Design and Art Australia Online

Anastasia Klose’s work explores the outer reaches of pure embarrassment through a self-imposed regime of apparently humiliating public performances documented for the camera. Of course, Klose is the author of her own adventures, examining the detail of a highly subjective response to the world while questioning the role of the creative individual – the artist – in the contemporary world.

Klose’s video works such as Bonjour Paris, Je suis une artiste Aussie! [2007] and Film For My Nanna [2006] are particularly fine examples of the artist’s methodology. In Bonjour Paris the artist is seen wandering along the Seine in Paris holding a punning sign that reads Bonjour Paris! Je’ Suis une artist [Aussie]’. Klose is clearly mortified by her own actions. Film for My Nanna sees the artists wandering the streets of Melbourne, again holding a sign, this time reading: Nanna, I am still alone, except this time Klose is wearing a second-hand wedding dress.

Klose’s early video works set a high bar for disturbing behaviour caught on camera. In The Toilets with Ben [2005] – made while an art student – is a documentation of her attempts to have sex with a fellow student in the art college’s disabled toilets. It’s follow up – Mum and I watch 'In the Toilets with Ben’ [2005] – is self-explanatory and a spectacularly excruciating documentation of the artist exposing herself in a way more intimate and disturbing than the original. Klose’s examination of her own motivations is the shadow subject behind the self-deprecating facade and shock value of the videos, Klose cleverly playing with popular notions of artistic integrity, public decorum and romantic notions of the self. A trio of recent works – Lives of the Great Poets [2009], As if on a cloud [2009] True Love [2008] – extends these ideas quite literally, conflating the work and life of Lord Shelley with footage shot in her own backyard.

Writers:

Andrew Frost

Date written:

Last updated:

Status:

moderator approved