Elke Solomon

Her one-woman performances were verbal and addressed political issues such as: anti-semitism, property, class, etc. For example, Tunafish Tales was performed in New York, NY and traveled to other cities in the U.S. Carrie Rickey reviewed this work in ARTFORUM (1979): ““Twentieth-century performance has found inspiration in dance, music, cabaret and theatre, but no one to my knowledge has ever before found inspiration in talk-show schtick. Elke Solomon does. An accomplished painter, draughtsperson, conceptual artist and curator, Solomon’s Tunafish Tales is a Catskills-cum-Vegas monologue with the outrageousness of Joan Rivers delivering an encyclical to a constituency including the pontiff, the ayatollah and Johnny Carson ... Humor: One of the advantages to being Jewish in America is the time saved in searching for pork in a can of pork and beans.”[5]

Recent performances include: "The Bar-Mitzvah Lounge," bi-weekly social media posts, 2020–2021, "Early Bird Bingo! at the Early Bird Special Cafe: Another Installation," A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2018, performers included Lulu Fogarty and audience players; "A Tavola! A Performance," presented by Magic Time! and Judson Memorial Church, NYC, 2013.

In 2000, Solomon began cutting stencils of identifiable objects from Western culture. The images were initially painted with an overall format – disjunctive, non-formal, non-hierarchical and non-compositional, casual – and share the same space on the plane of the painting.[6] Viewers therefore, construct meaning by prompting an internal dialogue about the nature of the images' inherent narratives (e.g. social narrative).

Susan Putterman, Parson's School of Design, on Solomon's practice: "Vibrantly colored, cut-out paintings and drawings of abstract shapes are the focal point of Elke Solomon’s new body of work. Perhaps best known for her tough-minded, black and white, architecturally inspired drawings, this work marks a new direction for Solomon. Aside from the most obvious change - the use of bold color – these drawings and paintings incorporate a deep understanding of the drawing medium and its relationship to painting.

Drawing, for Solomon, is the fundamental, skeletal underpinning of all her work. Starting with an image in the world, she modifies it into an abstracted, non-representational shape by making numerous black and white preparatory studies. The exhibition, which consists of thirteen modestly scaled cut-outs, and several oversized drawings and paintings, is based on one model drawing. ...Solomon, referring to her use of ‘dumb color,’ implies that she is not interested in making mannered, artfully composed paintings."

"Early Bird Special Cafe: Another Installation," A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2018.[7] "A Tavola! An Installation," A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 2010.[8]

Solomon was one of the founding editors of Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics. She has written for a number of publications including: "Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood," Edited by Moyra Davey; “On Motherhood and Apple Pie” in M/E/A/N/I/N/G, An Anthology of Artist's Writings, Theory and Criticism, ed. Susan Bee and Mira Schor, Duke University Press, 2000 (original article 1992)[9]

A collection of observational snapshots by Elke Solomon, published by M Press, Essay by Nancy Princenthal.[10] The book was reviewed by Barbara A. MacAdam for ARTnews, "The beauty is in the echoing of image and thing and in the implication that repetition may be both the staff and stuff of life ... In this subtle but assertive body of work, marked by rigor and humor, formalism and even lyricism, we focus on the nature of art and life, how the picture of a thing becomes its symbol, the idea of the thing."[11]