Thursday, June 19, 2008

Rebecca Belmore

Rebecca Belmore, June 7-October 5, 2008

Rebecca Belmore, White Thread, 2008.
Image: vanartgallery.bc.ca

Through powerful performances that address history and memory and gestures that evoke a sense of place, Rebecca Belmore is known for creating multi-disciplinary works that reveal a long-standing commitment to the politics of identity and representation.
This exhibition comprises a selection of work that spans the course of Belmore’s significant career, drawing out connections between early performances and later sculptures, photographs and videos through recurring metaphors that are as provocative as they are poignant.
In Belmore’s work, the classical reclining figure, for example, is bound in cloth, suspended or scarred, disrupting an otherwise passive gaze and asking viewers to reflect on their relationship to the practice of looking.
Creation or Death
To see Rebecca Belmore perform check out the video (see below). "She's bound at the ankle and wrist, stands in an enclosed courtyard that is lined on two sides by a staircase. Suddenly, she raises her hands above her head and yells in inarticulate frustration at the sky. Falling to her knees, she crawls to a pile of sand and begins to draw it out in a line toward the foot of the staircase. She continues on hands and knees up the stairs, drawing out the line of sand from piles on each landing, working with the intense concentration of one possessed by the need to complete the act of creation. Her struggles are punctuated by the grunts and heavy breathing of sheer physical effort. At the top, the act complete, Belmore gets to her feet and once again cries out, but now her cries are of triumph."

The video HERE.
Rebecca Belmore's website HERE.

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