Repose : Picture a Woman

In ‘Re-Pose’, artist Tarrah Krajnak returns to a body of work she began some two decades ago, drawing from an archive of “women’s poses” she has collected from sources ranging from magazines to museums, spanning centuries and continents. But if her title for this series suggests rest and relaxation, the deadpan restaging and rephotographing of these conventions in live performance generates an opposite effect: Krajnak’s repositions estrange and query, rather than reinforce, the ways we link women’s feelings to body forms. The collection of nearly 60 self-portraits was produced during studio-based performances at CalArts REDCAT in Los Angeles in 2022.