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You're invited...light boxes that lite up...Courtenay Place Park

An oddly affectionate gesture

We're all wondering what's up with the nipple pinching right? The following provides a  rundown of the provenance of this ol' painting from the curators at the Louvre:

Gabrielle d'Estrées and One of Her Sisters, unattributed, c. 1594, Oil on panel, H. 0.96 m; W. 1.25 m. Louvre, Paris.

"The candid gesture may be an allusion to Gabrielle's pregnancy and the birth in 1594 of César de Vendôme, the illegitimate son of Henry IV.

... Although very much in the style of the second school of Fontainebleau, this work remains anonymous. It shows the influence of Italian Renaissance art in the sensual contours of the bodies of the two young women, but also contains references to Flemish art, such as the intimacy of the background scene.

Italian influence: The trompe-l'oeil technique

The artist has made skillful use of the trompe-l'oeil technique, using an imitative, realistic style for on the sheet in the bath and the two curtains framing the scene. The trompe-l'oeil effect is accentuated by the view of what is taking place in the background room. Richly colored, unsettling in its presentation of two women in their bath, and mysterious in its use of symbol - the ring being shown by Gabrielle d'Estrées, for example - the sensuality of the painting made it a popular success. Sensuous yet marvelously delicate, the contours of the two naked bodies are highlighted by the lighting of the two women from the left and the contrast with the shadowy background.

An oddly affectionate gesture

The models have been identified as Gabrielle d'Estrées (1571-99), the favorite of Henry IV (1553-1610), and one of her sisters: the Duchess de Villars or Madame de Balagny. The oddly affectionate way in which the sister is pinching Gabrielle d'Estrées' right breast has often been taken as symbolizing the latter's pregnancy with the illegitimate child of Henry IV. This interpretation would seem to be confirmed by the scene of the young woman sewing - perhaps preparing a layette for the coming child - in the background. The picture was acquired by the Louvre in 1937".

The Louvre website, retrieved on 8 December 2010

And that ol' term for a picture within a picture:

Las Meninas, DiegoVelázquez. 1656, Oil on canvas, 318 cm × 276 cm (125.2 in × 108.7 in), Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Mise-en-abyme: Literally, "placement en abyme," where "en abîme" itself refers to the habit of representing a small shield inside a larger one in traditional heralds and coats-of-arms. This device is often part of the text's self-reflexivity. By extension, most any "story-within-a-story" situations can be called an example of mise-en-abyme. The device is especially common in modern literature, television and films, but it occasionally appears in art.

The Literary Link, retrieved on 8 December 2010

And while we're at it:

mise en scène |ˌmēz ˌä n ˈsen|
noun [usu. in sing. ]
the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play.
• the setting or surroundings of an event or action.
ORIGIN French, literally ‘putting on stage.’

Putting on stage...behind the scenes...to infinity...

emancipation in four dimensions

Female same-sex experience is a powerful lens through which to seek out the parameters of contemporary emancipation.

How might the practice of making art enable individuals and groups to seek out, understand or catalyse contemporary modes of emancipation? Each light box in All the Cunning Stunts is a working through and an instance of this question as art practice. When my friend [ ] saw light box pair [14/15] she said ‘there’s a girls with binoculars event in Courtenay Place and I’m invited.’

A street-level girls with binoculars event involves hunting, hiding, looking, wearing camouflage, distracting and being distracted by the extraordinary, or something that stands out, or just the strangeness of the ordinary – the things we take for granted, that we want, or need to own, buy, sell, hold, touch, and believe in.

In these works emancipation resides in a resolve to find alternatives to all-purpose philosophies, behaviours, voices, despotic sub-clauses, even colourful and persuasive bureaucracies that substitute their own Modus operandi in place of emancipation, while still working in its name.

In fact, objects and images in these light boxes work as depots in which voices jostle for attention, sometimes in alignment, in altercation, in curiosity and more often than not in rigorous party-mode.

The traces and out-loud splashes of everyday hedonism reveal emancipation to be always up ahead, in effect celebrating without us. We can’t possibly shake emancipation’s hand, congratulate it on a good year or, as advertising would have us believe, bask in its ‘Out now’ status.

