Skarstedt is pleased to announce our latest exhibition, Cristina BanBan: 14th Street Madonna with one of our favorite painters and past Juxtapoz cover artist. The word “Madonna” has many origins and connotations. Tracing its roots to the Latin mea domina, or “my mistress,” which is the feminine form of dominus, or “master,” it took further shape in the old Italian ma donna, or “lady.” Within these phrases lies a duality of the soft feminine lady and the more dominant dame or madam. This juxtaposition of the many faces of femininity, seen through the lens of contemporary society, binds together the new works on view.

While BanBan’s work is not autobiographical in the strict sense of the word, there is something personal and diaristic in each of her paintings. Taking influence from such things as major life events, all the way down to the little things she notices as she traverses the city, the works on view in 14th Street Madonna reveal who BanBan is in the moment in which she makes each work—what excites her, what intrigues her, what piques her curiosity. Sometimes, these influences are a conscious choice, such as the benches, plants, and windows that crop up in several paintings. Other times, they are unconscious, an element BanBan does not fully understand until the work is complete. 

This shows up through the abstracted architectural elements that appear throughout some of the works on view. Women lean on railings, sit on benches, or stand in front of a window as if they are moving between boroughs on the subway alongside BanBan. Continuously charting a path between pure representation and pure abstraction, these elements are discovered through looking closely at these compositions. Whether consciously noticed or not, they lend a newfound sense of groundedness and contemporaneity. This modern aura continues in the accessories worn by many of these figures. A mainstay of her earlier work, the inclusion of things like underwear, high heels, or knee-high socks are donned in all kinds of colors and patterns. Whether an elaborate hat or exaggerated bow laces, they simultaneously heighten the femininity latent within her oeuvre, lend a sense of kitsch, and further place them as a contemporaneous women. The shoes, in particular, allow the viewer to take a proverbial step back. Whereas recent work has engulfed its viewers through the sheer scale of each figure, in 14th Street Madonna we start to get a look at the full figure, set in a nebulous yet still particular place and time.

BanBan is not new to painting the contemporary female experience. Still, it has taken on a new framework in 14th Street Madonna thanks to one of the other major influences on this series: the early films of Pedro Almodóvar and Sofia Coppola. Both thematically and aesthetically, their respective filmographies are well-considered throughout the exhibition. Whether it be rich cherry reds or soft pastel pinks, the palettes of these filmmakers become part of BanBan’s own palette, underscoring two different ways to view girlhood or feminine tropes such as femme fatales, mothers, or heroines. For Coppola, girlhood is a place of fantasy, experimentation, evasion, or transcendence, shown through stories in which a woman’s strength and desire are often underestimated. In Tres Mujeres y el Horizonte, for instance, there is a tenderness in the positioning of the three bodies and a kind of girlish shyness as two of them turn away from the viewer, hiding their eyes, while the woman on the left turns her head so swiftly, we see it like a film strip, her different expressions highlighting the multitude of emotions latent within women. Meanwhile, Almodóvar’s women are openly strong, intense, and complex—a guiding thread for emotions. In Striped Socks, a woman stands confidently in a set of red undergarments—echoing Almodóvar’s palette—and knee-high striped socks, her hips tilted to one side; she appears comfortable and alluring, as if she has complete ownership over the gaze inflicted upon her. 

Cinematic language is a way to draw a line between the real and the imagined, something BanBan charts in her use of contemporary markers and well-defined women juxtaposed against amorphous backgrounds and details that fade into the overarching composition. This balance was fodder for the work of Willem de Kooning, a constant influence on BanBan, who was specifically inspired to create the series of narrow paintings in this exhibition after looking at de Kooning’s paintings on narrow wooden doors he made following his move to the Hamptons.

If the women of BanBan’s previous paintings were more universal in their scope, those shown in 14th Street Madonna are imbued with a greater sense of personality and a more personal touch while remaining entirely relatable.