Shy Exhibitionist

shy1 (shī)

adj., shi·er (shī'ər) or shy·er, shi·est (shī'ĭst) or shy·est.

Easily startled; timid.
Drawing back from contact or familiarity with others;
retiring or reserved.
Marked by reserve or diffidence: a shy glance.
Distrustful; wary: shy of strangers.

Not having paid an amount due, as one's ante in poker.
Short; lacking: Eleven is one shy of a dozen.

intr.v., shied (shīd), shy·ing, shies (shīz).

To move suddenly, as if startled; start.
To draw back, as from fear or caution; recoil.
n., pl. shies (shīz).
A sudden movement, as from fright; a start.


shy2 (shī)

v., shied (shīd), shy·ing, shies (shīz).

v.tr.
To throw (something) with a swift motion; fling.

v.intr.
To throw something with a swift motion.

n., pl. shies (shīz).
A quick throw; a fling.
Informal. A gibe; a sneer.
Informal. An attempt; a try.
[Perhaps from SHY1.]

Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Queer Peformativity: Warhol's Whiteness / Warhol's Shyness

"This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction"

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Untitled #9

"Think about your body, the angle of each limb, which parts of you are making contact with other surfaces and which ones are surrounded by air. What are the distances between your left arm and the nearest objects above it, below it, to its sides? Your right arm and those objects around it? Your legs? Your trunk? Your head? The truth is, getting at the real where of where we are at any given time is a staggeringly complex affair. Surface area, distance, spatial density, volume - all factors to be taken into account, and taken into account separately for each distinct segment of the body, setting up thousands upon thousands of spatial relationships to consider. And with each minute shift of the body - the curling of a pinkie finger, for example - comes a shift in dozens if not hundreds of those relationships. No wonder, then, that we typically restrict our thinking about space and our place in it to only the loosest terms. Pondering that fully would crowd out all other thoughts; it would consume us..."

'Lost in Space' by Robert Faires
www.weeklywire.com

When informed that Sam Taylor-Wood was among a number of artists exhibiting at the STUK Arts Centre, in the ‘wife-beater’ Stella Artois producing catholic university town of Leuven, Belgium, I was pleasantly surprised and relieved to be able to experience one of our reputable and home-grown female artists on continental shores, in combination with of course, a significant sampling of the world finest beers.

Completely retarded by language (and nursing a severe hangover), my initial frustrations were emphasised with a somewhat lack of ‘English’ text material that supported the exhibition and I was then acutely aware of relying on the audible interpretation of my Flemish radical feminist ‘teacher’ girlfriend who demonstrably had no hesitation in taking advantage of this situation, translating to me her own transgressive subtexts and visual reading.

As I began to adopt my own queer interpretation, it appears that even the painted red line along the floor (used as a guide) now became ‘gay’ pink, as it pathed its way through the corridors of this ex-University Chemistry block, taking me from one absence to another, reflecting back my own lack of supporting texts, Anglophone literary comfort zone or indeed, the misunderstandings of the written word. From the self-reflecting television screens, documentation of a child’s ‘mirror phase’, a solitary flapping curtain that reveals and conceals, miniature reconstructions of empty places in empty places, light to dark, empty yet promising spaces and corridors; the curatorial concept of presence and absence, the visible and invisible, focuses on a number of international artists working within these same specific fields of tension. The exhibition and its space invite one to come and see, yet it allows a sense of emptiness to prevail. Mostly representing new media artists using video, audio and even an interactive virtual reality space, there was something far more primitive in the exhibitions constructions, making us climb through obscure, dingy and almost empty portakbins, tip-toeing awkwardly through darkness and by restricting our senses, emphasising the uneasiness of eerie silences.

Whilst an overall powerful and emotive exhibition, Sam Taylor Woods headlining film contribution representing some of her older works Prelude in Air, Ascension and Strings (which generally consists of, quote “her ability to get vulnerable men doing silly things”) was, as always, of a cinematic and visually dramatic qualitative level yet relatively minimal in comparison to the overall submission by the other sixteen artists. Occupying the largest space and drawing in a crowd, maybe my dampened experience of this Taylor Wood’s ‘revered’ work a second time round on foreign lands reveal the English desire and sensibility for the exotic and the unknown or maybe indeed, all I needed was an English version of the exhibition guide.

"The artists body as gravity makes itself its master"

Artist, Bas Jan Ader

Untitled #5 by Lonely Planet Girl

Aside from the prototypical images of the pop star, there was always something a bit ridiculous or indeed tragic, about some of Morrissey's poses that always managed to slap me around the metaphorical face. They were of course poses; both for the photographic image and the live performance.

I was intent on finding a particular image captured whereby he is draped across an amplifier on stage at a live concert. He was upside down if I recall. Anyway, he would do this quite often in his younger years, during an unspoken chorus or the fading out guitar solo of a song. We were never quite sure why he did this (he was probably just taking a breather) but it certainly dramatised the event.

Being the 'anti-pop star', throwing himself into the audience was never an option. Presenting himself as an 'object' to his eager and willing fans however, was imperative. Fans then and still, 20 years on (and dare I say, 20 years older, heaven forbid) climb the stage to grab a piece of him. Meat maybe murder, but on these occasions it was raw, cold and waiting on a plate to be devoured by the most ardent vegetarians.

I realise this isnt the original image I was looking for or have even described, but the construction amounts to the same reading of performativity albeit without a chanting audience. What's strikes me even more is the surrounding context of the image. Whilst he is hardly tied to the train track (by a moustached villan as depicted in some of the old silent movies), he offers himself up as the victim and therefore as the culturally represented role in the female, passive postion. However, before I digress into some kind of queer analysis and ramble on any further, I just want to quote Morrissey's words describing the descent of popular music back in the 80's as "slowly being laid to rest" ...

Read as you will.

'Our body is not in space like things; it inhabits or haunts space. It applies itself to space like a hand to an instrument, and when we wish to move about we do not move the body as we move an object. We transport it without instruments as if by magic, since it is ours and because through it we have direct access to space. For us the body is much more than an instrument or a means; it is our expression in the world, the visible form of our intentions. Even our most secret affective movements, those most deeply tied to the humeral infrastructure, help to shape our perception of things.'

- Maurice Merleau-Ponty