Female llama pissing in the wind
In the era of post-representation and of the end of the subject, the "Naming of Woman" has been, paradoxically, a concern of the Master Thinkers. This should not surprise us, because naming the Other is seen to be able to stave off Death. However, it has proven a problem for the woman's/artist's signature, exposed as it is to attacks of being essentialist and nostalgic for presence or identity in authorship. Instead of falling for this ruse, a number of contemporary women artists are successfully opting for an oblique strategy of what I would term: PUTTING WOMAN UNDER ERASURE
The recent exhibition of four installation works and a catalogue text by Anne Ooms is an excellent example of this strategy, and is highlighted in the exhibition title, Female Llama Pissing in the Wind, which also names (numerically) each of the works, including the text. The essay (printed without title) is meant to function as an artwork in itself, appearing in the list of works as Female Llama V. On a closer reading, this text offers itself up as a Freudian mystic writing pad, bearing the trace of an arche-text, while effectively employing a strategy of ERASURE.
In Female Llama V the artist refers to children's Alpha Language Learning Cards as markers in the process of her art making, and mentions the title of a fondly remembered children 's book, Les Elephants piliers du monde. While doing research to improve her "animal drawing skills" this story-book was found to be standing next to "the only book on llamas on the shelf" in the library. Do we detect here the tracks of condensation and displacement? It would appear so, when a