Spirited discussion about New Zealand art and visual culture
In another room is Gemma Symeâs video work Stunt double, playing on a flat screen TV placed on an easel. I am not quite sure if the easel, with its connotations of painterliness and work-in-progress, is entirely at ease with the videoâs self-sufficient sculptural logic. The video is quite simple: a frontal mid shot of a womanâs hips and thighs, as she lowers various forms, predominantly vessels, into her plain underwear. It is cropped in such a way that the waistline of her underwear coincides with the upper bound of the screen, a careful choice that maintains an obliqueness to the operation. The wry queering of the everyday trappings of gender, and use of quotidian objects is reminiscent of Grant Lingardâs mid-90s work using menâs underwear, in particular his Hutch and Lure (http://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/collection/objects/99-421-19/). Formally minimal, with is focus on the relationship of the hand and body to object, Stunt double offers a humorous but rigorous examination of a bounded set of interactions.
The insertion of bottles into underwear is clearly a phallic pun, and the videoâs awkward and tentative nature suggests a parodying rather than a valorisation of the phallic signifier. It seems to be a lampooning of the Freudian myth of penis envy, with a title that puns both verbally on the word âcuntâ - perhaps operating as an homage to the 1980s London feminist theatre group Cunning Stunts or the later NZ collective of a similar name - while also offering a performative pun on the phallic function. By offering these shrouded vessels as an alternative, ludicrous substitute for the penis, Syme seems to suggest that by virtue of greater size or more insistent rigidity, they are a hyperreal stunt double, one more effective, more virile, than the original, offering the possibility of a sexual economy in which the penis has been superseded or displaced.
Both artists share a sense of bodily humour and vulnerability, and the pairing cleverly draws out and develops complexities within their practices. This is a strong early show from North, making a clear statement about the intent and approach of the new space.
Read more:Â http://eyecontactsite.com/2014/11/projects-in-north-christchurch#ixzz3K7OUdYcUÂ
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