Curated by Erica Battle
Class warfare, the appropriation of public resources for private benefit, systemic violence against women—these painfully contemporary conditions were also defining characteristics of England in the sixteenth century, when the enclosure movement consolidated privatization of common land even as hysterical panic about witchcraft lead to widespread persecution of women. This uncannily resonant period is the subject of Rachel Rose’s latest work, to be unveiled at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this spring. While the artist is already known for her bravura deployment of digital effects and extravagant postproduction, this marks her first video featuring live actors—an experiment that promises a more sustained engagement with political and historical narrative. A catalogue, forthcoming in fall 2018 and published with the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Yale University Press, will include documentation of the work’s production and installation, a new interview with Rose, and a critical essay.
