
Walking Puppet, 2008. Installation is in the Major Henry Trippe House on the Chamber Staircase (Period Room) Photo Courtesy the Brooklyn Museum
As such, the Punderson piece provides a tremendous launching-off point in which to explore the various social and psychological limitations circumscribing women’s experience of creating. This, as well as an articulation of the creative experience, is Sojourn’s stated intention. But this is a difficult show to extrapolate from. Although Sojourn is very cohesive and, at times, visually appealing — the drawings are beautifully installed in these rooms — it is also determinedly enigmatic, firmly rooted in Smith’s abstract vision and iconography.
Stepping from behind the introductory wall panel, you are greeted by Annunciation (2008) one of several roughly life-size aluminum-cast figures with enlarged heads and blank expressions. The figure’s hand is raised in benediction, protest, or in receipt of a divine gift — one of several references to the Annunciation — or perhaps, in longing; she is facing We Do Not Hear It Coming (2008), a drawing of a window blocked off with chicken wire.