Student Curated Exhibition: “Michelle Handelman: These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves”

Michelle Handelman: These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves
On view through August 15, 2021
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
227 State St, Madison, WI 53703

Michelle Handelman: These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves traces multimedia artist Michelle Handelman’s moving image installations from raw performances for the camera at the close of the 1990s, through her sleekly produced films that queerly reinterpret historic texts, to recent works in conversation with her own archival footage. In the exhibition, Handelman’s Irma Vep, The Last Breath (2013) and Candyland (1999) are installed together on MMoCA’s second floor. The physical installation is supported by additional virtual content, Handelman’s pandemic series, which she created in reaction to the lockdown, uprising, and aftermath of the COVID-19 era. This career-spanning exhibit explores the artist’s approach to the body and its relationship to gender, sexuality, consumption, and life itself. A digital catalogue including several short essays accompanies the show.

Michelle Handelman: These Unruly and Ungovernable Selves was curated by students in Design Thinking for Exhibits, a UW-Madison Art History Department seminar led by Associate Professor Anna Campbell.