This piece originally appeared in the Previews section of Artforum‘s January 2012 print issue.
RITA ACKERMANN MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, NORTH MIAMI March 15–May 6 Curated by Bonnie Clearwater "He was able to compress a bulldozer and Bambi in one song," Rita Ackermann once said admiringly of Michael Jackson. "I want to show such a duality in its most raw form–with a fragility that triggers aggression." Populating paintings, drawing, and collages with her own doe-eyed protagonists, Ackermann repossesses feminine faces and bodies, transforming the two-dimensional surface itself into an exclusive club, where words drown out and mute glances are cast in exotic hues. In this, the artist's first major survey, more than forty paintings and works on paper made in the past two decades–from iconic early line drawings such as Get a Job, 1993, to more abstract, chaotic assemblages such as IN DA SHADE, 2008–will be juxtaposed nonchronologically. The show's catalogue, devised under Ackermann's supervision and published last fall by Rizzoli, features texts by Clearwater, Felix Ensslin, John Kelsey, and Josh Smith, as well as a conversation between the artist and her recent collaborator Harmony Korine. –Kayla Guthrie