Susie MacMurray Hinterland
Susie MacMurray Hinterland April 22 - May 21, 2016
D A N E S E C O R E Y 511 W 22 ST NY NY 10011 212. 223.2227 . DANESECOREY.COM
Gender, Conflict and the Weight of Mythology by Natasha Howes I find myself writing this piece on International Women’s Day 20161, a rather serendipitous occurrence, given that Susie MacMurray’s new works draw on feminist critiques of the gendered nature of mythological storytelling and conflict. In her new exhibition at Danese/Corey, Hinterland, MacMurray presents her striking new works, which beguile us with their exquisite splendour and materiality but then make us question our beliefs. A hinterland is a remote place on the borders of a town, an area lying beyond what is visible or known. MacMurray exploits this intangibility, which exists just outside of our knowledge and experience. The sense of beyond, something we can’t quite reach, opens a space which she utilises for an exploration of ideas around the nature of conflict and female identity - and the relationship between the two. She doesn’t give us answers but opens up a hinterland for our thoughts. MacMurray’s major new sculptures Medusa, 2014-15 and Pandora, 2016, are titled after significant female figures from Greek mythology and these works question perceived notions of gender, punishment, conflict and loss. She asks us to reappraise our views of female figures who have been maligned throughout cultural history. Furthermore, she takes these individual stories and challenges us to reflect on the gendered dimensions of global conflict – the continued use of rape as a weapon of war and the disproportionate impact of conflict and displacement upon women and their children. Should Medusa and Pandora now be judged as heroines? Traditionally, Medusa has been feared, an evil Gorgon from Greek mythology who turned people who gazed upon her to stone. Such was her power that, even after her beheading by Perseus, her head, with writhing snakes in place of hair, still had the force to petrify onlookers. Furthermore, her name is often associated with female rage and the embodiment of evil. She has inspired art throughout history and continues to appear in visual culture today in music, advertising, fashion and film. In her sculpture Medusa, 2014, however, MacMurray challenges these negative interpretations and instead celebrates her power, beauty and strength. She is reclaiming Medusa as an emblem of emancipation, explaining, I am exploring the possibility of her as a victim, unfairly branded as a monster, who is reclaiming power for herself.2 Medusa is a sign of powerful womanhood. She was exquisitely beautiful with luxuriant hair before being raped by the sea god Poseidon in Athena’s temple. She was turned into a ‘monster’ by Athena, a punishment for being raped, despite being the victim of this violent crime. Perseus, after employing Medusa’s severed head for his own protection, then gave it to Athena, who wore it at the centre of her shield. Crucially MacMurray does not allow us to see Medusa’s head – her body is beheaded, but the sinuous snake coils that emerge from her base, immediately identify her. This has the effect of universalising the story and allows the viewer to focus not on the specifics of this Gorgon, but on the continuing fear of female power throughout the ages. MacMurray was inspired by Hélène Cixous, You only have to look at Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing.3 This reclaiming of a misogynistic myth, gives power back to women. Furthermore to gaze upon Medusa was to lose your life which is a powerful message about the male gaze on women and becomes a weapon against objectification by men. MacMurray created her Medusa from handmade copper chain mail. In some ways, it is a response to her garment sculptures like A Mixture of Frailties, 2004 and is a conscious move away from softer materials 8 March 2016 Susie MacMurray, email to Natasha Howes, 8 March 2016 3 Hélène Cixous (1975). The Laugh of the Medusa in Marjorie Garber and Nancy J Vickers,eds., The Medusa Reader. London: Routledge, 2003, pp.133-34. 1 2
detail: Palisade, 2016, barbed wire
previously employed. MacMurray plays with the language of heroic sculpture – bronze, monumental, immovable – but she subverts this on her own terms. The sinuous chain mail was produced by a group of women, creating it link by link, over many months. Unlike the garment sculptures, Medusa is not a carapace, a protective covering for a female body. Here, the chain mail cannot be taken off the body, it is the body. Medusa, whilst a significant weight, is not as rigid as a bronze cast, and the serpentine coils demonstrate the malleability of the material. MacMurray chose copper as a material Susie MacMurray, A Mixture of Frailties, 2004/13, household gloves turned inside out, to reflect Medusa’s pre-snake glorious calico and dress form, 73” h x 128 in. diam. (185.5 x 325 cm diam.) red hair, and to reference the story that the corals of the Red Sea were formed from Medusa’s blood when Perseus laid down her severed head beside the shore. One of copper’s properties is that it will blacken over time, an allusion to the transience of beauty and the tarnishing of a reputation. Medusa was raped and therefore, in the eyes of some, tarnished and spoiled, becoming ‘damaged goods’. Another maligned female figure from Greek mythology, Pandora, gives her name to MacMurray’s newest sculpture. 