Rachelle Mozman Solano: Metamorphosis of Failure

About

For her film and photography project Metamorphosis of Failure, Rachelle Mozman Solano takes as a point of departure the Museum of Modern Art’s 2014 exhibition of Paul Gauguin’s works on paper that he made in the South Pacific toward the end of his life. Instead of rehashing the mythologized narrative of Gauguin’s identity transformation during his immersion in Polynesian culture, Mozman Solano instead explores the history of Gauguin’s mixed identity (French and Peruvian). Her film is based on fantasies of the short time Gauguin traveled to Panama. The story satirically examines his search for subjects, “primitive” life, and racial purity as described in letters to his wife and his book Noa Noa, within a diverse Caribbean topography. In her project, Mozman Solano playfully reimagines the stories of the women who were Gauguin’s muses.