Matter/Flesh/Spirit/Ground

Matter/Flesh/Spirit/Ground
An overview of the video work of the late Wendy Geller at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, curated by James McSwain of the Centre for Art Tapes, Halifax.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 7:00pm

McSwain writes that Wendy Geller’s video work “encompasses a voice and structure that strips away the habits and politeness that shield us from the forces of nature, and the hierarchies of power that suffuse western society. In her humorous satire, her feminist sensibility revels in critiquing Freudian psychoanalysis as well as the role(s) of actresses within the Hollywood star system. However, Geller’s voice finds its most multilayered synthesis in her series Stories for the Garden. In these pieces, her anxiety concerning the body is articulated through the dread and ecstasy of nature’s consuming cycle of birth and death, as she constructs an allegorical journey that wins through to a fragile wisdom. These themes, sometimes raw, at times lyrical, connect the viewer to an artist whose creative energy sought to illuminate the human condition.”

This screening was organized by the Centre for Art Tapes, Halifax, in collaboration with the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Video Pool.