BETWEEN JEALOUSY AND HORROR: ASHLIN RAYMONDS DAWN MARBLEETERNAL

Gloria Knight 10th - 26th May 2012 By Henry Davidson

In 2012 it can seem as though nothing is everlasting other than transience itself. But in everyday consumer culture visual codes are often solid and unbroken. These cultural codes can feel inescapable and can chain us to never ending consumption cycles, but they can also be undermined and contextualised critically from within their very own medium. In artist Ashlin Raymonds latest exhibition and first solo show in Auckland, she presents the enigma and problem of both consumer goods and advertisement as a perpetual issue, emphasising the dark and powerful qualities of capitalist culture.

is otherwise dark, a stark contrast from the ubiquitous bright white cube. Rather than being framed by the gallery space the work generates its own sense of place through this lighting choice it becomes a dirty space1, a brothel or a late-night store, tinged with a spooky air. The black sweaters are angled so as to direct the visitor toward the screen and each garment is embroidered with the Gucci label in gold thread and the fashion houses signature coat of arms.

Dawn Marble- ETERNAL is hosted by Gloria Knight. The gallery is in a strange, in-between location in Wynyard Quarter, somewhere amongst both the seafood warehouses and sparkly viaduct bars, behind a car park and up some steps. It is a small space and Raymonds installation fills it simply and without effort. The exhibition is composed of two works. Sweaters, an edition of six black sweaters, hung crosslike on gold chains, forms an isle that draws the viewer down to a video work, TECHNO SLAMMING MOONSCAPE SEMTEX NIRVANA PHOTOGENIC, displayed on a gigantic plasma screen television placed on a black plinth. The installation is lit by gaudy pink light but

The screen plays a video resembling a commercial advertisement for a luxury perfume, set to music by Mark Wundercastle2. The digital video is of breathtakingly high quality and gratuitously studies a young, handsome male model reclining, diving into and emerging from a swimming pool. There is a hypnotic quality to the footage that is apparent in other work by Raymond3, which is underscored by the repetitive beat and inaudible, strange whispers in Wundercastles soundtrack. Like we might expect from a perfume ad, the video finishes with translucent text fittingly swimming in to focus on the screen: ETERNAL by Dawn Marble. While the video work may resemble what todays visual
1 Interview with artist. 2 The video is in fact modeled on a recent ad for Gucci SPORT Pour Homme, staring James Franco. Interview with artist. 3 For example: Lucid Transformation Celebration, 2009, An Endless Salute to Hypnotic Logic, 2010.

Install view Eternal- Gloria Knight reader recognises as an ad for luxury goods, the knock-off Gucci sweaters appear estranged from it. This discrepancy, the disjoint between ad and product, drives Raymonds installation and is made apparent to the viewer by the spatial link between the two facets of the work. The hard, black rows of Gucci sweaters lead physically and symbolically up to the video work. The trajectory of the installation takes the viewer through the heavily branded product to the semiotically loose advertisement. Like most consumer advertising Raymonds ad promises an empty identity, one that is open and malleable. Paradoxically, the work demonstrates how consumers must first travel through heavy brand in order to supposedly reach this pure identity. While in the world of transactions an ad might convince us to buy a product, Raymonds installation shows how the ad and its associated desire-creating powers are always more important than what is purchased. The high altar of the video further entrenches its significant status over the Gucci knockoffs. Raymond knowingly points to how we are tricked into thinking the object is what we want, when really it is the ad we desire. In this way the work shows the luxury goods industrys bizarre promise of freedom via consumption, of identity cleansing and cleanliness through covering oneself in brand. While many of us might get this, there is something in the work that is still irresistible and beautiful. It is the dark, eternal quality of consumption that Raymond successfully and subtly touches on that makes ETERNAL different. The focus on water in the video illuminates this. While water is also a classic trait in perfume advertising, its elemental and universal qualities signify the transcendence of the luxury brand. The slow-motion attention to droplets falling from the models body and the shots focusing solely on splashes and still water are obsessive and repetitive. There is a quality of eroticism and even pornography evoked through the water that is steeped in the idea of luxury, in the ability to turn something banal into a leisure activity. Likewise the commercial quality and high definition of the video suggests the artifice of both fashion and pornography while capturing something that is more than just simulation. The role of water in ETERNAL also seems to mediate on the swimming pool in contemporary culture in film it is often a place of solace or great change as well as an icon of the hyperreal. Raymonds pool could easily be the peaceful LA haven David Hockney has often painted or the surreal set of Easton Elliss novel Glamourama. The work is also reminiscent of artist Richard Phillips recent short video Lindsay Lohan, where the troubled star swims through a pool and poses

STILL FROM TECHNO SLAMMING MOONSCAPE NIRVANA PHOTOGENIC, 2012 in drawn-out close up shots. However, whereas in Phillips work we engage with a recognisable person, Raymond piece avoids any potential idolising of celebrity culture. While the work might not advertise a fragrance per say perhaps it is a form of branding of the artist herself or the mysteriously named Dawn Marble. The pop strategies at play throughout the installation nod to Warholian antecedents of the artist as celebrity and the artist as product. The use of a possible nom de plume in relation to a commercial fragrance similarly acknowledges the legacy of Duchamp. The trailer-like qualities and length of the video work is also comparable to contemporary artist Francesco Vezzolis advertisements for imaginary products featuring real celebrities. But while Philips and Vezzolis work can be critiqued for a lack of criticality, for an apparent caving in on itself of meaning, ETERNAL establishes moments of transcendence and beauty that short circuit the infinite loop of consumer culture. Or rather, they make a glitch in this loop. The arbitrary relationship between product and ad in ETERNAL is our glitch. As is Raymonds choice to exhibit a male body rather than a female one, which although not unusual, proves a subtle feminist stroke where the work could easily have featured yet another womans body for viewing. At the same time, the objectifying gaze, regardless of who it looks at, is troubling in the work. Combined with the uncertain, eerie atmosphere of the installation including the religious undertones of the sweaters, it can seem like perhaps Dawn Marble is a sinister businesswoman targeting new markets. Raymonds installation transcends in that it is about this moment - it images and mediates on our obsessions that even with our knowledge we seem incapable of breaking free from. It draws on both the disgusting and moving elements of advertising rather than reducing such a prevalent element of our lives to a negative or as a real perfume ad might do make us feel inadequate. Conversely the work is partially humorous. In conversation Raymond noted that the sweaters were constructed from a template a knock-off she found in an op shop and had worn often. She said that part of the inspiration for this work was to draw on the responses people would make to her when she wore the sweater; they were usually somewhere between jealousy and horror. It is the potentiality that exists between these points that lends ETERNAL its criticality and its ability to disquiet and discomfort while at the same time revel in all that is glamorous and grotesque.

Edited by Bronwyn Haines