July 11 to September 1/First Floor Galleries
Unbecoming: The Private as Public Spectacle presents five artists whose work explores the ways in which media-produced spectacle has redefined (and at times collapsed) what is commonly referred to as "private" and "public" subjects and spaces. These artists primarily deal with pseudo-documentary, self-portraiture, and performance in various media-based formats such as photography (Elizabeth Campbell, Sarah Lucas, and Joseph Maida), multi-channel digital video (Kara Crombie), and video installation (Connie Walsh). The exhibition is presented in the first-floor galleries of the Philadelphia Art Alliance from July 11 through September 1, 2002 This exhibition was inspired by the Victorian-era rooms in which it is installed. The Philadelphia Art Alliance building was originally the residence of Samuel Price Wetherill and the PAA's founder, Christine Wetherill Stevenson, until it was acquired by the PAA and developed into a visual, literary, and performing arts center. The first floor galleries, more than any other area of the building, reflect the feel of the building's history as a private home. The coffered ceilings, fireplaces, and wainscoting are still the galleries' predominant physical features, though the spatial use has shifted from library, to members'-only exhibition space, to public gallery for contemporary art. Today, the physical features that signal a private home still coexist with this public function, just as the works included in Unbecoming examine what traditionally has been designated as private and public (and how these distinctions have shifted in recent decades). Theorists Guy DeBord and Jean Baudrillard have argued that this confusion of the private and the public is an effect of the pervasiveness of communication and the media in the production of the modern spectacle(1). As an insidious form of advertising, spectacle produces and perpetuates the need to consume abstracted ideals of economy and ownership, social status, and physical beauty(2). This ideal is brought to the public through various mediums, including new digital conduits such as satellite and the Internet, as well as more traditional forms such as advertising and television(3). The omnipresence of the spectacle today suggests that western culture is becoming increasingly defined by communication in all its forms(4). The media has become a primary influence in every area of life and thus, the spectacle encompasses the invasion and reorganization of work, leisure and recreation, private life, and personal conduct(5). The strain of contemporary media-based art on which this exhibition focuses--a strain that examines shifting conceptions of private and public--is both an effect of and made possible by the unprecedented, easy, and seductive access to visual information afforded by technology(6). The artists in Unbecoming rehearse and critique this culture's unfettered yet conditioned access to private subjects and spaces. In each project, mass-media techniques are referenced, either directly or indirectly, broken-down, and reframed or edited so that, paradoxically, we as viewers are made aware of the image's seductive, voyeuristic qualities. (In fact, the most recent media trends, such as "reality-based" or the use of web cams as subject matter for entertainment, have given unprecedented entry into the private lives of people engaging in daily activities.) These artists' strategies of resistance simulate mass media signs by addressing subjects or spaces once considered private, yet remain critical rather than complicit with the publicizing effects of the spectacle. The resistance to easy consumption of these seemingly private images is addressed by the artists through investigations of cultural norms, common-sense attitudes, and everyday activities. Rather than providing unmediated access to images, the very structure of each work in some way announces an invitation to be observed by the public. These strategies allow the artist to control viewers' access to what can be seen and the manner in which it is viewed. It is that schism between a practice controlled by the artist and the mass-media format in which it is initially received that creates an engaging dialogue between artist, object, and audience. In each of the projects presented in Unbecoming, it is the subject matter rather than the aesthetic qualities of the projects that addresses this shift. * * * Elizabeth Campbell's House (A Standardized Affectation for Telepresence) (2000), the installation project on which the photographic diptych in this exhibition is based, consisted of two full-scale bedrooms situated so that neither could be seen simultaneously. The rooms--containing beds, dirty clothes, knick-knacks, etc., despite their messy appearance, were identical. Campbell then photographed these rooms and placed the photos adjacent to each other, titling them simply "View of the First Room" and "View of the Second Room." House was transformed from its initial physical presence as an installation in a gallery to a two-dimensional photographic diptych. The projects duration involved the simulation of "the real" and its doubling, first by creating identical rooms, and second, by transforming them into images. In the installation, Campbell recreates what appears to be real bedrooms, yet questions their authenticity by doubling