Kyla McFarlane looks at the recent art of Christopher Braddock

<D
"<
<D
:J

<D
.i:..
I\)

c
-+
c

3
::J

---~
::J
-+
(])

I\.)

0
O

(.I)
~

Pinched, 1999. Detail. Tin, 199.5 x 37 cm.

Courtesy Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

SAFE. The word suggests comfort, security and

trust. It alludes to an emotional and physical space
where danger has no place, where secrets are kept
and fears are allayed.
Safe ( 1999) is the title of a recent work by sculptor Christopher Braddock which explores the possibilities and limitations of such a space. Braddock
examines the notion in all its contradictions, recognising that to be safe can offer certain freedoms, but
also that playing it safe demands caution or reserve
and requires us to reside within set boundaries and to
play by others ' rules.
The work was exhibited in a small, narrow room
at the Gow Langsford Gallery in Auckland, in which
Braddock hung a row of square tin boxes along the
wall. Commercially constructed by a tin smith, the
boxes reflected the shape, size and substance of biscuit tins, or metal safes where personal valuables are
stored- repositories for the precious material evidence of memory and experience.
Yet experience cannot always be measured by
material things and Braddock ' s sculpture also
engaged with the possibility of emotional and spiritual safety. The work brought a sense of the private,
secret space of the confessional into the public, secular space of the gallery through a series of references
to Catholicism. As the metal commonly used to
make inexpensive, mass-produced Catholic votive
offerings, Braddock's use of tin connected the work
to the iconography of this belief system, a system in
which prayer and worship encourage a sense of personal security and comfort. Further to this, Braddock
embossed a mutation of the confessional's grill on
the lid of each box. Rendered in the shape of a cross
constructed from four phallic shapes, their forms are
made explicit by a series of holes drilled through the
metal sheet. Hung at ear height, the placement of the
tins immediately suggested an alignment between
the objects and the physical presence of the viewer.
As the viewer entered this narrow space, and proceeded to move past each of the boxes, there was a
strong temptation to press one' s ear-or mouth- to
each grill, in order to hear-or speak- a request for
forgiveness. The banal seriality of the boxes also
gestured towards the unnerving suggestion that these
requests for atonement might become, through repetition, a hollow rehearsal of words , or worse , a
pathological compulsion.
Braddock's artistic project, at the heart of which
is an extended critical dialogue with the rituals of
institutionalised Catholic devotion, is thrown sharply
into relief against the current backdrop of the secularised culture of confession and confusion over
what we might still be able to believe in- if anything. Braddock is, in his words, 'a believer', and
was brought up as an Anglo-Catholic. His position

has been described as 'involved but poised on the

edge of institutionalised religion-displaying a profound distrust of fundamentalist strains of belief with
restricted attitudes toward, for example, issues of
sexuality and authority' . 1 Such a critique also has
much to say about the secular world and the boundaries it draws up in order to delineate between the
'guilty' and the 'acquitted' .
In his pursuit of this critique, Braddock works
obsessively with a repertoire of personal symbols.
He has worried over them and played with them for
several years now, formulating his own sculptural
language with the use of stencils and moulds, transforming a small number of basic forms into a large
number of configurations. The result is a series of
symbols which are, to the viewer, both familiar and
unsettling. They occupy a space between the formalist and the figurative, the sacred and profane, the
public and private, typified by the formation of the
phallic crosses in Safe. In these forms, the corporeal,
sexualised body is merged into the institutionalised
symbolism of Catholicism, where certain representations of the body are traditionally denied. In doing
this, Braddock challenges the boundaries that formalise such rigid categorisations, suggesting that
there might be passages between them. His sculptures offer the possibilities of moving away from
these institutionalised limitations to a space where
the languages and remainders of each system begin
to merge, giving prominence to that which is denied
or disapproved of by the dominant system.
Pin ched ( 1999), exemplifies these concerns on
several levels. From a distance, it appears to be
dense, stiff, priapic. But such solidity is deceptivea trick of the eye. Close up , Pinch ed exudes not
strength, but the delicate, shimmering glitter and
shine of Christmas tree decorations, which in themselves are the result of the commercialisation of one
of Christianity ' s most sacred days . To create this
effect, Braddock has delicately, lovingly, pieced
together a series of tin heart-like shapes like a
delighted child dressing a favourite paper doll, interlocking each form by linking up and carefully folding over small metal tabs that protrude from each .
The result is a fragile corset for which there is no
torso, an armour that tightens itself around a body
whose presence can only be imagined . All that
remains are the repeated, partial forms ofBraddock's
obsession- it is with them that his pleasure lies.
The flux between the apparent stiffness of this
work and its actual lightness and fragility also suggests a critique of sexual roles and privileges within
the hierarchy of the church . The apparent phallic
strength of Pinched is, simply, a masquerade, giving
way to a hollow structure that offers little behind its
glittering fa9ade . But it is in such trickery that this

His sculptures offer the

possibilities of moving away from
these institutionalised limitations
to a space where the languages
and remainders of each system

eye Ii n e 4 2

begin to merge ...

