Feed The Models: The Scissor Drawings of Jane Gennaro

The work of artist Jane Gennaro will be on display at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in an exhibition titled Feed the Models: The Scissor Drawings of Jane Gennaro.  Free and open to the public, the exhibition will be on view November 21, 2011 through January 26, 2012, in FIT’s Fred P. Pomerantz Art and Design Center, Seventh Avenue at 27th Street.

Feed the Models: The Scissor Drawings of Jane Gennaro will include Gennaro’s unique scissor drawings, cut from images in fashion magazines, plus sculptural variations with bones and science glass, as well as large-scale prints on metallic surfaces. The artworks are based on Gennaro’s commentary, Feed the Models, which aired on National Public Radio’s (NPR) All Things Considered in 2002. In addition to creating art, Gennaro is a writer, performer, cartoonist, voice-over artist, and illustrator. Common threads that bind her work include storytelling, femininity, and how the human body is presented in the media, which is what led her to question the fashion industry’s use of extremely thin models.

Gennaro will perform her monologue Feed the Models at FIT on Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 5 pm. The performance will be followed by a discussion with Gennaro and Julia Jacquette, assistant professor, Fine Arts, FIT.

Gennaro began her career as an illustrator, doing spot drawings for books and publications, including Weight Watcher’s magazine, and drawing models of Ms. Liz, a line of feminist greeting cards “for the woman who speaks her mind,” created by cartoonist Barbara Slate. From there, Gennaro moved to writing and performing comedy and satire, embracing feminist themes as a radio personality on Imus in the Morning, and later popping up as a character actor and commentator on NPR.

Gennaro’s solo play, The Boob Story, which premiered at The American Place Theatre, was described by the New York Times as “a seriocomic monologue about breast fetishism in America.”  Gennaro followed up with Reality Ranch, a satire about the media’s impact on individual identity, an ongoing theme informed by her extensive experience as a voice-over artist for commercials such as Lancôme cosmetics and an HBO special on the making of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

In recent years, Gennaro has focused her attention on visual work, which has been written about in d’Art International, Digital Photoplay, and M magazine, and featured in fashion photography essays for See.7 and Blush magazine in Paris.

Feed the Models: The Scissor Drawings of Jane Gennaro is co-sponsored by FIT’s School of Art and Design, artichoke.tv, Duggal Visual Solutions, and FIT’s Print/FX Graphics Lab.