In The Last Throes of Artistic Vision
Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, CA, 2009
An installation from a 48 hour performance, created in 1980 for a performance series at LACE Gallery. Entitled “In the last Throes of Artistic Vision”, the work explores the bathos of artistic suffering intertwined with ruminations on violence and ambition. In the performance, each night a Rembrandt Dracula painted “The Slaughtered Ox” by number and each day she slept in a coffin filled with earth in an abandoned top floor warehouse. Led by wraiths carrying candles, the audience walked up five flights of stairs to encounter a dramatically lit tableau and accompanying soundtrack.
Two themes run through The Last Throes of Artistic Vision, a meditation on violence and its origins, on the one hand, and a somewhat comedic comment on Linda Nochlin’s famous query in her article from that era: Why are there no great women artists? Rembrandt, the “prince of darkness” is conflated with that other prince, Dracula, and the prescriptive painting is duly executed in a performative installation that was open throughout to the public.
At Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Lacy unveils a series of four photographic tableaux in a sound-accompanied installation, along with paraphernalia from the original performance. The photos by Raul Vega capture the evocative staging and lighting of the original performance.
