Phantomwise (the exhibition title is drawn from a poem by Lewis Carroll) formed around a serendipitous event. The artist’s five year old daughter, trapped indoors by rain, and having just seen the Pocohontas video, put on an Indian Brave mask lying amongst the litter of playthings and insisted she be photographed. The result was the start of a series of collaborative portraits in which the use of half-masks, props and costumes (often as simple as a walking stick or a set of kid’s silk Chinese pyjamas) work together to create what the artist, in deference to the artfully staged Victoria photograph, calls tableau vivant but which, considered in terms of the performative, also constitute a kind of punctal death.… Continued
History is a narrative, where consecutive events determine one another. In the process, this analysed story suggests that human development is linear: it takes us from primitiveness to sophistication in a motif of progress that we cherish.
The master-narrative of progress is flattering because it tells us how advanced we’ve become in science and technology, plus cultural and social advances. The narrative is self-congratulatory; and from its implicit swagger, there is also a tacit authority, which claims ownership of progress for the authors of history.… Continued
L’ange du foyer
Elle a surgi dans l’herbe haute du bas-côté comme une cible à pigeon-vole. Aussi raide dans la nature de l ‘été. Pourtant elle est vêtue comme l’Ange du foyer de Max Ernst, avec des oripeaux flamboyants et des superpositions sur le buste, et chapeau en haut, les pieds nus sur les petits cailloux qui font le lit de l’asphalte.… Continued
Le Bouquet de Bruegel-le-Vieux
Bouquet improbable, impossible brassée, colonne désordonnée,
Millefleur
fleurs mûres et jeunes fleurs, apparaissent dans une nuit, une vision arrachée au cauchemar, entre lourds pétales, lassés, épuisés, transparente jeunesse, les unes dans le destin, les autres dans l’illusion de la vie,
fantaisie et fausse nature, fiction exercée par la main de l’homme, recréée, gaité sans souci, conjuration, magie pour la rétine,
bonheur du jour,
jardin rêvé, chevelure de fée, buisson du créateur,
explosion bucolique, efflorescence de l’éphémère,
cri silencieux de la couleur, costume d’Arlequin,
feu de fleurs, jardin échevelé,
costume dégrafé et riche habit, velours de nymphe,
promesse de la volupté, offrande calme et somptueuse, de la chevelure et de la toison, riche discours, parole libre.… Continued
The boys were walking the dirt track heading to the water early in the morning. One boy was walking beside a bicycle, the other slung a fishing net over his shoulder. The bicycle was heavy and rusted and prehistoric, constructed from scrap metal. As the boys rounded a bend on the track they came across an old man curled into a ball, in the dirt.… Continued
In Authority (2000), Polixeni Papapetrou juxtaposes photographs she has taken of friends wearing designer T-shirts with well-known examples of royal and aristocratic portraiture. Thus on either side of a picture of Sir Walter Raleigh we have a photo of an attractive Italian-looking woman twisting her hands in a Versace singlet and a powerfully-built dark-skinned man flexing his muscles in a Helmut Lang.… Continued