Tania Franco Klein's latest exhibition, Break in Case of Emergency (Flies, Forks, and Fires) at Rose Gallery, came by way of Klein’s fascination with 'catharsis,' a term hearkened by Aristotle, and an arguably vital component of a successful "poetic," i.e. any human-produced representation of life that is outside the thing itself. In that spirit, these images are fabulously unreal, yet succeed in evoking the underlying emotions, the unnameable feelings brewing inside our contemporary psyche. Think, “relatably absurd.”
With Break in Case of Emergency, Klein invites us into her fastidious considerations, her willingness to search for the mysterious, for the enigmatic, even for the taboo, whatever she may discover that’s, maybe— akimbo to normative enjoyment. With her female subjects directed into off-kilter, apropos, and even cryptic circumstances, audiences ideally are thrust into a dyadic voyeurism; an Other’s fiction is so artfully rendered as to become an “undefined poetic,” projecting itself upon us, inhabiting our mind, twisting our emotions into as-yet-recognized shapes. If the artist has her way, catharsis will be had. Calm transgressions will appease us. As one is satisfied, so, too, is the Other, even if describing it afterwards proves remote.
Please, come to savor, come to relish. While these characters arguably inhabit a singular psychological plane, they don’t adhere to any strict narrative. In fact, depending on their arrangement, any number of stories could appear. Ever depicted in astonishing color—with Klein’s signature use of forced perspective and disorienting shadow— viewers are bound to ask, “What rebellious reveries have we so unwittingly stumbled upon?”
An opening reception will be held at Rose Gallery in LA on Saturday, February 18th, 2023 from 4-8pm.
