Re-tard examines the relationship between, abstraction, children’s recreational structures and the grotesque.. Utilising commercially manufactured canvas props set up as a tableaux in the gallery space, the work consists of two modes, an opening performance and a subsequent interactive installation. Three large coloured panels are positioned diametrically across the gallery space. The panels have slots where my body and the bodies of the performers penetrate the surface. Each panel has two air holes where an assortment of attachable components can be fitted or removed. As in a children’s fun house, the audience are encouraged to manipulate the pieces by attaching or removing individual components. As well as the tableaux of objects, three large-scale photographs of the panels with my body positioned inside them are located on the gallery walls. Re-tard picks at the blurry edges of abstraction where formal concerns intercede with the popular languages of infantile play structures.
3 Photographs, Assorted Sculptural Objects, Performance