All the Cunning Stunts validates a second look at hedonism because the works readily acknowledge that emancipation is not a place, just as Courtenay Place is not strictly a girls with binoculars event, it merely prompts the conditions of life to make an appearance, to dance, to reveal spectacular fallibility and unbelievable nuance.

The 16 light boxes can further be read as one undulating work. All the Cunning Stunts uses the knowledge and practice of four individuals to track what it is like to ride in the wake of an emancipation that can’t be seen, or even accurately imagined, translated or put to trial, but that is a condition for the perception, declaration and artful practice of everyday extraordinary communal, if not common, life.

What can be said of All the Cunning Stunts is that emancipation is very much something that we are able to play ball with through the practice of art.

Title, Image, Sound-Bite and Text

All the Cunning Stunts

All the Cunning Stunts is a multi-voiced collaborative text and image-based work which tackles the confounding intricacies of lesbian subjectivity through objectivity - like a medal-winning swim team.

All the Cunning Stunts is a medley-voiced collaborative exhibition viewable across eight light-boxes in Courtney Place, Wellington. Four New Zealand artists have developed All the Cunning Stunts to coincide with the advent of the 2nd Asia Pacific Outgames and in response to a curatorial brief to address ‘contemporary homosexuality’. The potential of objects, images and language to linger on the seen, unrepresentative, notional, fictional, unmediated, idealistic, real, and confounding intricacies of female same-sex experience, take the lead in the work. All the Cunning Stunts aims to emerge from today’s chlorinated slipstream as a medal-winning swim team.

//---------------------------------//

Good Morning! Great to see all the activity that happened while we were dreaming! I don't want to spend too much more time on this press stuff, as I think we are really close, and trying to make small tweaks between five folks can take perhaps more time than is needed at this stage..... so Clare and I put all our highlights together in one post to get a solid sense of what is accumulating.

Our preferences once seeing it all together would be for:

1. All the Cunning Stunts (has more of an adventurous narrative implied)

2. Liz's image + caption? (seems like the clearest and bestest option to us, and something that parallels our plans for the light boxes in a confident way)

3. Sound bite (MJ's last version!)

4. Longer text (Really love your longer text Rachel -- esp. clorinated slipstream which will be my name of choice when I finally start my death-metal band -- and I made a few small changes which you can see in the text above)

As the deadline for this is while Clare and I are sleeping, we are both cool for Liz, Rachel and Mary-Jane to make a final call about the title/image/sound-bite/text. Preferences as per this post, but both Clare and I are super happy for it to be in your handses.

Alright!

intervention as invitation

 

test - blog-roll look

followed by interventions in the archive

 

soundbite and soundbite+

I like the soundbite as preferred by Marnie, Clare and M-J (just posted)!

In terms of a slightly more in-depth offering for other media, such as a press release, I present the following. It also includes the words, 'female same-sex experience' as an alternative to lesbian subjectivity...thought I'd offer something up for linguistic debate. I'm happy with the word lesbian, though feel 'female same-sex experience' reflects what I want to be most vocal about in this show, rather than an identity/category politics (though that of course comes into it!), which 'lesbian' suggests for me.


All Cunning Stunts is a medley-voiced collaborative exhibition viewable across eight text and image-infused light-boxes in Courtney Place, Wellington. Four New Zealand artists have developed All Cunning Stunts to coincide with the advent of the 2nd Asia Pacific Outgames and in response to a curatorial brief to address ‘contemporary homosexuality'. The potential of objects and the movement of objects to linger on the seen, unrepresentative, notional, fictional, unmediated, idealistic, real, and confounding intricacies of female same-sex experience, take the lead in the work. All Cunning Stunts aims to emerge from today’s chlorinated slipstream as a medal-winning swim team.

Soundbite II and title

All the Cunning Stunts is a multi-voiced collaborative text and image-based work which tackles the confounding intricacies of lesbian subjectivity through objectivity - like a medal-winning swim team.

