We All Must Play Our Parts
New work by Julia Page

February 25th - April 2nd, 2005

All Must Play Our Parts includes three new pieces by Julia Page that explore the role of minor characters in sustaining ideological constructs and social institutions.

In the wall-mounted video, “Heir Apparent,” Page examines the part played by the President’s daughter in shaping his image and establishing his political authority. Drawing upon documentary footage, she constructs a series of portraits that are at once personal and political, addressing the love of daughters for their fathers, the theatrics of paternity in the office of the Presidency, and the intersection between the two. In a three-channel video installation, titled “We All Must Play Our Parts,” Page calls attention to the strict formula of the long-running television series Law and Order and, by focusing on the recurrent scene of “the reading of the verdict,” examines the myth of the “everyman” that it proffers in its presentation of the jury, and the role played more generally by television in sustaining our sense of justice and the authority of the law. And in “First Kills,” Page explores the ritual indoctrination of children into the tradition of hunting in America, through poster-sized enlargements of articles found in newspapers across the country, documenting the coming-of-age marked by a child’s first successful killing of an animal.

The show promises to explore the social and political mythologies that shape American culture with particular attention to the supporting actors in some of the nation’s defining dramas. How are these minor figures essential to sustaining the authorities that shape our society? Do they act willfully or are they merely pawns in someone else’s show? What parts do we – or rather must we – play in contemporary social institutions? And what is the necessity that compels us to play these roles?

- Clark Buckner

Julia Page grew up in Texas, Louisiana, and Northern California. She received an MFA from Mills College and has recently exhibited at venues including The Luggage Store (San Francisco), Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery (Los Angeles) and Catherine Clark Gallery (San Francisco). Page has received numerous awards including the Jay DeFeo Prize, Murphy Cadogan Fellowship Award and Elkin Fellowship. She currently works as an Instructor in the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz, and as the Technical Director of the Stanford University Digital Art Center

Photos

Press

"Droll Art Aims to Discomfit Commerce," Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle, March 19th, 2005

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