Esther Shalev-Gerz: Describing Labor

December 3, 2012–April 21, 2013
The Wolfsonian–FIU @ 1001 Washington Avenue

Describing Labor drew on artist Esther Shalev-Gerz’s research into depictions of work and working figures from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century. Once a heroic image of class consciousness and national character—widely portrayed in the period of the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression, and the two World Wars—the worker has since receded from the forefront of the visual field. Through new works of video, audio, and photography, Describing Labor gave image to this often unseen figure whose labor fabricates the physical world. Rather than glorify historic representations and fetishize the figure of the worker, the exhibition carried its visitors into a living image—the picturing of creation and of our own place within it.