Haunch of Venison - part 2: Eve Sussman's 'Rape of the Sabine Women'

When I first heard of this piece awhile ago - i kind of dismissed it. I dismissed it because it was directly tied to art history and I'd come across quite a few artists doing this (as they always have done, of course) and I was tired of it for the moment.

Now in seeing 'Rape', I realize how wrong i was. I mean, tying your work to art history doesn't have to be the ploy I thought it was to belong in the in crowd, 'talk' to the art geeks, make one's work within a pointed out instead of found trajectory. (why do i want to plant something to be found instead of going ahead and drawing the line? - feels forced i guess even if its not necessarily so).

First of all, I avoid all films that may depict rape - it is often too much for me to handle emotionally. In the past, i have been traumatized in watching a film and now try to avoid it - even a hollywood film like 'Joan of Arc' where i cried violently for quite some time and carried this boiling anger inside me for days and days...

Maybe that is another reason I avoided this piece.
For some reason I stopped avoiding...and I'm glad I did for I learned a lot about myself and my work in watching her film. I think i liked the film - yes, I like it. I didn't love it, but i did like it. Maybe it was too quiet to love? But I also respect the 'quietness' of the film and do believe it was intentional.

There is a rape scene - one. It isn't too graphic so i could handle it.

From reading around the internet, I learned that the original use of the word 'rape' did not mean physical rape, but meant to take the women - as in a group of women taken from one tribe to another in order to propagate. This seems to me that it would automatically include rape as we define it today - but her depiction of it in the film was an overall taking where the women became a part of their new world and assimilated to some degree.

Sussman stated somewhere that the women turn against the men - i guess in seeing the end of the film it could be viewed that way but it also seemed that in the movement and hustle of bodies they were just as implicated as the men in the hustle - that they were just this swarm of bodies where the women's clothes but not the mens started to come off. the men's clothes did become disheveled though. the women started pulling at the men (is that attacking them?) when they were fighting with the other men of their same clan - so it could read that the women were trying to pull their indiv. men out of the foray. I'm not sure on this point.

What i do know from watching 'rape' is about my own past video work. and that is good - its been awhile since i've been in touch with video work as hard as I might try.

1. sublime. Her film was slow moving, letting the mood and silence with whispers, coughing make things come to a state that felt in between and dream like where you get lost not in the narrative - although you recognize it - but in the static-ness of the film. In comparison, when Barney is sublime in his films - i don't let myself get lost because I'm scared of what will come around the corner - there is a fear instilled in his work. I did not feel fear in watching 'rape' - i was detached more than that - i did feel a movement/arc towards something but i wasn't scared of it. Whereas in Barney's use of sublime - i can't even enjoy it and let it go because it only builds anxiety for me and everyone else, probably. It seems to be his intention.

Definition of SUBLIME

transitive verb

1

: to cause to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state and condense back to solid form

2

[French sublimer, from Latin sublimare] a (1) : to elevate or exalt especially in dignity or honor (2) : to render finer (as in purity or excellence) b : to convert (something inferior) into something of higher worth

intransitive verb

: to pass directly from the solid to the vapor state

Sublime in the dictionary is the same and diff. from what i think of when speaking of art. Yes, the sense of sublime being tied to the word vapor seems adequate - but I'm not sure I recognize lower to higher. The other definitions seem to be scientific and chemical and i'm not talking of it in that sense.My friend Gina once said what her definition of sublime was - and I adhere to this - my words/version:

Sublime is that moment when facing death - that moment that can't even be defined by time because it is so small - but it is that moment where you aren't fearing it but are welcoming it - in the split second before you jump in front of a train - that split second when someone makes that decision and doesn't have the fear associated with death.

I've prob. grossly misconstrued what she said - but that is my definition of it after hearing her say that. It is a vapor. It is a passing of realms. It is out of our current state of being in the everyday. How does work become sublime? It is more than just slow moving...it is more than just beautiful...it is psychological...it is an emotion?, is it?

A curator once told me that a video of mine was sublime. I agreed with him but I still don't know what made it that way... exactly. Maybe it was because i was trying to 'talk' about something one couldn't put their finger on. Which has the same 'vapor'-ness as sublime.

2. color and sex
There is this one amazing scene in 'rape'. This woman dressed in a fuchsia 50s suit is making out with a man in a black/white suit. (I do like in her film that all the women were in bright colors and the men all dressed alike in suits - like they were machines and utilitarian and the women were the 'fruit' of their labor - the dessert, the life in what was normally repetitive and mundane. Also - the women were the peacock, the ones that seduced.

The making out scene; she was wearing a striped colored hat that matched her dress + had green stripes? in it. You never saw her face. It was this closeup mix of bright candy colored fuschia and black and white suit. It was awesome. It made me think that i wanted to make a video with two people making out while wearing so much bright color - one could watch the body movement, know and not know what was happening, not see skin but see suggestive movement, you could osscilate between getting lost in the color and figuring out the suggestive movement to see what the couple was doing - what sexual positions/maneuvers they were performing...
I wonder how i'd make that happen as my own piece.. and why the fuck i'd make it - i mean what does it even mean to my work? who the hell knows.

3. While watching 'rape', sitting in the sublime my mind could wander and create some. That was a nice and creative gift. I had this visual of a woman having her hair braided by men's hands. The men's hands were all different colors/ages/textures - but all obviously men. boy's too? I have no idea what that means other than me finding it visceral at this point.... of course, there is a male/female relationship there, there is something sexual, there is something trusting and loving and nurturing... intimate. What else?

That is all i can recall now. It was good seeing that film. It reminded me that my initial attraction to and acceptance of obviously changed movements (edited) was something that was acceptable. if i chose to use it again, that is. it makes a mood and it doesn't matter if anyone can easily tell the technical aspects of doing it... no one is trying to fool anyone. It is accepted?

The film reminded me of my thesis video: "Ave Maria' = it even had a vintage dress/ pattern element...the sublime I mentioned before... getting to something that is not easy to define (Ave maria had religion, power, mother to daughter handed down gender based roles...) - it can be ethereal or literal - maybe not ever in between. "rape', from reading online if i remember correctly, is after that failure of a utopia - of setting something up followed by its demise. But it isn't the literal she is after = it seems as if it is about the HUMAN in that - and that is where the vapor is, the uncategorizable. It exists in stories over humanity's time - but it, itself, is a vapor.

The press release states:
subjects:' desire, power, utopia, loss of identity'
and
"Throughout my work I have been investigating ways to imply narrative through gesture, psychological interactions and group dynamics'.

I will have to make some more video. I feel like picking it up again.