‘Martha Rosler reads Vogue’
Alison Jones, Martha Rosler, Milly Thompson
12th March – 4th April 2010
Grey Area, 31 Queens Road, Brighton, UK, BN13XA
www.greyareagallery.org
Opening Hours:
Thursday - Sunday 1 - 5pm
Private View:
Friday 12th Feb 6 - 9pm
‘Martha Rosler Reads Vogue’ looks at the luxury magazine and the
veils through which the amorous glances of commodities charm and
fascinate with their illusions:
Identification, aspiration, wealth, social superiority, class appreciation
of the finer things in life, all these are imbricated in an orgy
of bourgeois values; the enduring symptom of women’s asymmetric relation
to power insistently realized through the private world as to-be-looked-at-ness
and being-for-others; the elliptic worlds of fashion, art, media,
entertainment and the nexus of money; the co-dependency of the artist producing recondite commodities possession of which bestows distinction within
this realm.
The works in the show by Alison Jones (ink drawings), Martha Rosler
(video) and Milly Thompson (prints) span 3 decades. The show reflects
on post-feminism as anti-feminism where invidious forms of oppression
are obsequiously returned through the discourse of the free market
and consumer culture. New forms of individuality and self-objectification
concur with the old forms of the to-be-looked-at-ness of femininity.
In the video Martha Rosler Reads “Vogue” (1982) Martha Rosler examines
the ideology of the fashion industry. The work coincides historically
with the moment a backlash against feminism was first identified
and the term Post-Feminist was coined. The values Rosler interrogated
then are now ubiquitous within popular culture, but granted legitimacy
through the seeming incorporation of feminism within mainstream politics.
Alison Jones depicts the ongoing asymmetry of women’s relation to
power through the parade of private wealth and culture as seen through
the lens of W magazine. Women are photographed contemplating the
high art photographs of Helmut Newton and Thomas Ruff. Newton’s models
pose undressed at sybaritic feasts or as objects on pedestal tables;
Ruff rephotographs anonymous internet pornography.
Milly Thompson’s graphic digital prints are aestheticised utterances
reiterating the subliminal messages of aspiration and desire. Spoken
in different registers from the romance of the French language to
the plain crude, the electric pulse of neon signs glow as if through
raindrops in the dark night of the soul at 3 o’clock in the morning.
Events:
Alison Jones and Milly Thompson in conversation
Saturday 20th March 7.30 pm.
Grey Area is a not-for-profit space in Brighton. Set up in 2006
it has become a platform for experimental contemporary art events
in a non-sterile project space. |
