On View:	September 7, 2024–January 26, 2025
Public Reception:	Saturday, September 7, 2024, 4:00–6:00 PM
Artist Talk:	Friday, November 22, 2024, 12:00–1:00 PM (PST)

Strut – Exhibition Overview

Strut is an exhibition of new ceramic sculpture and photographs by Christina A. West that complicate tropes of masculinity common to representations of the male body. Referencing the stumps and struts common to classical marble sculpture, West’s new ceramic sculptures function as plinths and supports for models to interact with. Rather than mimicking marble, these ceramic supports are modeled and glazed to suggest the visceral, while also encouraging awkward, inventive positioning of the body. West’s work counters centuries of images of men (created by men) that depict the male body as a caricatured representation of power, strength, and heroism, instead blending beauty and strength with vulnerability and awkwardness to convey the complexity of embodied experience. 

Strut, which includes two large ceramic sculptures, photographs, and timelapse video, will be on view in the Igal & Diane Silber Vault Gallery at AMOCA from September 7, 2024–January 26, 2025.

About the artist

Christina A. West is an artist whose practice is rooted in politics of the gaze, using ceramics, sculpture, video, and photography to focus on the male body. West earned her MFA from Alfred University (Alfred, NY) in 2006 and BFA from Siena Heights University (Adrian, MI) in 2003. After living in Atlanta for thirteen years where she taught at Georgia State University, West relocated back to the Midwest in 2022 where she is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has extensively exhibited her work across the country in venues such as the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), The Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse), Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (Buffalo), Atlanta Contemporary, and most recently at the University of Kentucky Art Museum (Lexington). Her work has been supported by grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Virginia Groot Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and she has participated in residencies at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, The Vermont Studio Center, and The Clay Studio of Philadelphia. 

Exhibition Acknowledgments

This exhibition is funded, in part, by a grant from the Dew Foundation and by support from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture.