Re-configure
In 1972 artist and academics, Miriam Shapiro and Judy Chicago together with students, converted a disused house on the campus at Cal Arts into one of the most important feminist art works; Woman House. At the time, all of the terms of reference were new; installation, craft as art, feminism. The various works installed in the house addressed these concerns, and most importantly, the lack of gallery representation for female artists.
With this in mind, a group of artists in Dunedin with links to the Dunedin School of Art decided to re-examine some of the concerns that Woman House raised forty –five years ago. Many of the concerns of the initial exhibition have meant changes to the curriculum of art schools world-wide, for example; the craft-art debate of the eighties has given way to a new materiality. While the initial ideas that circled around an all too essentialist biologically determined subject, have been replaced by social constructions and monstrous representation.
The classic problematic of who is looking at whom, and for whose pleasure, has been debated since Laura Mulvey’s article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema became the go-to text of the 1980’s. Google reports suggest 24 million selfies uploaded in 2016 have exponentially complicated the image of women in western culture. At Dunedin School of Art the ratio of female to male students has been 85-15 during the last 15 years. The work in the exhibition Re-Configure by artists Shelley McConaughy, Kiri Mitchell, Sarah Baird, Megan Brady, Francine Keach, and Michele Beevors address these issues and many more.
In McConaughy’s hand knitted peach coloured straightjacket the idea of conformity to social norms and one’s own complicity become entangled in craft traditions of crochet and women’s labour. The garment itself looks tasteful and invites the idea of a leisurely Sunday brunch. It hangs on the bathroom door. The scratchy woollen fabric acts on the viewer, who imagines both the confinement of the jacket and the inescapable itch of the wool and evokes those all too real images; the nineteenth century hysteric and the generations of Valium fueled zombie-mothers that could not cope with the demands of the 70’s family unit.
Megan Brady has another take on the idea of leisure one that is ultimately tied the labour. In her video work from 2016 titled Smooth Potential, Brady presents us with a lone protagonist in her room/cell carefully smoothing away at things, a cactus, a duvet cover etc. She wears a white cloth glove that redirects the issue of labour from the working poor (the glove would otherwise have been latex or vinyl) onto the middle-classes where taste is examined in terms of this year’s fashionable colours and the pursuit of leisure is a full-time job.
Francine Keach’s video works Home Remedies move at a much faster pace with comedy, colour and masquerade and the abject, turning the kitchen into a centre for home remedies and Botox beauty rituals whereby a silk stocking gets tangled in a power drill, and flies infest a jelly-like implant. Keach’s work assaults the viewer with alternate versions of humour and horror.
In Kiri Mitchell’s film work and sculptures, we see other versions of labour and horror. Images of the leaking maternal body in Milking It and menstruating body The Homecoming make way for excessive pathos as a family drama unfolds. While the multiple cast versions of cake blanks, bely the unpaid labour involved in the unpaid production of meals, and spectacular birthday cakes, the work speaks of excess, as the mother/infant relationship turns into one of grotesque proportions.
Fat is still a feminist issue, as Sarah Baird understands it. In her works, The Bertha Revolution body size and attitudes in general to women are displayed as entrenched today as ever. Baird works between posters and multiples, reproducing 255 replicas that stand 30cm high. A small mass-produced army, which are versions of a life-sized mannequin cast from women’s real, yet mismatched bodies. The posters are drawn on the computer, then printed on a machine designed by Baird. They present quotes, pieces of law, and stupid things people say, taken from the internet and replayed as banners, a call to arms, and an invocation of the number eight wire ingenuity and the knowledge of the secret world of the computer dweeb.
Michele Beevors’ works in this exhibition are reifications of a family drama. The title of the sculptures; egg, the Bride and mother-sucker may seem funny at first but this hides an all too real corporeality as the objects in silicone and fibreglass reflect back on to the viewers own bodily experience. Comprised of saddles, welcome mats and exercise balls the objects invitation to ride, touch, suck and walk all over, complicate the issue of the objectification of the female subject.
The works in this exhibition rely on multiple readings of installation/housework and shifts from literal to abstract and image to the phenomenological relationship of bodies in space. Many of the works depend on the transposition of humour and horror or a material sensuality, and craft traditions, to trap and ensnare the viewer. Many things have changed for some women in 45 years, but some things have not.
Re-Configure was held in conjunction with the Feminism, Figuration and Sculpture Symposium on 14 September 2017 at the Dunedin School of Art.
