Shredded: Stuplimity and the Aesthetics of Neo-Liberalism
“Gertrude and I are just the contrary”, writesLeo Stein in Journey into the Self. “She’s basically stupid and I’m basically intelligent.” So cites Sianne Ngai (Ugly Feelings) as she introduces her concept of ‘stuplimity’, playing around between the sublime and the stupid.
Stupidity, it would seem, has been greatly under-rated. And nowhere more so than in the motion, emotion and commotion of slapstick comedy, which is animated by its own particular zany stupidity. I Can Hardly Wait: Stuplimity and the Aesthetics of Neo-Liberalism is one of an ongoing series of short video performances calling upon the Three Stooges to explore/enact the aesthetics of stupidity, violence and, of course, stuplimity through the motions of slapstick comedy.
Today neo-liberalism animates every particle of our everyday life, politics and culture. It is so pervasive that we take its violence and cruelty for granted, as inevitable. While theorists like Alana Jelinek (This is Not Art) raise the important critical question of the aesthetic effects of neo-liberalism and how to confront them, as artists we feel the need to enact them. We set out to carry the aesthetics of neo-liberalism to the extreme, so they may be visible, audible, tangible. How better to ‘unmask’ these aesthetics than the slapstick of the Three Stooges whose surreal and farcical comedies depicted heads hammered, eyes poked, hands sawed, and other physical acts of force and power – beyond the bounds of commonsense. The Three Stooges understood the affect of humiliation and violence.
Exhibitions
BLINDSIDE
29 June – 16 July 2016 | Opening Night | Thursday 30 June, 6–8pm
Performance
Shredded: The Aesthetics of Neo-Liberalism | Saturday 16 July, 2–3pm
Everything you wanted to know about shredding but were too afraid to ask – a neoliberal experience!
Larry and Moe will be present, there will be shredding, but no audience members will be harmed. BYO paper bag.
Rated M: for mature audiences, some violence.
http://www.blindside.org.au/i-can-hardly-wait-stuplimity-and-the-aesthetics-of-neoliberalism
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AVOCA PROJECTS Presents
A WALLABY ONCE SAT HERE
small acts of celebration and concern ecology and the feminine
an exhibition at Watford House,
16 Dundas Street, Avoca, Victoria
Prepared House and curation by Lyndal Jones with invited works by Gosia Wlodarczak, Simone Slee, Kerrie Poliness, Jill Orr, Gayle Maddigan, Katve-
Kaissa Konturi, Norie Neumark & Maria Miranda, Tara Gilbee, Penelope Hunt, Lily Hibberd, Megan Evans, Lesley Duxbury and Barbara Campbell.
Including Watford with Flowers, an ongoing performance with a number of women and girls from Avoca directed by Jones and further works from the
TAP Inc. collection.
last weekend November & first weekend of December
Saturdays 11am-9pm, Sundays 11am-4pm
Opening Friday 25th November at 6.30pm
