Anxious Bodies
3 June - 2 July 2006
Annie Wilson, Briele Hansen,
Matthew Perkins, Sue Dodd
& Phil Dodd, Alex Martinis-Roe/Amy Miller,
Granular Synthesis (Germany),
Bruce Nauman (USA), Vito Acconci (USA), Gilbert &
George (UK) Dennis Oppenheim (USA), Geoffrey Hendricks (USA).
Curated by Matthew Perkins
Opens 6-8pm Friday 2 June 2006
Anxious Bodies is a collection of
performance/videos that use the body as the medium to express
concern about the human condition. The works can all be described
as evoking a certain degree of disjuncture; a level of anxiety
that manifests itself in the body.
The exhibition pays homage to early performance art and
provides the viewer with a platform from which to consider these
seminal works alongside Australian artists working in
performance/video today.
In the 60s – 70s the video camera became a collaborator
in the performances of several international artists whose use of
the lens became a way of making public the personal and intimate.
The artists featured in this exhibition follow, in part, this
lineage of the studio-based performance and fabricate their
actions for the lens with a kind of cinematic disposition.
The process of cinema and video has become a critical
component of the works creation. We begin to see this development
especially in the 1970s works of Bruce Nauman, Vito
Acconci, Dennis Oppenheim and the mid
1990s work by Granular Synthesis.
The Australian artists featured in this exhibition continue in
a similar vein. The central concerns in Annie
Wilson’s In Your Own Time
are endurance, movement and memory. “Each video motion
records a measurement of time, and each body represented is a
trace of time mediated through the viewer’s kinaesthetic
memory”.
In a humorous take on Victorian dioramas The
Drawing Room by Alex Martinis-Roe
& Amy Miller combines performance, video and
drawing to critique the gendering of the female body. These
artists carefully frame their bodily actions utilising an
in-camera level of production.
Brielle Hansen’s Where
shows a ghostly body that attempts to communicate outside its
electronic self. The body here is presented at human proportions
projected onto a doorway screen. There is a one-to-one
relationship between the viewer and the electronic body in this
site-specific work.
In Prick Matthew Perkins
transfers sharp pins from one screen to the next utilising only
his mouth. The artist explores the gendering of materials and
action and their relationship to identity. The performer is
carefully framed and the action takes place across two screens.
Gossip pop is both label and outcome for the collaborative
music performance and video enterprise of Sue Dodd
& Phil Dodd. The work, imbued with a
feminist mandate, transforms tabloid narratives of celebrity into
contemporary art versions of pop songs.
Free artist floor talks with Annie Wilson,
Briele Hansen and Matthew Perkins and live performance
by Alex Martinis-Roe & Amy Miller 3pm Saturday 10 June 2006
Gallery Hours are Tuesday – Sunday 1.00 – 6.00pm.
For further information and/or images please contact Programs
Manager Jan Duffy on 9209 6794 or email info@lindenarts.org
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Live performance: Alex Martinis-Roe & Amy Miller
Floor talks: Annie Wilson, Briele Hansen & Matthew Perkins
3pm Saturday 10 June
PERFORMANCE:
Alex Martinis-Roe and Amy Miller’s
performance The Drawing Room is a humourous take on Victorian
dioramas, using gesture to critique the gendering of the female
body. The Victorian architecture of Linden provides the perfect
interface between their ‘real time’, ‘real space’
performance and their video projections. In 2004 Alex and Amy
formed SisterHood, an ongoing collaborative project that uses
performance, video and drawing.
ARTISTS’ TALKS:
Annie Wilson will talk about endurance, movement
and memory in relation to her work In Your Own Time. These have
been central concerns in her recently completed PHD in the
Faculty of Art & Design at Monash University. Annie has been
exhibiting in Australia since 1998. She has also exhibited in
Singapore as part of Media Arts Asia Pacific and the Physics
Space in New Zealand.
Briele Hansen will discuss the exploration of
real and imagined physical realities and the relationships
between time, object and location in her work. She sees her work
as a kind of butterfly net of time codes and tape loops catching
the flutters of physical and psychological states. In 2004 Briele
received both a Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant and a Melbourne
City Laneway Commissions. In the same year she completed a Master
of Art by Research from RMIT.
Matthew Perkins will discuss the curatorial
premise for Anxious Bodies and the relationship of his work Prick
to this concept. He will also discuss the Video Data Bank (an
archive) from where the works of Bruce Nauman and Vito Acconci
were accessed and the need for similar conservation strategies to
be established within Australia. Matthew has recently been
involved in the Spatial Research Group (SRG) at Monash
University's Faculty of Art & Design where he is a lecturer
and studio co-ordinator in photomedia.
NO BOOKINGS REQUIRED
ADMISSION FREE
Linden - St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Arts
26 Acland Street St Kilda 3182
Telephone 03 9209 6794
Email: info@lindenarts.org
www.lindenarts.org
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