This exhibition is supported by The Dunedin School of Art and Otago Polytechnic, Research and Post-Graduate Studies Office.
With this in mind, a group of artists in Dunedin with links to the Dunedin School of Art decided to re-examine some of the concerns that Woman House raised forty –five years ago. Many of the concerns of the initial exhibition have meant changes to the curriculum of art schools world-wide, for example; the craft-art debate of the eighties has given way to a new materiality. While the initial ideas that circled around an all too essentialist biologically determined subject, have been replaced by social constructions and monstrous representation.
The classic problematic of who is looking at whom, and for whose pleasure, has been debated since Laura Mulvey’s article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema became the go-to text of the 1980’s. Google reports suggest 24 million selfies uploaded in 2016 have exponentially complicated the image of women in western culture. At Dunedin School of Art the ratio of female to male students has been 85-15 during the last 15 years. The work in the exhibition Re-Configure by artists Shelley McConaughy, Kiri Mitchell, Sarah Baird, Megan Brady, Francine Keach, and Michele Beevors address these issues and many more.
In McConaughy’s hand knitted peach coloured straightjacket the idea of conformity to social norms and one’s own complicity become entangled in craft traditions of crochet and women’s labour. The garment itself looks tasteful and invites the idea of a leisurely Sunday brunch. It hangs on the bathroom door. The scratchy woollen fabric acts on the viewer, who imagines both the confinement of the jacket and the inescapable itch of the wool and evokes those all too real images; the nineteenth century hysteric and the generations of Valium fueled zombie-mothers that could not cope with the demands of the 70’s family unit.
Megan Brady has another take on the idea of leisure one that is ultimately tied the labour. In her video work from 2016 titled Smooth Potential, Brady presents us with a lone protagonist in her room/cell carefully smoothing away at things, a cactus, a duvet cover etc. She wears a white cloth glove that redirects the issue of labour from the working poor (the glove would otherwise have been latex or vinyl) onto the middle-classes where taste is examined in terms of this year’s fashionable colours and the pursuit of leisure is a full-time job.
Francine Keach’s video works Home Remedies move at a much faster pace with comedy, colour and masquerade and the abject, turning the kitchen into a centre for home remedies and Botox beauty rituals whereby a silk stocking gets tangled in a power drill, and flies infest a jelly-like implant. Keach’s work assaults the viewer with alternate versions of humour and horror.
In Kiri Mitchell’s film work and sculptures, we see other versions of labour and horror. Images of the leaking maternal body in Milking It and menstruating body The Homecoming make way for excessive pathos as a family drama unfolds. While the multiple cast versions of cake blanks, bely the unpaid labour involved in the unpaid production of meals, and spectacular birthday cakes, the work speaks of excess, as the mother/infant relationship turns into one of grotesque proportions.
Fat is still a feminist issue, as Sarah Baird understands it. In her works, The Bertha Revolution body size and attitudes in general to women are displayed as entrenched today as ever. Baird works between posters and multiples, reproducing 255 replicas that stand 30cm high. A small mass-produced army, which are versions of a life-sized mannequin cast from women’s real, yet mismatched bodies. The posters are drawn on the computer, then printed on a machine designed by Baird. They present quotes, pieces of law, and stupid things people say, taken from the internet and replayed as banners, a call to arms, and an invocation of the number eight wire ingenuity and the knowledge of the secret world of the computer dweeb.
Michele Beevors’ works in this exhibition are reifications of a family drama. The title of the sculptures; egg, the Bride and mother-sucker may seem funny at first but this hides an all too real corporeality as the objects in silicone and fibreglass reflect back on to the viewers own bodily experience. Comprised of saddles, welcome mats and exercise balls the objects invitation to ride, touch, suck and walk all over, complicate the issue of the objectification of the female subject.
The works in this exhibition rely on multiple readings of installation/housework and shifts from literal to abstract and image to the phenomenological relationship of bodies in space. Many of the works depend on the transposition of humour and horror or a material sensuality, and craft traditions, to trap and ensnare the viewer. Many things have changed for some women in 45 years, but some things have not.
Re-Configure was held in conjunction with the Feminism, Figuration and Sculpture Symposium on 14 September 2017 at the Dunedin School of Art.
This exhibition is supported by The Dunedin School of Art and Otago Polytechnic, Research and Post-Graduate Studies Office.