Akeroyd Collection
Works
Alex Da Corte, ROY G BIV, 2022
![a black and white image of an elderly man wearing a black suit is playing chess. We can see him from underneath and through a glass table.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2Fca1947a66c8fed6cf1c4227342c12317d1ce729a-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![two purple plasticine figures embrace and kiss in a pink spotlight. They are standing on a purple has that has red light bulbs around it 2 purple hearts float above them.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F95be7eac668d352b589a05b5a6ca8d8b2e788322-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![the words 'the end' are written in cursive on top of a wreath of plasticine multicoloured roses. A cherub is perched on one of roses.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F34cf74d3159d91d15dd58d5809927274937e699b-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![2 animated cherubs hold open a grey curtain to reveal an empty gallery space.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2Fa12cbc2f09778c6e8dcc6b51f00915bf57036824-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![a blue plasticine figure is atop a blue box that has blue light bulbs protruding from it. Pink, yellow and green neon stars are visible as well as 2 drum kits in background.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2Ff326f0e192a825e032269ec25a21a3f7ebf7f8b2-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![an art gallery with wooden floors and white walls. A video art work projected on to an orange freestanding box. 8 orange chairs are in front of the projection for the audience to sit on.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F1b5327382758d81dadee217a43af4e98e29093f1-2400x1801.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![an art gallery with wooden floors and white walls. A video art work projected on to an green freestanding box. 8 green chairs are in front of the projection for the audience to sit on.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F72034e96e312956111fdd5d9b99f2f9fabc53f01-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![an art gallery with wooden floors and white walls. A video art work projected on to a blue freestanding box. 8 blue chairs are in front of the projection for the audience to sit on.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2F456a7a49d884bc66859696310b11a08c902e36a8-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
![an art gallery with wooden floors and white walls. A video art work projected on to a yellow freestanding box.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Frp6jt0va%2Fproduction%2Fb638c127bd6f9a0b6ac628e5c818f7689abc0bc1-2400x1800.jpg%3Ffit%3Dmax%26auto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)
ROY G BIV is a video installation and an ongoing performance work whose title is an acronym for the colours of the rainbow. The film, when installed as part of the larger installation project, is housed within a large cuboid structure. The film is projected on one surface, while on the others a different colour paint is applied by a professional housepainter. This performance aspect of the work references a John Baldessari piece called Six Colorful Inside Jobs. In this 1977 work, Baldessari painted the inside of a room one colour per day for six days. Both works consider the emotional labour involved and its relation to colour, functioning as both a colour study and a demonstration of craft and physical work.
The video projected onto the cube depicts a reconstruction of the Constantin Brancusi gallery of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Da Corte plays four characters in the video: the artist Marcel Duchamp, depicted during his iconic moment in life as a chess player; Duchamp’s female alter ego, Rrose Sélavy; Duchamp dressed as the Joker in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film, where he terrorizes an art museum; and as one of two figures in Brancusi’s sculpture The Kiss, 1916. To varying degrees, and at different moments in history, these figures have taken on gender stereotypes or have made use of masks, disguises and prosthetics to build an identity that serves their needs, creative and otherwise. To conflate the fictional, the real, the inanimate and the speculative via a sculpture, a supervillain, an artist and a persona is to collapse ideas of identity, gender and power within high and low art. This is a contending of queer histories and violence from a multitude of perspectives and a thinking-through of their relations to the colours of the rainbow.
Medium | Video, colour, sound, 60 min, wood box with back-projected screen, paint, performance, and powder-coated chairs |
Duration | 60 minutes |
Edition | of 5 + 2 APs |