CLAUDIA DAMICHI 'Domestic Fantastic' AUGUST 24 - SEPTEMBER 10, 2011 at Ryan Renshaw
Claudia Damichi's exhibition in the main space at Ryan Renshaw consists of six acrylic paintings featuring furniture and wall coverings from the 1960s and 1970s. Called Domestic Fantastic, the domestic setting is more than implied - but what fantasies are being explored?
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="655" caption="Claudia Damichi 'On the Upside' (2011)"]
[/caption]With vivid colours and an alarmingly flat perspective[ref]The flat meeting of wallpapered surface meeting the floor reminds this writer of a high-brow Josh Agle.[/ref] the six paintings display furniture from another time in decidedly unusual formations. The colours and patterns most certainly evoke the essence of the circus, with furniture playing out acrobatic stunts, ottomans appearing as bull tubs. But there is also an almost sexual quality to the work, with laps and legs touching in subversive ways. While Damichi's chairs may be unterman and uberman in a living room perch act, the visual links to an era of politicized sexual expression give that dominance and submission a second reading.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="697" caption="Claudia Damichi 'Funny Business' (2011)"]
[/caption]While popularised in children's films like Toy Story and The Brave Little Toaster, the idea that inanimate objects might be secretly sentient is not a modern invention. According to theTsukumogami-emaki, a pair of 16th century Japanese scrolls in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum, when a tool or item of furniture reaches the age of one hundred years, it becomes alive, mobile and lingual (a thought that would mortify Billy Bob Thornton): "陰陽雑記云器物百年を経て化して精霊を得てよく人を訛かす是を付喪神と号といへり According to the Onmyō Zakki, vessels pass their hundredth year, transform, obtain a soul, often bewitch humans, and are called tsukumogami."[ref]http://www.obakemono.com/obake/tsukumogami/[/ref]
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="558" caption="Tsukumogami-emaki scrolls (16C)"]
[/caption]In the case of the retro decor in Domestic Fantastic, it seems that susuharai has come early. The exhibition continues until September 10.
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