MARY ELLEN CARROLL
Me Like Black
Artist Statement
The unifying conceptual premise is self-consciousness, or the uniqueness of things even as fakes, copies, impersonations, doubles and doppelgangers.
All the works in the exhibition have the subject of impersonation as their conceptual and philosophical basis. Included in the exhibition are ME LIKE BLACK, two neon signs that are inverted mistakes that reference the 1960s book 'Black Like Me' by white journalist John Howard Griffin, who disguised himself as a black man and chronicled the experience.
You and We, is a double self-portrait of how we see ourselves and how others see us.
The photograph titled 'Crowds and Power' uses Elias Canetti's book and the title as both its subject and object.
On the opening night Mary Ellen Carroll will become the subject and object of the artwork during a special performance.
Mary Ellen Carroll is a conceptual artist that lives and works in New York City. Currently for The Precipice Alliance she has a large-scale public work that features a 900 linear foot neon sign on the subject of global climate change.
Mary Ellen Carroll Website