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BROKEN HEART AND NEW ART

Of Simian Sagas and Open Heart Surgery in the Work of Lisa Roet

Ashley Crawford
Eyeline 83
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There is a wonderful term that is batted around European philosophy, and elsewhere, that seems particularly adept at shifting meaning. It is essentially known as ‘The Other.’ Its core meaning is used to distinguish something different from one’s self, something outside the ‘norm’ — whatever that may be. It is often argued that one cannot recognise one’s ‘self’ without recognising one’s ‘Other’. This may seem moderately straightforward, but innumerable philosophers, theorists and psychologists have written multitudinous tomes on the subject.

The Other is applied to social sciences, anthropology, racial studies, gender studies and elsewhere. It is often defined by the dominant culture of the time. There has always been the ‘Other’ or the ‘outsider’; the barang, the farang, the gaijin, the balanda and many other Others. 

If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, then from whence comes the Ape? The Simian is the ultimate ‘Other’ precisely because we recognise a glimmer of the Self in its eyes, in its hands, in its very day-to-day activities. Of the animal kingdom it is the Simian that inspires debate and confusion and even sexualisation. In fictions, and in reality, the gorilla is often depicted as a sexual being, due, arguably, to the inadequacies of the human male, the male gorilla standing for masculinity in a way a human man never could. But then, as Lisa Roet asks: ‘Is it insanity to Love the Other?’ ‘The gorilla is often depicted as the primal version of humanity,’ she notes. ‘The epitome of masculinity, primal masculinity, the sexual.’

Since she first began exhibiting in 1988, Roet has pondered, illustrated and experimented with themes of ‘difference’ and ‘perception’. Her portrayal of animals is far... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

Lisa Roet, Heart, White Night, 2014. Musion projection, sound, video. Courtesy the artist and Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne. 

Lisa Roet, Heart, White Night, 2014. Musion projection, sound, video. Courtesy the artist and Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne. 

Lisa Roet, Gorille enlevant une femme / Gorilla carrying off a woman 1887 (After Frémiet), 2014. Type C print, hand coloured, 163.5 x 116.0cm. Courtesy the artist and Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne.

Lisa Roet, Gorille enlevant une femme / Gorilla carrying off a woman 1887 (After Frémiet), 2014. Type C print, hand coloured, 163.5 x 116.0cm. Courtesy the artist and Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne.