Leigh Ledare: You Are Nothing To Me. You Are Like Air

Rivington Arms, New York
11 September – 19 October

Review by Emma Pearse


Leigh Ledare, Mom with Wrist Brace, 2008. Courtesy the artist and Rivington Arms, New York

In a culture overjoyed by the MILF and all the creative, neurotic and philosophical opportunities that come along with it, it's easy to see Leigh Ledare's work – most of it studio-lit 1950s-tinged photographs and videos of his pornographically dressed mother posing for his camera – as copycat, simply hopping on the MILF train (pun intended). In fact, much of Ledare's work is slightly annoying because of this – his photographs are not overly special in terms of composition, and the tortured psychic terrain and sultry aesthetic has been covered more stylishly by Nan Goldin and Sally Mann in past decades.

But in this new show, we see an evolution from Ledare's previous work with his mother, seen at Roth gallery earlier this year in Pretend You're Actually Alive, where he showed the newspaper personal ads she'd placed. In response, Ledare answered similar seductive ads and photographed his liaisons with lonely women with creative libidos across America. At Rivington Arms, these framed photos sit in a stack for viewers to rifle through, as one might browse in a thrift store. In them Ledare is dressed in bondage and gaudy sex costumes sitting on beds in drab rooms, all with a whiff of commie aesthetic. The idea is fabulous: like a child mirroring his parent, he tries his mother's proclivities on for size. As well as Robert Melee's psychosexual work with his mother, here Ledare's practice brings to mind Laurel Nakadate's theatrical filmed encounters with real and really lonely men.

Now though, Tina Peterson is no longer the fire-redhead vixen she was a few years ago, clipping and unclipping her suspenders and fingering her panties on demand. In one key image, Ledare's aged, faded mother sits in an armchair, her hair in a matronly bun, her right hand strapped in a brace and resting on her left shoulder. She has on no make-up and her hair is a drab sandy colour. This is Peterson in her new role as victim, broken from all her years of loneliness and objectification. The fierceness of her younger face is now sulky and stern. The show's title, You Are Nothing To Me. You Are Like Air could be Ledare talking to his mother, or her talking to him – and her legions of ex-lovers.

It's this image, along with the video Shoulder (2007), that saves Ledare's new show from repetition. In the video, Ledare asks his mother, 'Are you ready?' He comes out from behind the camera, kneels and opens his arms for her embrace. Peterson relishes this opportunity to climb aboard her son's lap, rubbing her cheek on his shoulder, writhing herself into a crying, whining, sobbing state as her son pats her and tells her it's OK. There are two important things going on here: the formal relationship of the documenter to the subject, in this case setting a scene for this woman to grieve; then there is her performance: Peterson is acting but not. The fact that we are watching only makes her more needily hysterical. At the end of it, she leans back and says thank you. Perhaps we should all try doing this with our parents.

It's pieces like this that jettison standard glamour and exhibitionism, much of which we've seen before, that really resonate. We are actually growing along with the artist, learning how to love, hate and finally detach ourselves from this MILF rather than remaining in thrall to her power and patheticness (and her remarkably smooth legs).