them. In the photographic diptych however, the viewer sees both rooms simultaneously, only to discover s/he is comparing an original to an original, rather than an original to a copy, adding yet another level of simulation to the project. In both versions of the project, Campbell offers a construction rather than true documentation of her bedroom (and thus, her private life). Campbell's construction seems best characterized by Hal Foster, who has discussed the impact of the media as a constructed mirror of reality: In the media, reality is a construct, a reality that on the one hand never existed and on the other was 'already written,' . . . the function of such spectacular representations is to erase them in an oblivion of overexposure . . .to reenact and disclose the hyperreality of a universe everywhere strangely similar to the original-where things are overtaken, duplicated by their own scenario(7). Unlike media images, which seemlessly attempt to simulate what is real and portray an "image-as-reality," Campbell duplicates these bedroom images to signal their inauthenticity. In this photographic diptych (as well as in other photographs by the artist of other personal effects), Campbell examines how identity can be implied through place and possessions, and she offers a constructed self-portrait told through consumer goods. Kara Crombie describes her multi-channel video/performance titled Kara Crombie (2001) as a film featuring "'Kara' and her two 'film-worthy' alter egos, Heidi and Cheer, as they are surveilled in a four-room apartment. . .'Kara' wanders around her apartment and watches movies obsessively, while Heidi and Cheer act out more dramatic narratives." These three characters, played by Crombie, film themselves throughout the video (their own films-within-the-film is projected in real time on the left and right of three screens). In addition, static cameras are placed in each room from above, recording the daily activities of the characters filming themselves and the process each one goes through in documenting their own activities. The distinctions of what is private and what is public are played out within the formal structure of the film. The act of self-documentation constitutes the metanarrative of the "real," i.e., Crombie making the video. Crombie signals these private or unrehearsed moments through scenes shot from a static camera, identifying moments that seem authentic and unperformed. The performances of Heidi and Cheer that seem intended for the viewer are distinguished by scenes shot from a hand-held camera that is moved from room to room. The multiple characters and levels of performed and unperformed events disrupt the video's voyeuristic qualities, and editing techniques such as time-delay of the same actions between channels contributes to the confusion of Crombie's private and public personalities. The multi-channel format suspends the viewer between the reality of the real Crombie and the edited copy of the spectacle presented for the camera. Sarah Lucas was initially associated during the 1990s with the Young British Artists (YBAs). Lucas is best known for her parodies of disposable trash culture through the appropriation of tabloid-style subjects and ideals of women portrayed in advertising. In fact, Lucas first gained recognition with her use of popular tabloids as the basis for her collages and her representation of the female form in photography and sculpture adorned with fruit, fried eggs, or junk. Lucas's series titled Self-Portraits, 1990-1998 (1999), features images of the artist in confrontational stances. Challenging gender stereotypes espoused in the mass media and in popular culture, her self-representations, such as Human Toilet II and Smoking, use humor and a colloquial vocabulary to parody commonly understood metaphors for private activities or sexual behavior. Unlike the other projects in this exhibition in which the public and private are simulated or performed, Lucas directly confronts sexual themes that are often considered private issues. Sexuality and its relationship to obsessive behaviors (such as smoking, defecating, and eating) are consistent and recurring themes in her work. Lucas pushes the logical boundaries of the relationship of photography as art to the mass media by addressing uncomfortable, inappropriate, and at times, taboo subjects in these portraits. Joseph
Maida's Ben series (1999-2001) is not obviously autobiographical,
since the subject of these photographs is not the artist, but
a model. "Ben" acts as the artist's surrogate, fusing
the subject/object, self/world dichotomy that parallels Maida's
use of private, interior spaces as staging areas for performed
activities. Maida projects his personal fantasies onto the subject
of Ben in order to "cast the viewer as a voyeur who watches
Ben play dress-up in his own private space." As
the viewer examines the individual images in the series, subtle
signs of their orchestration emerge. Their rigid compositions,
lack of action, and precise lighting disrupts the easy consumption
of the images as normative. A deeper uncanny drama seems to emerge
from works such as Ben, Fur (2001) or Ben, Fan (2000),
in which the actions of the subject remain enigmatic. Through
his control of both his surrogate Ben and the formal structure
of the photograph, Maida articulates his critique of the spectacle.
