Corine May Botz: Bedside Manner
Dec 17, 2015 - Feb 06, 2016
Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce Brooklyn-based photographer Corinne May Botz鈥檚 Bedside Manner, her first solo show with the gallery. As in The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, her acclaimed series of photographs of doll house鈥搒ized crime-scene dioramas built in the 1940s, Bedside Manner blurs the line between the actual and the artificial in a series of images that powerfully evoke the Freudian uncanny鈥攕omething that is strangely familiar yet resists classification.
The subject here is the little-known world of medical simulations, in which trained medical actors portray so-called 鈥渟tandardized patients鈥� in order to help medical students improve their diagnostic and interpersonal skills. Botz photographed the medical actors through two-way mirrors, visible in the frame, which creates an immediate sense of voyeurism as well as dread. The relationship between viewer and subject is further complicated by the viewer鈥檚 difficulty in pinpointing the exact nature of what is being depicted. In some photographs, there is no indication that we鈥檙e looking at a performance; in others, the inclusion of props鈥攁 child-sized plastic arm, a couple in tense vigil at the bedside of a simulation mannequin with a bloody rag pressed to its forehead鈥攕uggest a re-enactment of some kind, but its nature remains opaque and unsettling.
The photographs simultaneously elicit and circumscribe an emotional response, as viewers are forced to contemplate their reactions not just to sickness, injury, and hospitals, but also to the innumerable images of human suffering we are confronted with on a daily basis, whether for entertainment or edification. As such, the photographs contain an ethical aspect as well, as we question their effect on our own empathic processes, and are reminded of the way in which even real patients 鈥減lay sick鈥� in order to solicit care from doctors and nurses. As with the student-doctors for whom these simulations were performed, we are forced to interrogate which aspects of these scenes are not just true but relevant to our own medical history.
Also included in the show is the short film Bedside Manner, in which neurologist Dr. Alice Flaherty plays herself as doctor, patient and standardized patient in a narrative that forces spectators to decipher what is authentic in the main character鈥檚 narrative. To paraphrase Flaherty: she is a doctor learning how to be a patient, in order to teach doctors how to be better doctors. In regards to the discourse concerning empathy, we are left not only thinking about what patients feel but what student-doctors feel as they go through the process of becoming an 鈥渁uthority.鈥�
The subject here is the little-known world of medical simulations, in which trained medical actors portray so-called 鈥渟tandardized patients鈥� in order to help medical students improve their diagnostic and interpersonal skills. Botz photographed the medical actors through two-way mirrors, visible in the frame, which creates an immediate sense of voyeurism as well as dread. The relationship between viewer and subject is further complicated by the viewer鈥檚 difficulty in pinpointing the exact nature of what is being depicted. In some photographs, there is no indication that we鈥檙e looking at a performance; in others, the inclusion of props鈥攁 child-sized plastic arm, a couple in tense vigil at the bedside of a simulation mannequin with a bloody rag pressed to its forehead鈥攕uggest a re-enactment of some kind, but its nature remains opaque and unsettling.
The photographs simultaneously elicit and circumscribe an emotional response, as viewers are forced to contemplate their reactions not just to sickness, injury, and hospitals, but also to the innumerable images of human suffering we are confronted with on a daily basis, whether for entertainment or edification. As such, the photographs contain an ethical aspect as well, as we question their effect on our own empathic processes, and are reminded of the way in which even real patients 鈥減lay sick鈥� in order to solicit care from doctors and nurses. As with the student-doctors for whom these simulations were performed, we are forced to interrogate which aspects of these scenes are not just true but relevant to our own medical history.
Also included in the show is the short film Bedside Manner, in which neurologist Dr. Alice Flaherty plays herself as doctor, patient and standardized patient in a narrative that forces spectators to decipher what is authentic in the main character鈥檚 narrative. To paraphrase Flaherty: she is a doctor learning how to be a patient, in order to teach doctors how to be better doctors. In regards to the discourse concerning empathy, we are left not only thinking about what patients feel but what student-doctors feel as they go through the process of becoming an 鈥渁uthority.鈥�
Recommended for you
Jun 08, 2025
- Dec 07, 2025
Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce Brooklyn-based photographer Corinne May Botz鈥檚 Bedside Manner, her first solo show with the gallery. As in The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, her acclaimed series of photographs of doll house鈥搒ized crime-scene dioramas built in the 1940s, Bedside Manner blurs the line between the actual and the artificial in a series of images that powerfully evoke the Freudian uncanny鈥攕omething that is strangely familiar yet resists classification.
