Powerplay

23 october - 3 november 2002
michelle perrett tara morelos brennan king fransicso fisher paul donald brent hallard

curated by alice mcauliffe and lydia rodrigues

In keeping with the spirit of the cultural engagements of the Gay Games 2002 Powerplay focuses on the theme of inclusion. This show presents varied approaches to the concept of identity and selfhood in the contemporary age. In an ever-changing society there have been many pressures placed on how we traditionally define identity. In this show the works, on the whole, highlight these shifting borders and visually represent, as ever changing, the concept of identity and the collectives against which we commonly define ourselves.

There are many different forms of identity. In the simplest form it is the concept of selfhood, how one sees oneself. Collective identity has become, post 9-11, an increasingly important theory. As positive aspects of community and nationhood tighten also do the flip side of this change, excessive nationalism and xenophobia.

In the work of Francisco Fisher we see a strong statement against the oppression of homosexuals. 'Die Faggot' and 'Dirty Poofta' suggest the all too common verbal and physical abuse by individuals as well as the more insidious disapproval of society as a whole. In the works however, there is an interesting ambiguity as to whether the figure is the victim or the abuser. This seems to highlight the absurdity of strong collectives when it is clear we are also in other ways similar. What does define gender; is it merely bodily and corporeal concerns or also social and cultural ones?

Francisco’s work also suggests another concept of identity. The logos, that deliver the vilification, are presented in a highly designed and commodified way, almost as if they were logos from t-shirts. In this era it seems we consume our identity instead of living and experiencing it. Similarly this is present in the work of Paul Donald and Brent Hallard where both use this concept and design to discuss the possible dispersal of identity through the pressures of mass media and consumer culture.

Both Donald and Hallard offer hope for the crisis of identity in novel ways. In the past Donald’s work has centred upon paintings and objects, often brightly coloured, alluding to Abstract expressionism, Rococo shapes and mass production. Donald’s hoop pine furniture works make reference to the ikea-like mass produced item but here with many twists: each of the four legs is turned slightly differently, the table tops are at angles and the edges have the ornamentation of the Rococo. The individual furniture triumphs through small acts of subversion.

Hallard, too, creates mass produced work but offers it as a utopian and collective art. It is outside the commodified market place, they are gifts given in this show for coupons but in the past he has offered them for nothing over the net. Hallard seems to suggest the necessity of some sort of identification with a group or collective culture. As the established forms of these groups break down, church, community groups etc. cyberspace can become a contemporary substitute.

In Michelle Perrett’s work, perhaps the darkest piece in the show, little hope is offered for the reclamation of identity. In this and other work Perrett has explored Foucault’s concept of the panopticon. It represents a society under constant surveillance and the disciplining and normalising effect of being the object of the gaze. The hospital for Perrett becomes a metaphor for a modern disciplinary power apparatus, like a prison or school, based on isolation, individuation, and supervision. Indeed the clear kidney shaped vessels suggest this surveillance continues into even the bodies of patients, showing their intestines, veins and arteries.

In the final room we see the sensual and the corporeal as the site of subversion against the repression of the individual identity. Tara Morelos highlights the identity lost through the body covered. The fetishistic latex, red, and the controller/protector standing on the side all represent the identity subsumed by social control and technology. The individual human form is lost and replaced by a vulnerable yet generic humanoid shape. However, the sensuality of the object, of the body and the latex and the fetishistic like qualities of the work, open the door to the reversal of this oppression.

In Brennan King’s work the oppression of the male through concepts of manhood is central. Following recent theories regarding the reappraisal of masculinity King subverts the common perception of what is male by using sport as a metaphor for this repression. He inverts the old football and produces a vaginal object still, however, placed at the end of the shaving mirror apparatus. King succeeds in opening up the parameters of what defines the gendered identity through this confusion.

Powerplay has at its heart the idea that in a contemporary world our sense of identity has been repressed or dispersed and decentred. These works offer to the viewer a means to escape and strategies to subvert such a crisis of identity.

Oliver Watts