2650 clear cast resin bullets are seamlessly encased horizontally in front of a lightbox. Aggressively gleaming out of a darkened space, Pandora, 2016 attracts you towards her sharp, phallic points. This sculpture, the size and shape of a doorway, disarms with its inherent tension – the beauty and attraction of light diffused through clear bullets and the intrinsic violence of .50 calibre Browning bullets made for sniper rifles and machine guns. Horizontally, it resembles a bed of nails; when upright, it alludes to a firing squad. However, the threat of mortality is hollow, as the crystalline bullets will shatter if dropped on a hard surface. The myth of Pandora is complex – she was the first human woman, created by the gods as a punishment for men. Her name means ‘all gifts’ after each god bestowed upon her particular attributes, including curiosity from Hera. She was also given a storage jar (in the16th century, this was mistranslated to “box”) which she was forbidden from opening. Curiosity got the better of her and upon opening it, she released all the evils in the world including greed, vanity, slander, envy and disease. The only item left inside was hope. Pandora, like Eve, was created by male god(s) and like Eve, she transgressed a divine law. But according to Hesiod, Pandora was doomed before she even started life. From her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmates in hateful poverty, but only in wealth.4
4
Hesiod. Theogony, line 590–93, www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm
MacMurray re-interprets Hesiod’s version, which has taken root throughout the centuries, as a masculine narrative to castrate the frightening, uncontrollable power of femininity.5 The doorway represents Pandora’s box – it is seductive and alluring, but it is also a threshold into the unknown, inviting us to question whether we should trust what is beyond? To cross the threshold, do you need courage, wisdom or foolish hope? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? How do we negotiate the current geopolitical Pandora’s box?6
Susie MacMurray, Siblings, 2013, fish hooks, wax, steel pins, 80 x 120 x 8” dimensions variable
Pandora, like Medusa, allows MacMurray to continue to explore the dichotomies that have been a central theme in her previous works: life/death, male/female, chaos/order, hard/soft, inside/outside, transience/ permanence, danger/ safety, finite/infinite, protection/entrapment, vulnerability/resilience. Her work demonstrates how opposing qualities can be present at the same time – both in art and in the human condition. A theme of offspring unites a number of MacMurray’s pieces, starting with the earlier installation Siblings, 2013, delicate wax pods on fish hooks. Orphan, 2014 is a lone, stranded form made from black annealed wire with a bull’s nose ring. It makes its presence felt, the weight of its bulk beached on the gallery floor. Is it a casualty of war? Hatchling, 2014 can be conceived as an offspring of Medusa, one of the snaking coils which has broken away and like Orphan, sits alone. Children are closely tied to the female experience, and again MacMurray alludes to the power of womanhood through the ability to reproduce. Once away from their ‘mothers’, how do these offspring negotiate the world and survive? Susie MacMurray, Hatchling, 2015, handmade copper chainmail, (ed of 4)
5 6
Susie MacMurray Susie MacMurray
These casualties and the violence
inherent in the Medusa and Pandora myths relate to MacMurray’s body of work which explicitly addresses conflict. Since producing Cloud, 2015, a monumental site specific installation in the Great Hall in Winchester which referenced the Hampshire Regiments who served in the First World War, she has continued to work with reclaimed barbed wire. Barbed wire was used extensively during the First World War to prevent movement on the battlefields and to cause catastrophic injury. MacMurray sourced her wire from the British Army Barracks in Aldershot, Surrey, UK. It is about 40 years old and was used in the training of soldiers who went on to serve in Afghanistan, Kosovo and The Falklands. Working with currently serving soldiers, she unravelled, cut and removed the rust, having conversations with the soldiers about their experiences. Employed in her new work Host, 2016 and set into Portland Stone, traditionally used in British memorials, the barbed wire resembles bouquets of brittle and dried out flowers. Their form was also influenced by photographs of wartime explosions. The seven elements laid out in rows resemble inverted stooks, sheaves of corn in a field or the neat rows of war graves. This elegant installation has a quiet power and poignancy, but unlike traditional memorials, is suggestive of the visceral injuries which soldiers still endure today. Like Cloud, it alludes to how conflict deeply impacts the lives of those left behind – the women, children and family members. MacMurray elucidates, The effects of conflict are like smoke, uncontainable. They don’t stay neatly behind geographic borders but seep into every life, and