2 June 2006
Anxiety that manifests itself in the body is explored in a new performance video exhibition curated by Monash Art and Design Photomedia Studio Coordinator Matthew Perkins.
The exhibition, Anxious Bodies, which includes the work of past and present Monash students, also provides a unique insight into the history of performance videos. Several of the videos from the 1960s and 1970s -- sourced by Mr Perkins from the United States -- are on display at the exhibition at the Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Arts.
Mr Perkins said he wanted to show the works in an historical context and alongside contemporary Australian peers.
The first performance videos emerged when performance artists taped their work, but today many artists were constructing performance especially for video, he said.
Mr Perkins said Anxious Bodies brought the focus to the body as the site for defining the physical and mental self.
In his own exhibition piece, Prick, Mr Perkins uses his lips to transfer pins with two sharp ends between two mounds of clay in images projected across separate perspex screens.
According to Anne Marsh's catalog essay, the work - that is eventually marked with the artist's own blood - is difficult to watch. However its title sexualizes the action and opens up a dialogue about phallocentric acts of courage, she writes.
In other Monash artists' works featured in the exhibition, PhD student Annie Wilson's In Your Own Time, depicts a dancer, raising questions of endurance, movement and memory.
The Drawing Room, by Masters student Alex Martinis-Roe and former student Amy Miller is a humorous take on Victorian dioramas, using performance, video and drawing to critique the way the female body is represented.
The two will also present a live performance at 3pm on Saturday 10 June at the gallery where Mr Perkins and other artists will be speaking.
What:
Anxious Bodies exhibition
Where: Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Arts, 26 Acland St, St Kilda, Tues-Sun, 1pm-6pm.
When: Saturday 3 June -- Sunday 2 July. Opening night, Friday 2 June, 6pm-8pm. Live Performance and artist talks 3pm Saturday 10 June.
For more information contact Melissa Marino, Media Communications, on + 61 3 9905 2085 or 0437 121 978 or Mr Matthew Perkins on matthew.perkins@artdes.monash.edu.au
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