The Clayman Institute for Gender Research

The Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research proudly presents I’m Dying Up Here, an exhibition of photography and mixed media works by Bay Area artist Tammy Rae Carland. 

Taking the pioneering humor of early female comedians as her point of departure, Carland’s work tackles the hilarious, absurd, and often abject world of stand-up comedy.  Her large-scale color photographs isolate female performers in the glaring spotlight of vacant stages. With their faces obscured and bodies askew, the struggling performers dramatize the precarious balance between aggression and self-alienation inherent in the comedic act.  One comedian crawls on her knees in a stuffed banana suit, another irreverently balances a mop on her head defying her own collapse.  If stand-up permits a space for the transgression of gendered social norms and the outward expression of hostility, it also remains a site of vulnerability.  Carland’s Punch Line text pieces evince this fragility in transcripts of trailblazing comedians Moms Mabley, Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, and Bette Midler.  With only their punch lines revealed in matte windows, the viewer must make meaning of their brash quips peppered with incredulous wit and self-denigrating humor.  In these precarious moments of suspension – the climax of a performance, the punch line of a joke – Carland captures the volatile exchange between female performer and audience as well as the delicate line between explosive laughter, political subversion, and toe-curling shame.

The exhibit will be available to view at Serra House,  Monday-Friday from 10am-4pm.