Big screen dolls…You little wonder, little wonder you…
For those of you in the Washington DC area that haven’t already checked it out, the current exhibition at The Hirshhorn is
The exhibition is approaching it’s final week (it runs until May 11th) and it features
It seems the Bowie doll is taking museum goers by surprise, not least of all BowieNetter wlrook who posted this on the MBs earlier in the month:
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I was in Washington DC recently, and had time to visit the Hirshhorn Museum of contemporary art. The exhibit, “The Cinema Effect–Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image–Part I: Dream” was the major draw. I walked thru the maze of displays, starting with Warhol’s Sleep projected on a wall, and towards the middle of the tour I walked into a dark room which had an approx. 18″ rag doll affixed six feet up a wall with a projector inches from its face.
A talking face was projected on the doll, and I gasped: “David!” I mean, that voice, I know it like my own. Had it been silent, it would have taken a few minutes because it really was only the face–no hair, no ears–and distorted. So David Doll monologues for 5-10 minutes as if he were directing some bizarre film. His face is so mobile and expressive, so toothy…the monologue was fantastic (“you there with the face…yes you in the shirt…” “SEX!SEX!” and the poignant disclosure that something needed to be moved because he couldn’t see out of that eye).
I stood thru it four times. People would come in and not recognize or after a couple of minutes say “you know who that looks like”. The project is by Tony Oursler circa 1996. If you are in DC GO GO GO…it runs through May 11. It was a fine surprise for me.
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And here’s another bit from
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Dreaming is deeply solitary, but films are usually designed to be a collective activity?sharing a reverie with others. Tony Oursler is the only artist to acknowledge this in Switch (1996), a three-part installation of handmade dolls with video projected onto their blank faces. The first doll, positioned high on the wall, is a movie director barking orders at his invisible actors, and some of his words take museumgoers aback: ?You! Stop looking over here! I don?t exist. The camera does not exist,? he says. ?Stop! Nobody move. Freeze.? Nervous laughter from people in the gallery usually follows. (That?s the face of David Bowie, a frequent collaborator with Oursler, on the director doll.)
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Whether they realise it or not, Bowie fans will be aware of Oursler’s work via the quite brilliant Floria Sigismondi directed Little Wonder promotional film. (Montage of Oursler pieces from Little Wonder above)
David also used Oursler’s projected films to incredible effect during the 50th Birthday Benefit Show at Madison Square Garden in January 1997 and the Earthling Tour of the same year.
You can read more about the exhibition on