Brian. Dawn. Brian Chalkley. Dawn Chalkley. Brian Dawn Chalkley. The personalities, sexualities and art practices intersect, overlap, exclude and multiply. Who is the artist? Who is the artiste? 

The images of saccharine, faux Meissen ballerinas and shepherdesses, dolls with dolls, posed in front of the artist’s paintings, collages or found fabrics are installation photographs or the documentation of performances. As the images are on the recto of the printed sheet (the usual home of text), the text, now on the verso, becomes destabilized, as if fabricated to illustrate the image.

The seemingly academic title, including “alterity” and “identity”, disguises, transvestitises this artist’s book.
Stephen Bury, New York, 2017 [Chief Librarian, Frick Art Reference Library.]

 

The second edition will be launched at Sotheby’s on 17 January 2018.