Two Dimensional Days

Two Dimensional Days expands upon the artist’s earlier investigations into power-relations, gender roles, and the nature of visuality.  Allusions to the history of art and references to film abound in both series, with each drawing functioning as a single frame within a larger narrative.  As Banai states in her catalogue essay, Staging Spectatorship, “Cnaani invites the viewer to approach the ensuing vignettes as a meditation on the relationship between art production and visual consumption, making and owning, desiring and collecting, and the force fields of power that are rooted within them.”

Two Dimensional Days examines the confused relationship between subjects and objects, through a progression of episodes in the life of the series’ protagonist (an artist).  Numerous art world figures – curators, dealers, and collectors – are portrayed, in somewhat ambiguous spaces, alongside the art objects they covet.  By flattening everything into two-dimensions, Cnaani creates tension and a sense of confinement.  The inability to communicate within this claustrophobic social setting is evident in the lack of interaction among the figures depicted, but also extends beyond the drawings’ surface; Cnaani intentionally alienates the viewer, who is not afforded clear access to the scenes depicted.