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  • The Whitney is closed in preparation for the opening of our new building downtown in spring 2015.
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Sara Greenberger Rafferty

Sara Greenberger Rafferty, still from Mono, 2014. Digital video, color, sound; 3:30 min. Collection of the artist; courtesy Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York. © Sara Greenberger Rafferty, 2014

Sara Greenberger Rafferty, still from Mono, 2014. Digital video, color, sound; 3:30 min. Collection of the artist; courtesy Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York. © Sara Greenberger Rafferty, 2014

Born 1978 in Evanston, IL
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

In Mono (2014), screened as part of the 2014 Biennial, Sara Greenberger Rafferty cast actor Susie Sokol to mimic the gestures and verbal mannerisms of three late-night comedy hosts: Johnny Carson, David Letterman, and Joan Rivers. Rafferty has said that she wanted to calibrate the work so that, despite being larger-than-life performers, “the figures are at human scale.” In the film, she drastically reduces the aggrandizing trappings of television productions: the laugh track is minimal, the set and music nonexistent, the studio audience empty. Sokol, wearing a suit and a low ponytail, moves through a variety of gendered stances and comedic postures, isolating the comics’ gestures so that they appear radically strange.

On View

Second Floor

Work by Sara Greenberger Rafferty will be screened in the second floor Film & Video Gallery, May 14–25. View the calendar for more information.

Works by Sara Greenberger Rafferty

Sara Greenberger Rafferty, still from Mono, 2014. Digital video, color, sound; 3:30 min. Collection of the artist; courtesy Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York. © Sara Greenberger Rafferty, 2014
Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Untitled, 2013. Acrylic polymer and inkjet print on acetate, plexiglass, and hardware, 35 3/4 × 24 in. (90.8 × 61 cm), irregular. Private Collection; courtesy the artist. © Sara Greenberger Rafferty. Photograph by Andres Ramirez
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Please note: The Whitney is closed in preparation for the opening of our new building downtown in spring 2015.