Maida thereby elides the normative structure of mass media imagery
as perfected reflections of reality. Connie Walsh's video installation Push Pull consists of three custom made wooden chairs with steel armatures each of which holds a video monitor. These synchronized seven-inch monitors transmit three different aspects of a single activity: a woman in formal dress pushing silver pins into her shoulders, knees, and ankles. The main activity on the three synchronized monitors consists of the woman putting on long white gloves, striking a pose, and pulling off the gloves, while another monitor presents the complete performance of placing pins into various parts of her body. The third monitor presents an edited composition of close-up images of the woman inserting the pins. The audio component consists of four mixed channels, including: a female voice holding her breath; the same voice repeatedly hushing; a fabricated puncturing sound; and directional dance cues from Betty White's how-to album, Waltz, Fox Trot, Lindy, Tango, and Cha Cha Cha. On one level, Walsh's video critiques the influence of certain social codes of behavior and norms for women, contrasting the public persona of the pseudo-debutante with the self-deprecating actions that she endures in private to achieve this perfected image. On another level, the intimate setting of the installation brings the discomforting self-mutilation closer to the viewer. The contrast between presenting Push-Pull in a public space and the intimacy of its individual viewing stations draws attention to the role of the spectator. As Walsh explains "the video medium encourages a level of voyeurism permitting the viewer a degree of privacy, while the spaces envelop its occupants, suggesting intimacy. The installations make us self-conscious of our bodies and ourselves as socially constructed subjects." Unbecoming examines one the major symptomatic effects of media spectacle: the oscillation of boundaries between socially constructed norms of public and private. Rather than belying the association of film, photography and digital media with the effects of media-spectacle, each artist in Unbecoming addresses this affiliation in different ways. Elizabeth Campbell and Joseph Maida explore the spaces associated with privacy and intimacy and the ways that these spaces constitute identity. For Crombie and Walsh, the flip-sides of private and public are performed within the structure of each film, by contrasting public personas (for Crombie, "Heidi" and "Cheer," for Walsh, the debutante) with seemingly private behaviors. Lucas' Self-Portraits series addresses in a more direct and confrontational way than the other artists the associations between sexuality, privacy, and the ideals espoused by popular media. The works in Unbecoming delve into the omnipresent influence of the media and spectacle and the ways in which it has effected the accepted dissolution between private and public. As Baudrillard so wisely anticipated, "we will all have to suffer this new state of things, this forced extroversion of all interiority, this forced injection of all exteriority that the categorical imperative of communication literally signifies(8). (1)
See Guy DeBord, Society of the Spectacle,1967.
Reprint. trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith (New York: Zone Books,1994),
and Jean Baudrillard "The Ecstasy of Communication,"
The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays in Post-modern Culture, ed.
Hal Foster (Seatlle: Bay Press, 1983): pp. 126-133.[BACK] (6)Baudrillard goes on to state: "[n]ow this opposition [between exterior and interior] is effaced in a sort of obscenity where the most intimate processes of our life become the virtual feeding ground of the media. Inversely, the entire universe comes to unfold arbitrarily on your domestic screen: all this explodes the scene formally preserved by the preservation of public and private, the scene that was played out in a restricted space, according to a secret ritual only known by the actors." Op. Cit., p. 130[BACK] (7)Hal Foster, "Contemporary Art and Spectacle" Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics, p. 92.[BACK] (8)Op.,
Cit., p.132[BACK]
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