Xchanges Gallery, Victoria, November 30 - December 22, 1995

Maria Zimmermann Brendel

This review first appeared in Parachute 82, April-June 1996, 54-55.

In the exhibition "Seven Slips," Linda Giles focused on the human body by removing it altogether. Only bare "essentials" make up the artwork, minimalist austerity at its best. Shiny, heavy chrome contrasts with the light fabric of petticoats and veils. The art is aesthetically delightful and confrontational.

Giles does not use technological devices such as voice-over or video to frame her subject. Rather, shock effect is used by way of montage to scrutinize things more closely. This project includes garments, dog chokers and expended bullets, distributed on white surfaces. Taken out of context, each item is juxtaposed for new ways of seeing. Meaning is made ambiguous by title selections. And tension lies in the void and in traces left by that which is not there: the human body.

Bridled Passion (1994) is as double edged as the title. Objects phonetically identical - bridle/bridal - are visually paired. A full-length bridal veil is draped over a bridal rack next to leather halters with reins and snaffle bits. What could be articulated in this montage? The veil draws an emotive response due to its familiarity. Positioned on the wall at eye level, the beholder "fills" the empty space underneath the netlike fabric, instinctively, with her/his own body before even becoming aware of the concavity. This participation is activated through the sheer volume of the veil, animated, with its train on the floor, about to move in a procession. The veil, here, becomes the site for a "gestalt instantané." The veil is ancient and contemporary, a cultural icon, and transnational symbol. It has a history personal, societal and religious. It is beyond time as G. Didi-Huberman remarked in a recent article in Cahiers du Musée national d'art moderne (#37, 1991). In this artwork there is a mysticism generated by the simplicity of the objects, but most particularly by the veil, a garment so closely associated with mating ritual. But inherent, also, lying just beneath the surface - for the veil is diaphanous - are problems, associated with the garment, clearly exposed here. These include established models by society related to the veil such as gender issues, relationship, marriage, procreation, submission, permanence, an entire set of linear events, which when left unfulfilled are perceived as an individual's failure. What happens if one alters the pre-given sequence, or does not fit society's models? Then there is the feeling that the natural order has been violated.

The bridle, the instrument of control, at first neatly situated beside the veil, is suddenly in disarray, stretched and broken with the bit removed. The body once held within is set free after a foregone struggle, articulated by the elongated straps. The passion in this once intact relationship has faded - a new beginning? "My work", Giles expressed, "refers to the… impermanence of relationships… I break down objects and their relationships and reassemble them in ways that are at times embarrassing, disruptive…."

But Giles is also affronting. With Night Light (Bullets) (1994), both the effects of ammunition and their production are targeted. This work consists of expended cartridges assembled on a metal rack illuminated from below. The seriousness of Night Light (Bullets) lies in the fact that each shell is an authentic relic found in California's Mojave desert. Likely used for target shooting, these cartridges are nevertheless foreboding in that their ultimate target is the human body. California's economic wealth has been for decades generated by the production of ammunition. That state also takes pride in the manufacture of bullets as an advancement in technology, which is destabilized here. These expended bullets are representations of a militaristic, patriarchal apparatus whose nihilism is transparent. As these shells lurk above the light one cannot help but read them as an alarming signal of corporate greed (and not technological advancements). In the same manner as they pollute the environment with debris, they fracture and kill carelessly.

Perhaps the most layered work is Seven Slips (1994), the largest unit in this installation (after which the exhibition is named). It is composed of eight slips - petticoats - held by dog chokers and brackets. Interestingly, only the skirts are acknowledged in the title, the rest left beyond the territory of language. But, unlike Bridled Passion, positioned vis-à-vis the beholder to engage a dialogue, these garments are high up, just below the ceiling. The fringes of the slips are near one's eye level. It is best to step back to behold the scene at a short distance. It is then that the empty space emerges - below and between the slips - as part of a fragmented whole.

Seven Slips is about repetition and excess even in its pristine formality, prompting several readings. It is about the politics of space and boundaries set up to exclude those who are not yet fully accepted - women - by a still patriarchal and white supremacist society. "I am constantly amazed," commented bell hooks, "how difficult it is to cross boundaries" (Cultural Studies Times, Fall 1994). This refers particularly to women of colour whose unsolved but pressing situation is most apparent in the professional world. But space signals hope. "Space," according to hooks, "is an invitation of changing thought, the open mind, that is the heartbeat of cultural revolution."

This artwork also represents a wounded body, exposing the inner, psychic-emotional side, repeated eight times to underline the pain endured. The aggressor - represented by the dog chokers - in whose grip only vestiges remain is no longer part of language, as the title affirms. The petticoats in this unit are devoid of volume. The body has slipped away articulated by the garments folded over the chains, into which no beholder would like to project her/his body. There is yet one reading that pertains to the viewer. The most challenging issue in beholding this unit is the fact that one's own body is put on the line. The empty space underneath the skirt is occupied by the viewer. It is our body that fills the gap. And since Seven Slips, by its placement in the exhibition, is seen from afar, our own corpus, framed within the installation, becomes the object, the focus for the approaching visitors. We are observed as we look up the skirts or down at empty wall space. Our body, even if only for the moment, becomes the switching centre for all networks of influence found in the art. At this moment we are the screen and the performer.

In this exhibition the body has been freed from restrictive embodiedness, thereby allowing seeing in a more complete and "truthful" way. Things were broken down beyond surface appearance and problems and failures exposed. But failure and "breakdowns" bring a higher reality, and, as here, with things broken down and the visible body removed, draw the viewer into the realm of art and perpetuate discourse.

Maria Zimmermann Brendel is a professor and art critic. Her writings have been published in exhibition catalogues and Canadian and international art journals.

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