 Visitors (directed by Deborah Shamoni), 2004 video still Chicks on Speed A New Line - a selection of films by Chicks On Speed Chicks on Speed's video work explores different aspects of fashion and subjectivity. The group look at clothing as performance, dressing-up and dressing down as daily rituals. Working within and against a tradition of feminist video art, Chicks on Speed simultaneously carry forward the political challenge set down by the movement and lovingly parody the genre. The language of feminist critique was adopted by the politically correct art world long ago, but the inequalities it tackled remained. Taking for granted the impossibility of subverting the respectability of hegemonic art institutions, Chicks on Speed replace any futile didacticism with a playful approach to improvised performance. In "Visitors" they appropriate this discourse from the perspective of extra-terrestrial linguists, mimicking each other, their audience and their antecedents as much to learn as to teach. A New York street crowd is confronted with multi-coloured aliens straight out of Liquid Sky, colonising mundane scenarios with their gesture dance. Meanwhile in "Sewing Machine", a biomechanical study of domestic chores becomes a Kraftwerk style stage routine. Deliberately blurring the borders between performance and visual art, music, theatre and fashion, Chicks on Speed have consistently avoided categorization. Neither an "art band" nor an artistic experiment in pop, but simply an exciting, confusing, challenging mish-mash of styles, ideas and practices, their work fuses gallery based installations with pop and live and recorded music with visual art. More a "way" of doing things than a group or a place like Warhol's Factory, the day glo universe of the Chicks continues to expand into new territories. The Chicks On Speed started in Munich in 1997 as an all girl visual art and performance ensemble and band that produce music on their own record label. They have toured live throughout the world and in venues such as MoMA New York in 2006, Pompidou Centre, Paris in 2007 and performed at the Turner Prize at Tate Britain in 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include: "Chicks on Speed; It's a Project", Deitch Projects New York, 2004; Atelier COS, Kunstverein Wolfsburg, 2004; "It's not what you think, it's the way you look", Kunstraum Innsbruck, 2005; "Shoe Fuck!", CAC Vilnius, 2007 and "Art Rules!", Yvonne Lambert, Paris, 2007. They are: Kathi Glas (born Germany, 1977, lives and works in Berlin), Melissa Logan (born USA, 1970, lives and works in Hamburg and New York), Alex Murray-Leslie (born Australia, 1970, lives and works in Barcelona), Anat Ben-David (born Israel, 1970, lives and works in London) and A.L. Steiner (born USA, 1967, lives and works in New York). They have frequently collaborated with other artists, fashion designers, musicians and filmmakers such as Jean Charles de Castelbajac, Douglas Gordon, Karl Lagerfeld, Peaches, Jeremy Scott and Deborah Shamoni. In 2004 they released the publication "Chicks on Speed: It's A Project" on Booth-Clibborn Editions. Their single ART RULES! -in collaboration with Christopher Just and Douglas Gordon - will be released on 31 January 2008 on Chicks on Speed Records, followed by their 6th full-length album on 31 May 2008. Exhibition: 25 January - 17 February 2008 Gallery hours: Thur-Sun 12 am - 6 pm, and by appointment Kate MacGarry Gallery 7a Vyner Street UK-London E2 9DG Telephone +44 (0)20 8981 9100 Fax +44 (0)20 8981 0100 Email mail@katemacgarry.com www.katemacgarry.com |
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