If you have a phobia of needles, don’t go see this. If you have a slightly less common phobia of birds pecking off your genitalia, also stay away. Same goes for phobias of having insects in your mouth, singing surgeons or filthy teenage boys, because all that weird crap is rife in young English artist Marianna Simnett’s film installation at Matt’s Gallery.
The ceiling is lined with LEDs that flicker and pulsate with the movie. On screen, a blonde woman – played by the artist – summons birds to peck a security guard’s knob off. She then enters a medical facility filled with young boys receiving injections from a singing doctor, straight into their larynxes, to stop their voices from going all squeaky. The woman demands the same injection, the male doctor refuses. There’s a big musical number. Then it all starts over.
The ideas bubbling under the surface here are classics of feminist art: transformation, empowerment, strength through self-determination. The character in ‘Worst Gift’ isn’t just asking to be treated the same as the teenage boys, she’s more powerful than them and she knows it. She’s not coming at it begging, she’s demanding, she’s in a position of strength. Give her what she wants or she’ll fuck you up, not because we’re all equal, but because she is better than you.
In her work, the body becomes a tool of transformation, a weapon of political power through transmogrification. It feels like a particularly British form of psychedelic horror: polite but brutal, sedate but violent, a pleasant meekness as a flimsy sheen over a rotting corpse. It’s only let down by the schlocky acting and the fact that it leaves you wanting a lot more. And for heaven’s sake, if you value your junk, don’t mess with Marianna Simnett.
@eddyfrankel