The subject here is the little-known world of medical simulations, in which trained medical actors portray so-called 鈥渟tandardized patients鈥� in order to help medical students improve their diagnostic and interpersonal skills. Botz photographed the medical actors through two-way mirrors, visible in the frame, which creates an immediate sense of voyeurism as well as dread. The relationship between viewer and subject is further complicated by the viewer鈥檚 difficulty in pinpointing the exact nature of what is being depicted. In some photographs, there is no indication that we鈥檙e looking at a performance; in others, the inclusion of props鈥攁 child-sized plastic arm, a couple in tense vigil at the bedside of a simulation mannequin with a bloody rag pressed to its forehead鈥攕uggest a re-enactment of some kind, but its nature remains opaque and unsettling.
The photographs simultaneously elicit and circumscribe an emotional response, as viewers are forced to contemplate their reactions not just to sickness, injury, and hospitals, but also to the innumerable images of human suffering we are confronted with on a daily basis, whether for entertainment or edification. As such, the photographs contain an ethical aspect as well, as we question their effect on our own empathic processes, and are reminded of the way in which even real patients 鈥減lay sick鈥� in order to solicit care from doctors and nurses. As with the student-doctors for whom these simulations were performed, we are forced to interrogate which aspects of these scenes are not just true but relevant to our own medical history.
Also included in the show is the short film Bedside Manner, in which neurologist Dr. Alice Flaherty plays herself as doctor, patient and standardized patient in a narrative that forces spectators to decipher what is authentic in the main character鈥檚 narrative. To paraphrase Flaherty: she is a doctor learning how to be a patient, in order to teach doctors how to be better doctors. In regards to the discourse concerning empathy, we are left not only thinking about what patients feel but what student-doctors feel as they go through the process of becoming an 鈥渁uthority.鈥�
The subject here is the little-known world of medical simulations, in which trained medical actors portray so-called 鈥渟tandardized patients鈥� in order to help medical students improve their diagnostic and interpersonal skills. Botz photographed the medical actors through two-way mirrors, visible in the frame, which creates an immediate sense of voyeurism as well as dread. The relationship between viewer and subject is further complicated by the viewer鈥檚 difficulty in pinpointing the exact nature of what is being depicted. In some photographs, there is no indication that we鈥檙e looking at a performance; in others, the inclusion of props鈥攁 child-sized plastic arm, a couple in tense vigil at the bedside of a simulation mannequin with a bloody rag pressed to its forehead鈥攕uggest a re-enactment of some kind, but its nature remains opaque and unsettling.
The photographs simultaneously elicit and circumscribe an emotional response, as viewers are forced to contemplate their reactions not just to sickness, injury, and hospitals, but also to the innumerable images of human suffering we are confronted with on a daily basis, whether for entertainment or edification. As such, the photographs contain an ethical aspect as well, as we question their effect on our own empathic processes, and are reminded of the way in which even real patients 鈥減lay sick鈥� in order to solicit care from doctors and nurses. As with the student-doctors for whom these simulations were performed, we are forced to interrogate which aspects of these scenes are not just true but relevant to our own medical history.
Also included in the show is the short film Bedside Manner, in which neurologist Dr. Alice Flaherty plays herself as doctor, patient and standardized patient in a narrative that forces spectators to decipher what is authentic in the main character鈥檚 narrative. To paraphrase Flaherty: she is a doctor learning how to be a patient, in order to teach doctors how to be better doctors. In regards to the discourse concerning empathy, we are left not only thinking about what patients feel but what student-doctors feel as they go through the process of becoming an 鈥渁uthority.鈥�
Artists on show
Contact details
Tuesday - Friday
12:00 - 5:00 PM
529 W 20th St, Floor 8 New York, NY, USA 10011
What's on nearby
Jul 09, 2025
- Aug 15, 2025
