SMITH/STEWART | dual
group exhibition
exhibition opening:
march 11, 1999
exhibition closing:
april 1st, 1999
opening hours:
tuesday to saturday, 4-8PM
about.
Stephanie Smith and Edward Stewart, young British artists who have been working as a couple since 1993, present two video installations Dual and Gag in their first solo exhibition in Rome at Studio Stefania Miscetti.
In the 1997 video installation Dual, each artist tries to assert his own identity, represented by writing his own name, but the other’s hand, instead of accompanying or leading the action, hinders him in this attempt, making the action absurd and inconclusive.
In the video installation Gag of 1996, the face and therefore the identity of each person is only revealed at the end of the action involving the two artists in two simultaneous projections.
in collaboration with: Contemporary Arts Programme – The British School at Rome The British Council
Read and download the exhibition’s press release [ITA}.
artists.
In their video installations, Smith (1968 b. Manchester, England) and Stewart (1961 b. Belfast, N.Ireland) represent and explore at several levels different aspects of the couple’s relationship, a relationship that can take on, as the authors themselves point out, obsessive, aggressive and sometimes even extreme and transgressive aspects.
Interpersonal relationships in their complexity, and more specifically the encounter between male and female identities, constitute the central theme of their research, which is articulated between performance and the use of technological means, especially video.
Smith and Stewart are the protagonists of performances realised in front of the video camera, staging ambiguous and conflicting situations, charged with physical and psychological tension.
For a more complete artist profile, see the artists page.