Louise Menzies offers us objects, images and situations that explore the past and present through attention to the way they are already represented. For this exhibition, Menzies delves into feminist histories, via the Germaine Greer Archive held at the University of Melbourne.
Of particular interest to Menzies are the notecards Greer made while writing her bestselling feminist publication The Female Eunuch (1970). Her choice of notecards – here we are offered only eight out of hundreds within the greater collection – look to explicitly focus our attention on the gendered operation of language. Digitally reproduced and set within sheets of handmade paper, the notecards hover between their original status as printed ephemera and a contemporary landscape still troubled by the politics of reproduction. Greer’s reference to the writing of Christine de Pisan is further translated via a 14th century illustration, printed as a silk scarf. This exhibition follows the artist’s residency at the McCahon House in 2016.
This exhibition is produced with support from McCahon House Trust and AUT School of Art & Design.
Image: University of Melbourne Archives, Greer, Germaine (1939-), Words have lost force, 2014.0039.0368. Permission of Germaine Greer Archive, University of Melbourne Archives