Anastasia Klose

"Anastasia Klose's performances and videos have an air of amateur therapy, and exhibit the desire to publicly share and work through private pain and neuroses. In a previous work, the video In the toilets with Ben (2005), the artist filmed herself having sex in the toilets of the Victorian College of the Arts. Klose expresses a desire to delve into those things she finds most humiliating or repugnant, exploring the process of humiliation and embarrassment. The purpose of this performance was to test the limits of her own behaviour, and from her discomfort with filming what is normally a private act, to produce something positive: in this case an artwork. The embarrassment she experienced with this performance was further explored in Mum and I watch in the toilets with Ben (2005), where Klose sat on the couch with her mother to watch the video. Both mother and daughter are clearly uncomfortable but this is dissipated as the pair delves into mundane details, discussing fluff in Klose's armpit and the fact that she is wearing her mother's bra whilst having sex. In Slapping Video (2005) Klose again tested the limits of her capacity to bear physical and mental humiliation. In the performance Klose contracted an "assistant" to repeatedly slap her, and found comfort in her own strength of will. And just to even the balance of things, the performance was repeated with Klose slapping her willing assistant. In the exhibited work, Sloppy Seconds (2007), Klose dredges up her worst works, the failed videos that for one reason or another never saw the light of day. Exhibiting and wallowing in her failures has the twofold purpose of diminishing their importance through a process akin to conditioning – the more they are watched the lesser their failure becomes, and also offers the possibility that through their revisitation we might find somewhere in the videos a glimmer of worth. Sloppy Seconds bears strong connections to works such as Nana, I'm still alone and How to be me, where Klose assumed the role of the tragic clown, exhibiting her own lack of talent, career and relationship failures." - http://blindside.org.au/2007/pains-in-the-artists.shtml

The work of contemporary feminist artist,Anastasia Klose, highlights the use of the male gaze by doing the exact oposite, thus presenting the veiwer with the way an inbalence in gender gazeing causes steriotypes to be made. For example, in "Mum and I watch in the toilets with ben-2005", The veiwer adopts the gaze of Klose, veiwing herself, thus looking through a female gaze. This peice makes the veiwer question the way in which women are sexualised and objectified through film. As a women, Klose is no longer an object but a human being. She brings this humanity on herself by being painfully aware of the awkward social situation she is forcing upon herself by watching such a personal thing with her mother as she crosses a social tabboo. Seeing a woman in a film as a human being rather than an objects gives the veiwer the realisation of how women are veiwed through the male gaze. It also makes the veiwer consider gender/sexuality steriotyping. If it was a male artist who had produced "In the toilets with ben" how would it change the way it was veiwed? If Ben had been the artist producing it, how would that change the way it was veiwed? Why is watching such a natural human behaviour with parents so humiliating?