 Embody
27 February - 19 April 1998
Contemporary sculpture, painting and photography by some of New Zealand's leading
artists will feature at the McDougall Art Annex in Embody, an exhibition examining
body-referencing works from the Gallery's collection. The artists in Embody all, either
overtly or obliquely, use the human body as a tool with which to both suggest and
reference the outside world.
Vessel shapes are used in many cultures as symbols of tribal or genealogical continuity
and the phallus-like forms of Christopher Braddock's Vessel have strong connections to the
fertility symbols used by many ancient societies. Making reference to the boat, or vessel,
used by Charon to ferry the bodies of the dead across the river Styx in Classical
mythology, Vessel represents the journey from bodily existence towards spiritual life, the
transition upon which the Christian doctrine of the crucifixion is based.
In other works, the body is suggested through its very absence, creating an atmosphere
of alienation and isolation. Grant Lingard's Flag and boots makes playful but poignant
comments about the homosexual experience within New Zealand society, using symbolism which
is both political and highly personal. His flag, made up entirely of Jockey Y Fronts,
counteracts the enforced invisibility of gay culture with what Giovanni Intra has
described as "a secret matrix of erotic communication", its unrelenting
whiteness suggesting society's obsession with homogeneity and intolerance of variation.
The sheer number of underpants stresses the individual lives which are often blanketed by
a single overwhelming stereotype. Lingard’s football boots modelled from scented
white soap, link the apparently unlinkable - femininity and rugby - in a poignant reminder
of the highly prescribed and cliched nature of gender in this country.
Caroline Menzies Flotage, which consists of a breathing mask,
a life jacket, deflated lungs and a kind of corset (all fashioned
from kelp), provides a curious life support system for an absent
body, using the body in water as a metaphor for life and death.
Menzies' work is deeply ambiguous - water is represented as both
essential to life and as a threat to it, and the valves and masks
we use to keep ourselves alive when underwater or in old age are
just as capable of restricting the flow of air. A Menzies anchoring
device can keep us safely moored, or drag us down beneath the
waves. Flotage's suspended state on the Gallery wall is equally
enigmatic - has it been washed up on the beach with all the other
flotsam and jetsam of wreckage or simply hung up to dry until
it is used again?
This exhibition was held at the Robert McDougall Contemporary Art Annex in the Arts Centre.
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