Michelle Uckotter at King’s Leap

Artist: Michelle Uckotter

Exhibition title: Trap Paintings Vol. 3

Venue: King’s Leap, New York, US

Date: November 3 – December 16, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and King’s Leap, New York

King’s Leap is proud to present Michelle Uckotter’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.

“Duchamp’s Dulcinea (1911) is an early painting by the artist that is composed of a woman in four parts, arranged similar to a bouquet, with her body shifting and phasing in and out of different perspectives. Duchamp recalled the inspiration of this painting from his observing a woman who lived in Paris, whom he only ever watched and never talked to. In analyzing this painting, Jacqueline Bass regards this woman—and the women of earlier Duchamp paintings—as “not a person, but as a passage.” It is an important distinction she makes, because it separates the figure of the woman from one who is subjectified or regarded only to her body and nude, instead placing the form as a host or perhaps a guide. In Uckotter’s work, the figures which occupy the derelict thresholds and rooms of abandon are positioned equally as hosts who guide and lead. Like Duchamp’s Dulcinea, named after the love interest in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the figure of the woman is one who must be obeyed or followed without reserve, regardless of

how reckless the path may be. These hosts then lead equally the artist and viewer into a space of submissive transcendence. It may be grand to say, but that is all we can hope for in art as one can never own or fully understand it, one only submits to it. In Duchamp observing the woman who was to become Dulcinea, we can interpret a form of the readymade, a submission to an object that simply says: I am art and you must recognize me as such. This obedience by the artist to an image is one that Duchamp, and equally Godard, had as they were passionate about the world of images that he could not have—each was just a passage to the next. Uckotter’s work is seated in this similar conduit of images, but one that has become more contemporary and one that has turned the image dark. There is a dark-positive spirit sexuality to the work that while highly eroticized does not give any notion of sex explicitly. It takes and guides.”

Excerpt from “The Dulcinea Effect: Or, the Giantess of Modernism” by Alan Longino Full essay will be published in a forthcoming Michelle Uckotter catalogue

Michelle Uckotter (b. 1992) is a Cincinnati born artist based in New York. In 2024, Uckotter will have a solo exhibition at Bernheim Gallery (Zurich, CH). Select solo exhibitions include Marc Selwyn Fine Art (Los Angeles, CA), t293 (Rome, IT), King’s Leap (New York, NY), Springsteen Gallery (Baltimore, MD) and A.D. Gallery (New York, NY). Recent group exhibitions include As It Stands (Los Angeles, CA), Freddy (Harris, NY), Lyles & King (New York, NY), New York Academy of Art (New York, NY), Bernheim Gallery (Zurich, CH), Ginny on Frederick (London, UK), Mickey (Chicago, IL), Lomex (New York, NY), Lubov (New York, NY), Galerie Hussenot (Paris, FR), In Lieu (Los Angeles, CA), Sebastian Gladstone (Los Angeles, CA), Deli Gallery (New York, NY), Envy6011 (Wellington, NZ), and Interstate Projects (Brooklyn, NY).

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, Satan, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 46 x 83 inches, 116.84 x 210.82 cm

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, geiler Arsch, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 38 x 50 inches, 96.52 x 127 cm

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, Terrible place, glory hole, 2023, wood, cardboard, house paint, drywall, oil pastel, revolver replica, wig, easel, wooden leg, wooden chair, locket, rope, metal wire, metal, trash bags and insulation foam, dimensions variable

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, Girl in studio, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 30 x 40 inches, 76.2 x 101.6 cm

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, Garden of Arcadia, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 46 x 83 inches, 116.84 x 210.82 cm

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, Is this a woman, a devil, or a mother?, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 30 x 40 inches, 76.2 x 101.6 cm

Michelle Uckotter, Trap Paintings Vol. 3, 2023, exhibition view, King’s Leap, New York

Michelle Uckotter, Cage girl, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 40 x 30 inches, 101.6 x 76.2 cm

Michelle Uckotter, Untitled, 2023, oil pastel on panel, 15.5 x 11.5 inches, 39.37 x 29.21 cm