August 05

Julie Rrap: Remaking the World; Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne University

Posted by Natalie Thomas on August 5, 2015 in Australian Art, Melbourne Art | Leave a comment

Thank god someone is using their creative ‘museum time’ to imagine the world as a better place. This makeover, the making over of the world, is a big, ambitious job. The world is presently in one god-awful mess; a mess so extreme it’s easier to list what doesn’t need remaking than what does. We’ve outdone ourselves at fucking the place up good and proper, this world of ours that we all like to call home. Identify the problem, brainstorm solutions, and put solutions into play. Problem solved. That’s what we’re teaching 11-year old Maxine and it’s going quite well. She often turns to us, heart on sleeve, and starts listing what we need to do to remake the world. It’s quite a list:

Stop climate change
End racism and sexism
Halt wars (old and ne/religious and territorial)
No child growing up in poverty
A cure for cancer
No bullying
A home and a school for everyone.

This kid could advise world leaders. She asks incredulously: ‘Mum, why are there so many rich old white men on the TV moaning all the time?’ and its hard to answer her. We change the channel and tune in to Embarrassing Bodies to gawp at the graphic ailments of TV patients instead. I like a woman who throws her body round for the greater good. Julie Rrap’s artistic influences throughout her career have always concerned the human form and how it is represented in media and society, particularly females in Western Society. Julie Rrap uses this influence to:

“…poke fun at the stereotypical representations of women transforming these characters into active agents for change.” Using her body, suggestions of the body and representations of the body to complete her work.”

A. Elizabeth, Brooklyn Museum

Julie Rrap has made iconic images that transcend language to represent experience and feelings. Overstepping 2001, once seen, doesn’t leave you. A pair of fleshy high-heeled feet.

Julie Rrap is prescient. The other day on the telly, we saw a new cosmetic surgery procedure. A woman was getting silicon injected into the soles of her feet, so she could wear her high heels all day without pain. She was addicted to her Jimmy Choos and didn’t feel complete without them. It’s difficult putting your best foot forward for hours, when you could just as easily be writhing round in agony. She saw this as a major breakthrough and (from behind the hand I had clasped over my eyes so I wasn’t emotionally scarred by the camera close up of the grisly delights of her procedure) I thought: ‘you go girl. It’s your body, if you want to wear high heels without pain you do whatever it takes! Very practical on a pebbly beach…’

Nah. Actually, I’m a judgmental bitch so I thought: ‘you friggin idiot. It’s official; the whole world has gone completely fucking mad. Who sits ‘round all day thinking this crazy assed shit up?’

http://www.julierrap.com

http://www.art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/exhibitions/exhib-date/2015-07-23/exhib/julie-rrap-remaking-the-world