I have just changed my mind and prefer 'All the Cunning Stunts' - although it doesn't look as nice typographically as 'All Cunning Stunts' but whatever the consensus is, I'll run with it.

This is a great soundbite - I have just tweaked it slightly by adding a dash and editing out 'set to'. Loving the sporty language!

Now where are we at with the postergirl image? 

Title: to 'the' or not to 'the'

Great to arrive at a title. Over the last couple of days I have had one question about it, whether it should it read:

All the Cunning Stunts

or

All Cunning Stunts

So, what is more cunning ...with 'the' or without 'the'?
My thoughts are that by removing the article from the title, it suggests action versus object or objectification. Without 'the', perhaps the title can also refer to something more inclusive, than referring to a separate group of people or actions ...in turn suggesting a statement more pluralistic and inclusive group of people or actions surrounding the light-box context ...of womenhood? ...of social action?

Sound Bite

1. All the Cunning Stunts is a multi-voiced collaborative text and image-based work which is set to tackle the confounding intricacies of lesbian subjectivity through objectivity like a medal-winning swim team.

2. All the Cunning Stunts is a collaborative work specifically developed at the site of Courtenay Place, on the occasion of the 2nd AsiaPacific Outgames. Bringing together the practices of four artists, All the Cunning Stunts is set to tackle the confounding intricacies of lesbian subjectivity in public space (with bells on).

3. The women cruise in Courtney Place. They stare from café windows, stagger from bars, they meet each other’s gazes, they flash their eyes, they look back. They are seen, unrepresentive, notional, fictional, unmediated, idealistic, and real.

How do these sound? Please comment, alter, deface, etc. I am happy to work on this more before Monday..... Mary-Jane, I hope our two-cents on the sound-bite is useful for you.

Bitsy and Marnie, 2009

PS.

medley
noun
a medley of Beatles songs | a vegetable medley assortment, miscellany, mixture, mélange, variety, mixed bag, grab bag, mix, collection, selection, potpourri, patchwork, bricolage; motley collection, ragbag, gallimaufry, mishmash, jumble, hodgepodge, salmagundi.

An image to say hi with

Ok, here we go.... first, close your eyes. Close them. Are they closed? Good, we can continue. Imagine all the cunning stunts, see them in all their stunningness. Now open...

Here are the finalists for New Zealand's New Cunning Stunts:

















I am thinking perhaps this image could have mirrored reflections or some such party-like texture applied to the surface of the panels... or perhaps a collection of images from the blog?

This series is all good, so my selection of this one was based on a text image combination I thought could work on its own. But, actually, I am pulled towards thinking about this image (or a working of) as a light-box image.

As is. For sure.

This would need a little bit of a crop. A chop here and there.

Looking through the blog, I saw this image, and I think it could be an option, but perhaps without the text? As it might be a double title kind of situation?

I have a pull towards this image. It feels like a magic mix of cheeky/funny/serious/slick/tactile/awkward/composed. All the makings for one sexy woman... hehehe.

APPLAUSE!

Call 0800 $$$$ now to place your vote or suggest other potentials.

TITLE!!!!

title..... green house.... fireworks.....contemporary lesbian - what does it mean to position ourselves as artists in public space as lesbian artists, authors? a character that's being tested in this context - she was never gay untill 2 days ago when she came out on the blog..... community voice.... the doubling of the gay.... everyday grapplings, dealings..... homosexual shroud..... prescribed single multi dimensional space... gay shroud.... all the cunning stunts!!!!

tit titl title

Hey the pressure is on for me to produce the title for the installation by midday tomorrow!!! What are the chances?? How are things progressing in that department? I can't see anything definitive in recent posts...

The other pressure is the sound bite - I think I can probably come up with something that I will run by you today/tomorrow.

And the other other pressure is an image. Marnie and Sarah are the poster girls at the moment, and we can continue to use them if you like. But any chance of an image?

Eve also wants to have the images selected by 22 November - it was formerly the 29th November... how is that looking?

Outgames and images

The Outgames people want to publish the images that were included in the proposal to the WCC on their website to announce the project. Are you happy for your images to be reproduced there?  [ ... I thought I should ask... ]