Teasdale, Paul, Moyra Davey, Frieze, #44, London ... - Greengrassi

More documents

Recommendations

Info

MUSE This page, Moyra Davey: The Coffee Shop, The Library, 2011, 25 chromogenic prints, approx. 64 by 93 inches overall. Museum of Modern Art. Opposite top, Davey in her video Les Goddesses, 2011, 61 minutes. Opposite bottom, Peter Hujar’s Portraits in Life and Death. Photo Moyra Davey. All photos this article courtesy the artist, Murray Guy, New York, and Greengrassi, London. He wrote, cryptically: “as time goes by, it is especially this clock that becomes a luxury it is difficult to do without.” But I was trying to stuff too many ideas into the project, and kept searching in vain for a structure that would hold them all. I was also spending a lot of time in Parisian cemeteries, not just the famous ones like Montparnasse, Père Lachaise and the Catacombs, but also the smaller, lesser-known sites— the village graveyards of pre-unified Paris, for instance—taking pictures and randomly videotaping some of the graves. One day in April, the eighth month of my stay, out of the blue, I began to think of Peter Hujar’s Portraits in Life and Death (1976), a touchstone work that Jason introduced me to many years ago. The book has a simple two-part structure: black-and-white portraits of Hujar’s friends, mostly reclining, followed by a short section at the end, 11 photographs taken in the catacombs of Palermo. It hit me like a heavenly anointment that I should follow Hujar’s example and compose the video in two parts: portraits of each of the nine Paris cemeteries, followed by a section in which my friends (including Alison and Jason) discuss the mysterious Walter Benjamin letter. I titled the video My Necropolis (2009). The second example of a muse— a textual one in this case—came about quite recently. I was invited by MoMA to photograph in their libraries and archives, with a view to making a piece for the current “New Photography” show. I was frankly a bit doubtful, as I’m not so drawn to modernist architecture, but I decided nonetheless to visit the spaces with my camera. Waiting to be shelved was a stapled book, coffee coffee (1967), by Aram Saroyan, its title appearing in large letters. I snapped a picture, and later, looking at a small print of this image, I remembered a note I’d made in a journal sometime in the past 10 years: “the coffee shop, the library.” (It is either from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space or George Perec’s collection Species of Spaces; I haven’t found the journal with my handwritten note.) But the conjunction of these two public spaces (of consumption) had always intrigued me. I’d always meant to write or make a work about that, and it dawned on me that this was the perfect opportunity. Suddenly I had an idea for a piece I could make that would incorporate the images of MoMA’s library spaces. To be making something as yet unformed, unknown—to be living in a deferred moment—is the most seductive way to exist. When we stop this forward motion, we risk being sucked into a world of stasis and nonbeing (as Virginia Woolf would say). Muse is everything that allows you to forget the past, that projects you into a state of imminence. MOYRA DAVEY is a New-York based artist and writer. JANUARY’12 ART IN AMERICA 41
Bell-Jones, Gareth, Moyra Davey’s ‘Les Goddesses’, art agenda, NYC, Nov. 6, 2011. View of Moyra Davey, "Les Goddesses" greengrassi, London, 2011. Moyra Davey’s “Les Goddesses” GREENGRASSI, London 17 September–29 October 2011 Black-and-white images of young androgynous women illustrate the introduction to Moyra Davey’s video Les Goddesses (2011). Wearing tight white t-shirts and cropped black hair, they stare directly into the lens. Davey speaks over the images in monotone, and introduces the female lead of the film, the protofeminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as her children and her lovers. Various shots of the same four figures, together or paired in front of a white colorama, individually on turf, against a brick wall: the characters Davey tells us of become the young women that we see. Davey’s new video is just over an hour long and is served in chapters. Title screens herald each section and footage alternates from close detail of photographs and books, static shots of Davey’s loft apartment, and shots from her windows. It’s unclear if she has just moved to the place. The apartment feels like a lonely Sunday afternoon. Quiet and contemplative, melancholic even. Bookshelves are half empty and frames packed in bubble-wrap. Davey paces the apartment carrying a handheld recorder. One white headphone is held to her ear, the other lies dangling. She is determined and concentrated as she speaks, making sure she follows the recording. Unpaid bills are attached to the walls with masking tape; next to them is a drawing of a tree, roots like lank hair. Mary attempted suicide with laudanum in 1795 but was saved by Gilbert Imlay, the subject of her unrequited love. Her daughter Fanny
Page 3: POLYVALENCE BY MOYRA DAVEY THE TERM
Page 7 and 8: Teasdale, Paul, Moyra Davey, www.ar
Page 9 and 10: Caims, Steven, Moyra Davey, www.art
Page 11 and 12: Mousse 26 ~ Moyra Davey (A) (I) (E)
Page 14 and 15: Mousse 26 ~ Moyra Davey gigiotto de
Page 16 and 17: Mousse 26 ~ Moyra Davey Newsstand N
Page 18 and 19: Mousse 26 ~ Moyra Davey From top, c
Page 21: MARCH2010
Page 24: These memories return to me at a mo
Page 30 and 31: BEST BOOKS OF 2008 SHANNON EBNER If
Page 32: Murray Guy 453 West 17 Street New Y

Teasdale, Paul, Moyra Davey, Frieze, #44, London ... - Greengrassi

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?