continue long after the arms are laid down through things like depression, night terrors, PTSD, bereavement and, very pertinent to today – the ripple effect of migration and refugees. My question is how do we remember and learn without conveniently filtering the past? An ancient past that is never truly past, but always part of the present, and the future. Hence the casualties of sexual politics Medusa and Pandora are also trapped in the set Portland stone of Host, alongside those lives known and unknown marked by war memorials across the world.7 Hold the Line, 2016 is a discrete wall-mounted sculpture with upright lengths of barbed wire arranged in a linear fashion. The title alludes to military tactics, in which a line of troops was supposed to prevent an enemy breakthrough. Each piece of barbed wire stands in for a soldier, whose skeletal remains cast shadows on the back wall and conveys feelings of both sorrow and brave resolve. These works using barbed wire are not about a specific conflict, or a memorial, they are about the broader effect conflict has on people and the fragility of human existence. Through all her works, it is apparent that MacMurray is fascinated by the personal and the political. She extrapolates individual narratives to make broader references to feminine identity and conflict. A culture of fear about women links to a culture of fear in contemporary geopolitics, the fear of the other religions and the use of rape as a weapon of war. Both the myths of Medusa and Pandora are cautionary tales about the flawed nature of humanity and how this has contemporary relevance. The country in which the viewer of MacMurray’s work resides, their individual politics and how the news gets reported in the media may affect the reading of the work. MacMurray’s work is not an anti-war polemic, it is her attempt to understand the nature of conflict and how it affects humanity. She takes a long view of history, drawing parallels between past and present wars, and questions the cyclical nature of conflict and why leaders and governments don’t learn from past mistakes. MacMurray is interested in how society remembers and learns from history without sanitising the past. Events from ancient history and mythology can be as relevant today and in the future as they were then. MacMurray’s new works are unified by their sense of weight. Unlike her previous sculptures and installations which can be characterised by a sense of fragility, weightlessness and temporality, the artworks in Hinterland are grounded and emphatically present. These works demonstrate MacMurray’s 7
Susie MacMurray
Susie MacMurray, Cloud, 2015, reclaimed military barbed wire, butterfly netting Installed: The Great Hall, Winchester
increasing confidence as a sculptor who is rightfully taking her place as one of the UK’s leading artists. She combines intellectual rigour with a passion for materials and aesthetics. Her continued engagement with feminism has led her to develop her practice, challenging historic sexism and misogyny and celebrating the power of women.
Natasha Howes is Senior Curator at Manchester Art Gallery. She commissioned MacMurray’s first site specific work in a public gallery, Flock 2004 at Manchester Art Gallery.
Medusa, 2014-15, handmade copper chain mail over fiberglass and steel armature, 72 in. high (183 cm), 2 of 4 variants
Palisade, 2016, reclaimed military barbed wire, composite Portland stone, 13.7 x 23.6 x 23.6 in. (35 x 60 x 60 cm)
Hold the Line, 2016, reclaimed military barbed wire, painted MDF, 6.3 x 72 x 1.4 in. (16 x 183 x 3.5 cm)
Host, 2016, reclaimed military barbed wire, composite Portland stone, 7 elements, each 47.2 x 25.5 x 25.5 in. (120 x 65 x 65 cm)
Halo, 2015-16, gold plated copper wire, dimensions variable
Pandora, 2016, clear cast resin bullets, lightbox, 80 x 39.8 x 7.5 in. (203 x 101 x 19 cm)
Requiem, 2016, used violin and cello strings threaded onto used piano string donated by professional musicians, 98.4 x 19.7 x 7.9 in. (250 x 50 x 20 cm)
Orphan, 2015, black annealed wire, bull’s nose ring, 47.2 in length x 23.6 in. diameter (120 cm length x 60 cm diameter)
CHRONOLOGY Education
Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions
2000-2001 MA Fine Art. Manchester Metropolitan University
2016
Susie MacMurray: Hinterland, Danese/Corey, New York, NY
1997-2000 BA Sculpture. Manchester Metro politan University
Chance and Order, Candida Stephens Fine Art, Chichester, UK
1996-1997 Foundation in Art and Design. Manchester College of Arts & Technology
2015
Reopening exhibition, York Art Gallery, “Halo,” (commission for exhibition), York, UK
Watershed – Art, Play and the Politics of Water, Hall Place & Gardens, Bexley, Kent (Artwise Curators for Blexley Heritage Trust)
1979-1982 Fellowship, Trinity College of Music, London
Cloud by Susie MacMurray, The Great Hall, Winchester, Winchester, UK
Awards
2014
Finding the Value – Contemporary artists explore aspects of the Madsen Collection), York St Mary’s, York Museums Trust, Castlegate, York, UK
Art in Embassies, Winfield House, London
2013
Susie MacMurray: Walking on the Rim of Night, Danese Corey, New York, NY
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Susie MacMurray: Resonance, (site specific commission), Fabrica, Brighton, UK
