I am paying my respect to nature,” she says, walking toward the window, holding up what looks like the tiny skull of a sparrow so the sunlight light can pass through its eye holes. Behind her is a shelf of rodents preserved in jars of alcohol. “They lighten over time and begin to look like angels”, she adds. I am fascinated by the animated looks on the critters’ faces, as if suspended in moments of pure aliveness, each inside their jar. At times, Gennaro’s art practice has involved cleaning the tiny mouse bones, as well as the bones of chipmunks, rats, and voles - a mourning ritual historically reserved for the most distinguished family members. As Gennaro walks me through her home and gallery, her reverence for these little critters is palpable.
Gennaro’s visual work has garnered the attention of numerous art publications including d'Art International, Digital Photoplay, and M magazine, and featured in fashion photography essays for See.7 and Blush magazine in Paris. You can learn more about Jane’s life story on the interactive website Performing Arts Legacy, which documents the careers of important New York City based artists.
