THE LAUGHTER: Document, Chicago

DOCUMENT is pleased to present THE LAUGHTER, an exhibition of new works by Sara Greenberger Rafferty, the artist’s second solo show with the gallery.

Using images pulled from from archival, stock, and dis­carded commercial film, primarily purchased via eBay, Rafferty’s works in plastic and silver gelatin prints present both colorful and achromatic versions of images which invoke the senses: hands, eyes, lips. These include scans of positive film, specifically slides, representing photographic exercises by teachers and students alike. While the imagery is quite historical, the evocations are quite contemporary. As Johanna Fateman recently noted in The New Yorker, Rafferty’s works [give] “random cultural artifacts the heft of major archeological finds.”

Sara Greenberger Rafferty has exhibited widely since 2001, including solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1, New York; The Kitchen, New York; Eli Marsh Gallery at Amherst College, Massachusetts; Fine Arts Center Gallery at University of Arkansas; and a commissioned sculpture for the Public Art Fund. Gloves Off, the first traveling survey of her work with accompanying fully illustrated catalogue published by SUNY Press, completed a three-venue tour last year.

The artist was included in the 2014 Whitney Biennial and the 2014 Hammer Biennial in addition to group shows at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Oregon; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California; and The Jewish Museum, New York, among many others. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Rafferty is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Photography at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.