Susie MacMurray: Siren, Thomas Williams Fine Art, London
Beastly Hall, Hall Place & Gardens, Bexley, Kent (Artwise Curators for Blexley Heritage Trust)
2012
Sculptors Drawings, Pangolin, London
Unnatural ‘Natural History,’ Coates & Scarry/ RWA, Bristol
Susie MacMurray: Resonance, Rochester Art Gallery, Rochester
Pandamonium, Hyde Park, London, Artwise Curators for WWF
Speaker, Artistic License, Museums Association, London, December, 2005
Stratum, site-specific commission, Islington Mill, Salford
Speaker, Fabriconversations Symposium, Nottingham Trent University, October 2005
House of Beasts, Meadow Arts, Attingham Park, Shropshire
2011
Freelance Gallery Educator, Manchester Art Gallery, April 2004-11
Susie MacMurray: The Eyes of the Skin, Agnew’s Gallery, London
Artist in Residence, Post 16 Program, Whitworth Art Gallery. Spring 2004
The Power of Making, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
Part time lecturer Manchester Metropolitan University, BA Sculpture 2002-03
House of Beasts, Attingham Park for Meadow Arts, Shropshire, UK
Artist Mentoring, through London Printworks Trust and Firstsite Colchester
Compulsive Obsessive Repetitive, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
Wedded Perfection, Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute, Utica NY
1982-1983 National Centre for Orchestral Studies, Goldsmiths, London
Shortlisted, NMWA – Women to Watch, Washington DC, 2012 Nominated, Northern Art Prize, 2011 British Council travel grant, 2010 Professional Development Award, The Arts Council England, 2008 Nominated, Northern Art Prize, 2007 Abbey Harris Mural Fund Award, 2006 Shortlisted, Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2005 Research and Development Award, The Arts Council England, 2004 Shortlisted, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, Textiles on Site Commission, 2004 Shortlisted, Crosby Homes Art Prize, Manchester Art Gallery August, 2003 Selected Education / Conferences Visiting Lecturing, including Leeds Metropolitan University, Winchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Central Lancashire, University of Bolton, York St John’s College Visiting Lecturer, MIRIAD
Susie MacMurray, assembling Requiem, 2016
Stratum, site specific commission, Islington Mill, Salford, UK
Platform, Agnew’s Gallery, London
2010
Castle Gallery, Nottingham
Conversations on the Subject of Feminism, Cornerhouse, Manchester
Aware: Art Fashion Identity, GSK Contemporary, Royal Academy, London
Art Frankfurt – with Philips Contemporary Art Gallery
Wedded Perfection, Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio
Flock, York Art Gallery, York, UK
Promenade, site-specific commission, Keddleston Hall, Derbyshire
The Nestingbox Project, Borgloon, Belgium
Repurpose, Reuse, Recycle, City of Brea Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Knit 2 Together, Crafts Council Galleries, London (touring exhibition)
Dead or Alive, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
International Open Exhibition, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, NI
2004
Widow, Platt Hall, Manchester Art Gallery, Gallery of Costume, UK
Air, Vespolate and Novara, Italy (touring exhibition)
Fili Spezzati, Como, Italy
Argus, Firstsite@the minories art gallery, Colchester, UK
Robe / Rêve : Rêve de Robe, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Calais, France
Caryatids, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Plastica d’Artista, Palazzo Mantica, Pordenone, Italy
Flock, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester Bagutta Life, New York, NY
2009
Here Come the Girls, site-specific commission, Manchester Art Gallery
Widow, Queens Hall, Hexham, Northumberland UK
Salon09, Matt Roberts Arts, Vyner St, London
Re-Addressing Identities, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY
Lost & Found, Islington Mill, Salford, UK
2003
Upcycling, Museum of Architecture & Design, Los Angeles, CA
Thermo 03, The Lowry, Salford, UK
Time/change (solo), site-specific commission, Nottingham Castle
Art 2003, With Philips Gallery, London
Designersblock, Milan, Italy
3 English Women in Paris, Maxalto, Paris
2002
Art Take Away, Cornerhouse, Manchester Ladies Only, Liverpool Biennial, Collect Gallery, Brundel St Warehouse, Liverpool
2008
Second Lives, Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY
The Baltic frame, Arena Gallery, Liverpool
Drawn, UH Galleries, University of Hertfordshire, UK
2001
Miasma, Florence Nightingale Museum, London
All Colours Will Agree In the Dark, Cornerhouse, Manchester
Make Me, Object Gallery, Sydney Australia
Object as Muse, Crafts Council, Touring Exhibition
100% Design, Earls Court, London
2000
Body Space, Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery, Carlisle, UK
Stratum, Site specific installation, Islington Mill, Salford
2007
Unbound, Turnpike Gallery, Leigh, UK
Drop, commission for collection, Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2006
Shell, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Echo, York St Mary’s, York Museums Trust, UK
2005
Jerwood Drawing Prize Exhibition, Jerwood Space, London (touring exhibition)
Susie MacMurray, Garment Sculptures,
Bibliography 2015
Woolf, Diana. “Cloud: Susie MacMurray,” Embroidery, May/June 2015, p. 57.
