Artist's Statement Christine Szabados - Crimson

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"In short the point of the gaze always participates in the ambiguity of the jewel" - Jacques Lacan

The title of the show indicates a state of sexual availability. Liz Taylor in a series of film stills is revealed as subject of desire through the mechanism of the gaze. Liz passes through object of desire or suffering lack (passive) to active subject that is woman as grotesque creating fear as 'castrating abject monster'. The films chosen pass from passive to active - A Place in the Sun 1951 to Butterfield 8 1960.

Liz Taylor became representative of the fifties ideal, beauty as commodity where the power of the look and subsequently the gaze enabled a mild form of sexual control. With this evolving realization came a dislocation of self where the psyche would split and reveal a fractured persona. Not only was this evident in how the social/political framework affected the content of the movies being made, but Liz Taylor's personal life took on an uncanny relationship with the characters she portrayed.

Playwrights like Tennesse Williams emphasised the disjuncture of America's perceived outer face with the reality of a dystopic inner psyche. In the two films represented that are based on his plays, woman is seen/used as lure for male dysfunction. I use a sequence of four to emphasise the shift from woman as bait/virgin to woman as something to be thrown back/whore to be representative of man's disparate desire. As we look at these images the grotesque comes to mind/or the horror of the possibility of woman as source of desire and with that the dread of castration. Woman exists to rest in this non-space.

I use a copy of the copy and a transformation through the use of the colour crimson or shades there of, to not only describe the dread but to question whether these issues still exist. In a post-modern pastiche, recalling Andy Warhol's Disaster series and Cindy Sherman's Film Stills, the use of the screen holding pattern reveals a constant status quo.

Christine Szabados, September 2002