Gillian Wearing appears as her own father. This must've been fun. I wonder if she broke out into loud public flashbacks. Is the photography studio public? Is a controlled space public? Is private your mental life that no-one else knows? Can these photographs leak such a thing? Is privacy what you think you are hiding? Is there a limit to what a person can expose about themselves? Dad and daughter, HER dad, her collection of associations, my understanding of her and her dad, all approximations spyrographing the article like animations of atoms.
Getting strangers to say things to a camera, letting 'it' out, 'emotional' expression, uninhibited wording, like you might indirectly through singing along to a popular song [Dennis Potter] or directly, thinking it's better because it is 'your own', your own words, the myth of ownership and personality, the myth yet reality of individuality, the limits and unlimits of science, rationality, trust in ideas and social/contextual/historical positioning. A load of bollocks we made up after we invented boredom and made sex a problem. We are cleverly stupid are we?
People say with signs what they cannot with their faces? People are honest written? It is all manipulation of a method of communication, there are only accepted ideas and not facts. Freedom from faith and belief, at least, fixed ones. Allow fiction, believe the myth you make, portray with conviction. Art the magnifier. Hello world, it's me, Anything. Gillian Wearing's sign-holders say it without flowers.
A mummified stranger, oh the nerve of the social-defiance, the taboo-smashing monster, what a brave act, ripe for discussion. What ideas and questions does this piece raise? Boring ones? Clever ones? Deep ones? Our beautiful constructs crumble in your presence, oh image. We cannot compete with your insight. We are humble and dying in your shadow. It's a good trick innit.
She is being her mum. We all end up turning into our mums. Daddy saw to that.
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