Sofia Szamosi: Eat Me
November 8 – December 1, 2014
Opening Reception: November 8, 7-9pm
Open Source Gallery presents “Eat Me,” new multimedia work by Sofia Szamosi.
The Open Source Gallery is proud to present “Eat me,” the first solo show of New York based artist, Sofia Szamosi. Curated by Keith Miller, Sofia Szamosi’s “Eat Me” explores the relationship between the artist’s sense of self, food and contemporary notions of body image through a series of video self-portraits. Through exquisitely shot, confrontational images, Szamosi work addresses the complexities of body image and food, illustrated through sensual, grotesque, and occasionally disturbing imagery. Reminiscent of advertisements of overtly sexualized women selling the newest commodities, guilty pleasures, and unhealthy sweets, the artist looks directly into the camera, confronting the viewer. With her own body as a canvas, Szamosi explores consumption and desire, making herself both target and victimizer of the almost inescapable excess in our consumer-based society.
“Eat Me” presents a tenuous balance of an enticing eroticism and a troubling repulsion. The viewer ends up involved in Szamosi’s contemplation of food and complicit in her predicaments, which range from enjoyment to humiliation. She spits multi-colored candies like a fountain or seductively licks a lollypop; she drowns in syrup and coughs up sprinkles. In each case, the viewer must decide where to draw the line:where does indulgence end and obsession begin? Szamosi’s work lays bare the conflicted relationship we have with pleasure, the body, and what we mean by free will. Alternately sexy and sickening, “Eat Me” walks the delicate line between solipsistic desire and self-destruction.
Sofia Szamosi lives and works in New York, New York. Sofia’s music videos have been released by labels Sweat It Out and Dim Mak, and her photobooth photography has been featured in Russh Magazine and the Gallatin Review. Her artwork has been represented in the Gallatin Arts Festival, Superchief Gallery, and at the International Photobooth Convention in Chicago.
Keith Miller is a filmmaker, painter, and curator. Miller is currently a professor at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Since 2009, he has been the curator of the Gallatin Galleries, encouraging work that engages the personal with the political. Miller’s exhibition of paintings, “Trees,” was shown at Open Source in 2013. He recently premiered his second feature film, Five Star, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival’s Giornate degli Auotre. His first feature length film, Welcome to Pine Hill, which The NY Times’ AO Scott called “resonant and powerful,” premiered in 2012 at the Slamdance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize.
