GRETTA'S PERMUTATIONS - MAY 1 - MAY 23 2009
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Gretta's Permutations 2009 Multimedia installation

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein.

Gretta's Permutations is a journey into the artist mind. Viewers will experience through her new installation a cosmological ricochet which is conceptualized through repeated images of bananas, self portraits and geometric exegesis. The Shield of David represents in Judaism the six points that rule the universe and protect us from all six directions: North, South, East, West, Up and Down. Others believe the Shield is made strong by two interlocking triangles that form a hexagon pattern of support points. In Kabbalah, these two triangles represent the dichotomies inherent in us such as good vs. evil.

Gretta is interested in synchronicity and meaningful coincidences. For this show she is playing with science and our
heads. Photographs of herself and bananas have been placed in ordered sequences in front of a symbol of the Shieldof David. Possibly bananas symbolize Brazil , where Gretta grew up. The photographs show the artist mysteriously seated on a rooftop with her eyes open.

True to form this show sees Gretta deconstructing her own identity. But whereas in the past the conduit of her own body and face were played within classic feminist tradition, as can be witnessed in her 1970's self portraits in the lower gallery, here Gretta deconstructs her own religious roots. Contentious indeed it is to collage a giant Star of David on the wall in these crises ridden times where religion is often sited as a major contributor to global relational breakdown. However it is easy to overlook that the artist may simply want to explore her own identity in terms of her religious heritage. This installation can be seen as a testing of the religious ego. A sort of theological deconstruction laced with a cosmological optimism.

The show features Gretta's Progress by Gordon Beswick. This half hour documentary charts the rise and rise of GrettaSarfaty Marchant. The film mixes archive footage of Gretta in New York in the 1980's with interviews of the many young London art stars who have collaborated with her and believe her to be the least bored and least boring artist alive today.

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards" - Lewis Carroll (Alice Through The Looking Glass).