Above: Votive Mutations,

1999. Tin , ribbon and
chromed steel. 31 parts,

dimensions variable.
Courtesy Gow Langsford
Gallery, Auckland
Left: Pinched, 1999. Tin ,
199.5 x 37 cm. Courtesy
Gow Langsford Gallery,
Auckland

autumn I winter 2 o o o

135

Safe, 1998-99. Tin, 27 x 27 x 12 cm each.

Courtesy Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

work gains its strength, for that which is absent is as

powerful as the structure that surrounds it. Braddock
knows his tower is built on unstable ground, almost
to the point of declaring outright that the entire structure of belief it is built upon is pure fiction. Yet he
resists this temptation and continues to construct it,
offering it up for display. Is this an act of blasphemy,
or veneration? We might be tempted to suppose that
it is both, allowing Braddock to have it both ways.
By memorialising something that might never have
existed, in constructing a work such as Pinched,
Braddock applies the logic of the classic Freudian
fetishist, allowing him to simultaneously assume an
ironic, critical distance whilst engaging in an act of
devotion. He then stands back to admire his glorious
display.
Fetishism is also a subtext to Votive Mutations
(1999). Hung from stainless steel hooks protruding
at various heights from the gallery wall, strange tin
forms bound up in deep purple ribbons were presented as memorials or offerings, resembling the phantasmagorical sight of valuable commodities on display in a shop window. The rich colour of the ribbons had liturgical associations, reminiscent of the
power and authority of the bishop's dress. They also
were suggestive of bookmarks placed neatly between
the pages of well-thumbed Bibles, marking out verses to be read and contemplated. Bound up in these
rich purple bands, which speak of religious devotion
and solemn engagement with Biblical texts, were the
forms of sexualised body parts-the penis, the buttocks- tangled up with imagery from traditional
Catholic votive objects.
Julia Kristeva has contended that 'when you
have a coherent system, an element which escapes
from a system is dirty' .2 This is one way of accounting for the mixed metaphors in Votive Mutations. In
denying the body, particularly with respect to aspects

Duct, 1999. Tin, 13.5 x 17 cm.

Courtesy Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland

of its sexuality, the institution of the church sets the

body apart from itself, excluding it and assigning it
as abject and base. In response, Braddock reinscribes
a place for the excessive and the abject body within
the system by offering his mutations up for adoration
in the same way icons are presented in the niches of
churches. Votive Mutations then becomes an art of
excess, an art that attempts to represent that which
exceeds the structures of institutionalised devotion.
The effect is similar to that achieved in Pinched,
with the tensions created between the sacred and
profane providing the work with its power.
In his discussion of abjection and trauma in The
Return of the Real, Hal Foster observes the dangers
in 'the restriction of our political imaginary to two
camps , the abjectors and the abjected, and the
assumption that in order not to be counted among
sexists and racists one must become the phobic
object of such subjects' . 3 Braddock avoids such
binary oppositions by placing a certain amount of
faith in the notion of transformation. At a time when
the definition of the body is being reimagined by the
sciences of cloning and genetics and a cure for the
AIDS virus has not yet been found, Braddock ' s
sculptures encapsulate the state of flux and fragility
that characterises the physical body in our age, but
they also assert a certain idealism. This is evidenced
in the work by the expression of the belief that transformation from the profane to the sacred, or from an
outside to an inside, (or margin to centre) is still a
possibility.
Duct I- V ( 1999) is interesting in this conceptual
context. In this work, small tin 'dishes' were set into
the walls of the gallery, situated close to the floor at
various points around the room. At the centre of
each, drilled holes formed a vent through which
something (sound, air, waste?) might pass. Unlike
the confessional grills in Safe, the function of these

tiny passageways was unclear, other than to facilitate

an escape from, or to, the gallery space. Although
they were only the size of a hand, their presence
opened up the space, allowing it to breathe.
Perhaps Braddock's position is most clearl y
expressed in a work such as Votive Mutations, where
anxieties surrounding the body, and the notion of
unquestioning faith are bound up in these strange,
fragile offerings. These objects, with their confused
forms that lie between the secular and the sacred,
might just be the perfect talismans to accompany us
as we collectively embark on our obsessive bid to
tell all, hear all , confess our sins to anyone who
might listen or bear witness to them. Underlying all
of Braddock's work is a conviction that it is possible
to forgive these sins; to move from playing the role
of the guilty to that of the absolved- as long as we
are prepared to embrace the possibility that there
might just be more than one truth, and more than one
authoritative voice asserting it. We cannot always
play it safe.

notes
I . Millar, Caspar, Voto, D ecember 1998.

2. Julia Kristeva, quoted in 'Of Word and Flesh', an interview by Charles Penwarden, Rites of Passage: Art for the
End of the Century, ed. Stuart Morgan and Francis Mo nris.
Tate Gallery Publications, London, 199 5, p. 24.
C hristopher Braddock's exploration of t he fragmented,
even mutilated body and his critique of the nat ure of
devotion and ritual closely connect his work to that o f
the artists included in this exhibit ion of the same name.

3. Foster, Hal, The Return of the Real, Cambridge MA,

MIT, 1996, p. 166.

Christopher Braddock is an Auckland base d

artist. Kyla Mcfarlane is a Ne w Zealand writer
currently based in Melbourne.

eyellne 42

a u t umn /w i n te'

200 0 136