This provocative rephrasing of Romanticism's most famous
about-faces points the way towards a new New Historicism that might treat social and affective phenomena, such as group identity and political opinion, in formalist terms--that is, as variously conventional and inventive practices of organizing experience.
These last two were hung so that the figures in them seemed to turn their backs on each other--recoiling from the opposite style, as Gasiorowski himself did countless times in the course of a career marked by
about-faces and repudiations.
It is as if the status quo meditation on the single image has to be blown up, as in "Empty Nests in Leafless Trees," which Guriel begins in a traditionally reflective manner and then
about-faces and says, "Actually, I lied.
What is most disturbing in these
about-faces is that both projects were announced with fanfare only a month ago, only to be pulled back during the last week when federal officials raised concerns about the ability of both to meet a February deadline for start of construction.
Penteado's ballerina, Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg, did smile a bit too much, but her body knew its way perfectly around the role's twists, digressions, and
about-faces.
