Anxious Bodies
In the 60s – 70s the video camera became a collaborator
in the performances of several international artists documenting
their often private ritualised actions. These artists began to
explore new forms of cognition through time-based medium such as
performance and video with the aim to liberate the productive
forces of the unconscious and unleash repressed conflicts and
desires. Many of these artists utilised the body as an instrument
for expression and were interested in how action and movement
over time influenced consciousness.
This exhibition proposes an historical continuum with such
artists as Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Gilbert and George, Denis
Oppenheim and Geoffrey Hendricks among others. While these
artists documented their action through photographic or video
means the lens became a way of making public the personal and
intimate. The artists featured in this exhibition follow, in
part, this performative tradition. In addition these artists
begin to fabricate their actions for the lens demonstrating a
kind of cinematic disposition. Akin to the performed photograph,
the actions are performed for the camera with an aesthetic in
mind that is driven through the medium of video. The process or
methodology of cinema and/or video which includes pre-production
(scripting, storyboarding); production (lighting, framing,
tracking, panning); post-production (editing, compositing, colour
correcting, keying, sound creation); have become a critical
component of the works creation. The performance and the process
of image capture are negotiated simultaneously.
The collection of works in Anxious Bodies is
primarily concerned with the human condition and use the body in
performance and video as the medium to express this concern.
These works can all be described as evoking a certain degree of
disjuncture, a level of anxiety centered around the body that
arises from internal conflicts. Be it performance or
installation, the moving image and the body are the constant
medium used to explore a multi faceted concern for the corporeal.
Anxious Bodies aims to create a trajectory for the
viewer to navigate works by artists whose process has utilised
video to explore the paradoxical nature of the body.
Matthew Perkins
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