2014
Pes, Javier. “US Ambassador turns London home into space for contemporary art,” The Art Newspaper, May 30, 2014.
2013
Selz, Gabrielle. “Susie MacMurray: Notes on the Threatening Quality of Beauty,” Huffpost Arts & Culture, September 20, 2013.
Dorsey, Dave. “Menial and Romantic,” The Dorsey Post, September 24, 2013.
Susie MacMurray: Walking on the Rim of Night. New York: Danese, 2013 (exhibition catalogue)
2012
Sculptors’ Drawings and Works on Paper, Pangolin London & Kings Place Gallery, 2012 (exhibition catalogue)
Air, Vespolate/Novara, Italy, essay by Maria Campitelli, 2004 (exhibition catalogue)
Hemmings Jessica. Warp & Weft: woven textiles in fashion, art and interiors. Bloomsbury. 2012 (book)
2011 2010
The Eyes of the Skin, Agnews Gallery, essay by Kathleen Soriano. 2011 (exhibition catalogue) Aware: Art, Fashion, Identity, Royal Academy of Arts, 2010 (exhibition catalogue)
Promenade, essay by Frances Guy, 2010 (exhibition catalogue)
Dead or Alive, Museum of Art & Design New York, 2010 (exhibition catalogue)
2009
Tempus Mutatum (time/change), Nottingham Castle Museum & Gallery, “Sound Relics” essay by Annabel Lucas, 2009 (exhibition catalogue)
2008
Contemporary Textiles: the Fabric of Fine Art, published by Black Dog Publishing, 2008 (book)
Harper, Dr. Catherine. “Network” Selvedge Feature, December 2008
Thomas, Ingrid. The Shell: A World of Decoration & Ornament, published by Thames & Hudson, 2008 (book)
Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, Museum of Art & Design, New York, 2008 (exhibition catalogue)
2006 Echo, York Museums Trust, essay by Caroline Worthington, 2006 (exhibition catalogue)
Stobart, Jane. Drawing Matters, published by A&C Black, London, 2006 (book)
Shell, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, essay by Dr. Catherine Harper, 2006 (artist’s book) 2005
The Nestingboxproject, Birdinvest, 2005 (exhibition catalogue)
The Jerwood Drawing Prize 2005, Jerwood Visual Arts, 2005 (exhibition catalogue)
2004
Plastica d’artista, Gruppo 78, International Contemporary Art Trieste, essay by Maria Campitelli: 2004 (exhibition catalogue)
Firstsite Papers, on the occasion of Argus: Susie MacMurray, essay by Deborah Dean, 2004
Robe/Reve: Reve de Robe, Musee des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle de Calais, 2004 (exhibition catalogue)
Fili Spezzati, Miniartextil Como, Luciano Carmel, 2004 (exhibition catalogue)
2003
Beyond the Pale, Gallery 103 Wrexham, essay by Kathy Kubicki, 2003 (exhibition catalogue)
2002
All Colours will Agree in the Dark, Cornerhouse, essay by Kate Jesson, 2002 (exhibition catalogue)
Published in conjunction with the exhibition: Susie MacMurray: Hinterland Danese/Corey, New York, NY April 22 - May 21, 2016 Cover: Pandora, 2016 Photography: page 7, Cloud Matthew Andrews All others Ben Blackall Essay: © 2016 Natasha Howes Catalogue © 2016 Danese/Corey Works of art © 2015-16 Susie MacMurray
D A N E S E C O R E Y
detail: Hold the Line, 2016, barbed wire
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