At the Museum of Modern Art there was a strange circle/spiral themed show (strange because of the simplistic-to-the-point-of-being-dumb idea, and yes, Spiral Jetty was included). One artist redeemed the show for me: Sigilit Landau, an Israeli video/performance artist and sculptor.
Above are stills from DeadSee (2005), a video of 500 watermelons strung together, floating in a spiral enveloping her nude body. Over the course of the five minute video loop the spiral unwinds, and she slowly floats out of the frame. Magical and weird.
In Barbed Hula (2000) she hula-hoops nude on the shores of the Mediterranean with barbed-wire, gradually cutting welts into her skin. It is mesmerizing and horrifying at the same time. I loved this work, really fresh but so connected to older female body artists like Yoko Ono, Marina Abramovic and Hannah Wilke. It functioned as a metaphor for both Israel and beach culture, and really thrashed the male (or any) gaze.
2 comments:
Kloe:
All those watermelons remind me of Turkey.
(Barbed wire Hula Hoops remind me of Pomona, except Pomona's not by the water.)
MJS
There's a review of this work in this month's Art in America; didn't get a chance to read it yet.
And Pomona=barbed wire?? Don't get it.
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