VertiGhost (2017)

VertiGhost a newly commissioned work by Lynn Hershman Leeson for the Fine Arts Museums draws the viewer into a meditation about notions of authenticity and the construction of identity Inspired by the Legion of Honors role as a location for Alfred Hitchcocks Vertigo 1958 Hershman Leeson explores the tension at the core of Vertigo between the difficulty or lack of desire to distinguish between reality and fiction versus the pursuit of truth The eponymous ghost of Hershman Leesons project is the elusive nature of a singular identity that haunts the characters in the 1958 film its most enigmatic representation being the painting of a supposed distant relative of the films protagonist Madeleine around which her character and fate is imagined