kate gilmore

"if humor isn't involved, i'm not interested" ~kate gilmore


i found kate gilmore to be humbly brilliant, and very honest in a very comical way. watching video pieces like "main squeeze" and "star bright, star might" i myself became very tense and even a little claustrophobic, but i still viewed them as more funny than disturbing or unsettling. it almost pained me to watch, but at the same time i wanted to laugh.


the first video shown, " my love is an anchor" i read in a much more literal sense, most likely due to the title of the work. i related it "maybe even to a fault) to real life relationship issues of attachment, dependency , and being content to be miserable. i saw this girl, all dressed to step out into the world, yet she was held back (by her love, the anchor......) although i received it with these undertones of relationship issues, it still achieved a great level of humor, unlike the more raw drama and emotion-filled relationship studying photos of nan goldin. i thought of the two artist as dealing with the same subject matter, only with different techniques; representational vs documentary, funny vs sad, etc.....

my favorite pieces of hers were "heartbreaker" and "wallflower" (particularly the latter purely because of the aesthetic).... i enjoyed the split screen action reminiscent of 70s video performance pieces, and of course the objects used and their quantity and cluttered -ness.
it all kind of reminded me of a more funny and female chris burden, only less violent.
also, specifically "heartbreaker" made me think of my friend whitney, who also uses shotty construction and destructive deconstruction , only her work is much more dark (and more bloody). the breaking apart of the wooden heart was very similar to whitney breaking out of a wooden crate she had built, made dead bunnnies to go inside, and which she herself sat in wearing a tattered innocent-looking dress before she hammered her way out.
unfortunately, it seems the sculpture kids apparently aren't really made to explain their work, so i still cant quite get her to talk about it.