Too Much Cheese, Not Enough Bread. International Artists at the Michaelis Gallery
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Sorry.
Review coming later.
posted by Robert Sloon at 1:04 AM
Sorry.
Review coming later.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
posted by Robert Sloon at 1:04 AM
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6 Comments:
good malcolm. bad malcolm. this is malcolm.
Unsettling, unusual, original
Video classics deliver powerful performance
May 15, 2007
By Melvyn Minnaar
Exhibition: Videos by Bruce Nauman and Charles Atlas at the Michaelis Gallery, until Friday. Melvyn Minnaar reviews.
In 1967, American Bruce Nauman, in his twenties, constructed a neon artwork spelling out in bright light its title, and with some cheekiness, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign).
He hung it in his studio's shop window and has since watched passersby puzzle over whether he is taking the mickey.
Today Nauman is heralded as an artist, but many admirers quietly hope for a Baudrillardian explanation when the going get rough, faced with his art.
Nauman often works with words and speech, and the famous video diptych in the Michaelis Gallery on Hiddingh campus, Good Boy Bad Boy (1985), is, by now, a classic example of how he forces new meaning and significance from even the clichéd. Words and sentences clash and break up. From the contrived and chaotic, something new is constructed, possibly revealing mystic truths.
Standing in front of the two monitors, placed to face the viewer head-on, one is carried along by the two actors, male and female, who perform the repetitive, simple phrases. The power is difficult to explain. So, too, is the mesmerising effect of the other video, Charles Atlas's astounding short piece Teach (Leigh) (1992/99), which features the great British drag performance artist Leigh Bowery, who died of Aids in 1994
.
It was also in 1967 that Aretha Franklin recorded her torch-song hit, Take a Look, which intones: Take a look in the mirror/ Look at yourself/ But don't you look too close/'Cause you just might see/ The person that you hate the most.
To these lyrics, Atlas made two close-up video portraits of Bowery lip-synching. Shaved bald, except for a odd Kabuki-style stand-up hair piece, full doll-like make-up, the performance artist wears false lips.
There is passion and performance as the lyrics turn dangerously dark: Brothers fight brothers/ And sisters wink their eyes/ While silver tongues/ Bear fruit of poison lies.
It is a haunting and unsettling image, blending the gross with the sensual, the fake with the fragile, squaring the irony of fierce body art with the secrets and intimacy of the mask.
One is tempted to put out a warrant for all those South African artists running around with video cameras, and force them to take note of these two classics: this, my video-arty friends, is how you do it. You grab, apply your mind and go for the performance, the unsettlingly, the unusual and the original.
Unsettling, unusual, original
Video classics deliver powerful performance
May 15, 2007
By Melvyn Minnaar
Exhibition: Videos by Bruce Nauman and Charles Atlas at the Michaelis Gallery, until Friday. Melvyn Minnaar reviews.
In 1967, American Bruce Nauman, in his twenties, constructed a neon artwork spelling out in bright light its title, and with some cheekiness, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign).
He hung it in his studio's shop window and has since watched passersby puzzle over whether he is taking the mickey.
Today Nauman is heralded as an artist, but many admirers quietly hope for a Baudrillardian explanation when the going get rough, faced with his art.
Nauman often works with words and speech, and the famous video diptych in the Michaelis Gallery on Hiddingh campus, Good Boy Bad Boy (1985), is, by now, a classic example of how he forces new meaning and significance from even the clichéd. Words and sentences clash and break up. From the contrived and chaotic, something new is constructed, possibly revealing mystic truths.
Standing in front of the two monitors, placed to face the viewer head-on, one is carried along by the two actors, male and female, who perform the repetitive, simple phrases. The power is difficult to explain. So, too, is the mesmerising effect of the other video, Charles Atlas's astounding short piece Teach (Leigh) (1992/99), which features the great British drag performance artist Leigh Bowery, who died of Aids in 1994
.
It was also in 1967 that Aretha Franklin recorded her torch-song hit, Take a Look, which intones: Take a look in the mirror/ Look at yourself/ But don't you look too close/'Cause you just might see/ The person that you hate the most.
To these lyrics, Atlas made two close-up video portraits of Bowery lip-synching. Shaved bald, except for a odd Kabuki-style stand-up hair piece, full doll-like make-up, the performance artist wears false lips.
There is passion and performance as the lyrics turn dangerously dark: Brothers fight brothers/ And sisters wink their eyes/ While silver tongues/ Bear fruit of poison lies.
It is a haunting and unsettling image, blending the gross with the sensual, the fake with the fragile, squaring the irony of fierce body art with the secrets and intimacy of the mask.
One is tempted to put out a warrant for all those South African artists running around with video cameras, and force them to take note of these two classics: this, my video-arty friends, is how you do it. You grab, apply your mind and go for the performance, the unsettlingly, the unusual and the original.
Sorry.
I really liked the good boy bad boy video, but I thought Leigh Bowery was a pain in the ass. That camp shit is just so exaggerated it flattens out the meaning of anything with overkill.
Dear anonymous what a drag, I am sure that your opinion of camp & Leigh Bowery wll have the man turning on his cloud. I'm sure, that as a real man he could give you a pain in the arse...
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