Mark's rationale for his response to my last artwork is as follows:
I would refer to the last work as 'anti beauty defence mechanism #11'. It began as a a humorous take on the beauty pageant sash. It diverted via protective clothing, a screen that is both pliable, and wearable. The piece is not meant only for a child. I decided to add the quasi floral element to the front cross. I also love there sense of it being slightly bedraggled, sad and definitely odd. I did have some hesitation in completing it but someone viewed it handing from a ceiling hook and was impressed by it's architectural strength.
These are my initial observations when I received the piece:
The sash/braces/garment made from fiber glass mesh, mirrors a suspended baby bouncer, however since mesh is usually fixed onto fly-wire doors it suggests a form of protection ~ porous, but strong. Using this particular fabric to construct a wearable object may be considered against fashion or unfashionable, unless of course you consider it alongside those open weave, black, fishnet t/shirts individuals wore in the 1980s. The play between interior and exterior and the sculptural aspects of this work speaks of spatiality and suggests that this work refers to Mark's present situation, a kind of self-consciousness, which broaches the philosophical and resonates strongly with Foucault's question: 'What is my actuality? What is the meaning of this actuality? And, what am I doing when I speak about this actuality? (The Politics of Truth, USA: semiotext(e), 2007:86).
At first glance it seems to be a rather warlike pair of Baldrics :)
ReplyDeleteThat may well be, but remember I only saw the object when it arrived in the mail, I was not privy to the photograph of Mark wearing it. Don't you think it is too see-through to be a baldric? I did think, after seeing the photo that it alluded in some ways to the figure of a hero, but as Mark said he was thinking of a sash on a beauty queen! But the ambiguity of such is interesting in terms of gender identity.
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