Tina Rotundo-Perin, Nouveau Nostalgia

However, in this exhibition Tina works within both modernist and post modernist styles of art production in order to illuminate their limitations and to peel back the facade and layers of both formal and post structural analysis and criticism. Tina’s work indicates that such discourses have the potential to render artists powerless in the narration of their own story, and as such issues of agency and the politics of representation supposedly vanish with the death of the author/subject. The subject is no longer regarded as a paradigm of society and what is potentially left out is the politics of representation as a social and political construct.

In this latest series of work, Tina attempts to reveal that this discourse of “anti-subjectivism” actually reaffirms identity as a social construct, and repression and individual restraint as symptomatic of the domination wielded by political and cultural institutions over the so-called recalcitrant individual. The danger regarding the denial of objective reality is evident in Tina’s work titled “Wicked Wiki”. In this mixed media collage, Tina draws upon the case of Julian Assange by depicting Assange nailed to the cross – crucified and condemned for his revelations. Revelations unsanctioned by the powers that be. In this and other work in the exhibition, Tina explores how dominating institutions render individuals powerless in providing subjective accounts and information that potentially assist in developing a more accurate foundation for knowledge and a more precise overview of history.

The dialectical body of work offered by Tina in this exhibition, encompasses a range of issues that has motivated her to express herself theoretically through her writing, and practically through her art production. A truly provocative exhibition.