Alison Ward
March 21, 2009
Calendar Girls
A series of 12 self portraits using characters that I have used in various videos and performances. The characters are in pin up poses that combine beauty with the grotesque.
The Birthday Girl
This is a performance video in which I eat 30 cupcakes in one sitting. Delight turns to sickness and pain, as the cakes are consumed one by one.
Boxing For Mr. Wonderful
This was a performance piece at Gleason’s gym in Brooklyn. I worked with a fight choreographer to choreograph a piece that was both brutal, sexual, and humorous.
In “Birthday Girl” you draw on a hyper-feminine, Rococo aesthetic. It seems that the sexual and decorative “excess” of that style fits the ordeal of hyper-consumption you put yourself through in the video. How do you approach the selection of clothing for your work? I’ve noticed that corseted, puffy, pink dresses also appear your other projects like “Babydoll” and “The Temptation of the Innocent”.
I use costumes and masks often in my work, to create a visual language that comments on popular culture. The pink “princess” dress becomes a symbol of the type of femininity endorsed and even enforced by our culture. I turn the symbol in on itself, by creating characters that wear the dress while engaging in behavior that is neither socially acceptable nor considered feminine. They gorge on food and engage in fist fights. In the case of The Temptation of the Innocent, the character is modeled after Glinda the Good Witch. I have turned her Hollywood femininity in on itself here, creating a character who is a crone, tempting a youth with a magical apple.
Alison,
I’ve been looking at all the posts tonight and find some interesting connections. Please take a look at Cindy Rehm’s new Pink Bride, and Marisa Di Paola’s bear cave and tell me what you think.
Alison,
Was “Boxing for Mr.Wonderful” a site-specific performance at Gleason’s? Do you perform it in other contexts? Like in the street or bar, gallery or stage?
Hi Cathy,
I looked at the two pieces you mentioned, and I do find a correlation between my work and theirs. Cindy Rehm’s work reminds me of The Birthday Girl, and of Boxing For Mr. Wonderful. Notions of sexuality are brought to the forefront, and housed in a guise that is normally meant to be seen as virginal and pure – the blushing bride. Marisa Di Paola’s bear cave reminds me of two of my video pieces, Into the Woods, where wolf women hunt down the viewer, dancing erotically before them, and The Orchard, where a girl gets transformed into a deer through a magical apple. All of these works combine animals with a kind of feminine sexuality – the characters involved are wearing animal masks combined with a figure revealing outfit.
Hi Norah, Boxing for Mr. Wonderful was a site specific piece, rehearsed and performed at Gleason’s Gym. I wanted to do the piece there because it is one of the oldest surviving gyms in New York City, and because it has such a long tradition of boxing. It was very interesting rehearsing for the performance in the gym, amongst all of the real boxers who were working out and sparring in rings beside us. I am very interested in the idea of conflict, and battles, and have worked with that theme often, but it is always specific to the place I am working with.