Through Aug. 21: Tacoma Artscapes Round 12

Woolworth windows

By Alec Clayton on June 13, 2014

Ellen Hochberg's installations "Boxes" and "Educating Girls" in the Woolworth windows are identity art. They put out there for your contemplation questions of how girls see themselves and how they are seen by others. As conceptual art they are interesting if not earth shattering; aesthetically they are like well-conceived minimalist sculpture combined with filmmaking that is equally minimalist ("Boxes") and hip window dressing ("Educating Girls").

The latter is a nicely conceived statement with short videos in a line of minimalist boxes, each with a word - Feminist, Middle Aged, White, and so forth, representing the various identity boxes people are put in and expected to stay in. The kicker is that the words and the boxes are perfectly clear, but the faces are blurred and hard to see. The meaning of that could not be clearer than the printed words themselves.

Read Alec Clayton's full review of Tacoma Artscapes Round 12 in the Music and Culture section.

WOOLWORTH WINDOWS, through Aug. 21, Broadway at 11th and Commerce, Tacoma