ALICE MAHER @ GREEN ON RED

Ok I figure ur supposed to have an opinion on this exhibition. First time I've ever seen another person in this gallery while I was there, and there was like six. And its been on a while. tbh I never really got what was supposed to make this chick any better than the girls I used to see copping her moves at art-school and I don't know if this show is gonna be the one to change my mind.

First off this seemed okay. There were framed prints made from the animations which comprise the main bulk of the exhibition. I wondered about how they left in the rubbed out bits somehow. I wish I knew more abt printmaking processes sometimes.

So Alice Maher's schtick is like this queasy dissection of the body and she's obsessed with hair, but beyond that, I really didn't know what I was meant to extrapolate from this exhibition. When William Kentridge does the one page animation thing, its abt histories that can't be erased maybe, when Maher does it she just seems to be exploiting its inherent visual seductiveness. Bodies morph, mutate, merge and disolve, turning into bees and balls of hair and the sound is close mic-ed and uncomfortable in its detail. There's a level of skill in the drawing (even if her faces are a bit awkward and junior-cert-ey at times) but there's not a whole lot of um variation in how she makes the mutations happen. Like, you won't be mad at yourself for trekking out to see this, but I doubt you'll be that into it either, but then what do I know.