Liberation and Exile in Iiu Susiraja’s Self-Portraits

Nina Herzog in the Los Angeles Review of Books:

THE FINNISH PHOTOGRAPHER and video artist Iiu Susiraja’s first US solo museum exhibition, Iiu Susiraja: A style called a dead fish, is up at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York. When you enter, you’re both greeted by and confronted with a single work, facing you on the wall, entitled Woman (2010). An early, iconic work by the artist, it seems at first a straightforward photo of a fat woman dressed in a black dress with a wool cap on her head and big blue work gloves. There is almost no dead space outside of her body, which fills the width of the frame. Her eyes are looking off, perhaps dolefully, perhaps in boredom. Tucked into her cap, perfectly covering each ear like a warming flap, is a fish. Tucked into each glove is also a fish. The woman in the photo is Iiu Susiraja.

More here.