Restoring+Appearances+To+Order+In+12+Minutes+(1975)

Restoring Appearances To Order In 12 Minutes (1975), 16mm, color, mag sound, 10 min

In Restoring Appearances To Order In 12 Minutes, the filmmaker performs her solitary act of cleaning. A static camera tightly frames the studio sink dirty with paint and other residue while the artist engages in a concerted ritual of scrubbing and scrapping. We see only the back of the artist as she moves within the frame, blocking the sink here, revealing the sink there; arms forming verticals, horizontals, and diagonals across the frame. Frame and sink synch together. The artist’s frame: a body-movement, body-rhythm, swaying to-and-fro, veiling and unveiling. Reframing the frame. But also, domestic frame: the pun is on the over cleanliness of certain reductivist gestures in the history of art making. A frame of reference. The aporia of such aesthetic acts is emphasized at the end as the film flares out and the artist still toils over the sink, thrown into an impossible task without end. Cleaning calls attention to the fear of the unclean, the impure; it is the act of cleaning itself that “scrubs” and “scrapes” at our senses, sharpening our wits.

Still from Restoring Appearances To Order In 12 Minutes (1975)



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