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

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Caims, Steven, <strong>Moyra</strong> <strong>Davey</strong>, www.artforum.com, NYC, October 18, 2011.<br />

<strong>Moyra</strong> <strong>Davey</strong><br />

GREENGRASSI<br />

1a Kempsford Road (off Wincott Street)<br />

September 17–October 29<br />

<strong>Moyra</strong> <strong>Davey</strong>, Les Goddesses, 2011, still from a color video in HD, 61 minutes.<br />

<strong>Moyra</strong> <strong>Davey</strong>’s HD video Les Goddesses (all works 2011) is a nearly hour-long exploration of<br />

psychological space. Recorded in her New York apartment, the work feels by turns<br />

claustrophobic and melancholic as it charts the links between her life and that of eighteenthcentury<br />

British writer and protofeminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Binding the piece together is the<br />

artist’s on-screen narration, her repetition of a prerecorded monologue that she wrote, which<br />

is fed to her through a handheld recorder. <strong>Davey</strong>’s dependence on this device creates an<br />

uneasy and slightly unhinged mood; she stumbles to deliver the lines and keep up with the<br />

playback speed. As she listens to her own voice and repeats her own words, she effectively<br />

weaves an element of doubt over her story’s accuracy, primarily through an attempt to mirror<br />

dates and family relationships.<br />

The show also includes photographs <strong>Davey</strong> took on the New York subway, each capturing an<br />

unaware passenger in the act of writing. Part of the series “Subway – writers,” these hang on<br />

the gallery wall, bearing the stamps and labels of their unconventional delivery—<strong>Davey</strong><br />

mailed them individually and without wrapping. While the occurrences depicted in the<br />

photographs are uncommon, the personal isolation attained by putting pen to paper in public<br />

resonates with <strong>Davey</strong>’s domestic acts. Her identification with these strangers subtly links the<br />

genres of portraiture, biography, and autobiography, forming an uncertain and intriguing selfportrait.<br />

— Steven Cairns

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