Artists in Fieldwork
Rael Artel reflects
on Mud d' Artiste
in "Artists in Fieldwork: Anu Vahtra,
Jaanus Samma, paula roush, Pilvi Takala."
Peateema Magazine, May 2006, pp 39-43.
The idea of a summer resort and its current reality was the main topic of the London-based Portuguese artist paula roush's work "Mud d'artiste." `
It consists of three parts: two glass jars with leftover mud gathered from the artist's body and provided with labels clearly paraphrasing Piero Manzoni's
work of 1961. The second part is a video with two parallel shots showing the artist enjoying a mud bath and the exhibits of the display of the wax figures that used to take place at the same place. The third part is the webcast of the artist dancing in front of the tourist office in the main street, in front of the Parnu weather camera. In all the parts the artist had masked her head and face with mud, leaving out only the eyes. Attempting to baste the meanings, we might assume that the criminalised artist in mud mask- an allusion to a terrorist- is commenting upon traditional curative attractions, "cultural undertakings" (waxwork exhibition) directed at mass audiences and the web-based surveillance system.
The artist's working methods deserve special attention as well.
paula's speed of reaction was amazing - the artist, working with experimental public art and issues of urban space, generated her project based on her experience in Parnu within few days. paula's strategy is simple: she moves around with open eyes and mind through different layers of urban space, notices and picks up meaningful objects, telling human relations and unique behavioural patterns, and joins them together into one work with several ideas still loose. Incidentally, "Mud d'Artiste" created in Parnu was also displayed at tourism related exhibition "Global Tour" at W139 in Amsterdam.
contact
paula roush ::: paularoush@gmail.com
msdm studio ::: msdm@msdm.org.uk