Dan Arps and Fiona Clark

Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland

31 July – 31 August 2019

Review by John Hurrell for EyeContact, 20 August, 2019

An Unusual Pairing
I was quite surprised when I noticed these two (quite different) artists being put together like this, and a bit suspicious of bland gallery marketing, but on seeing the show: the combination works well. I didn’t expect it.

I had forgotten about Fiona Clark’s ‘musclemen’ photographs taken in Sydney and Auckland in 1980. They have an emotional and a cerebral content, often showing the anxiety on the faces of the body-building contestants, but also presenting a sort of caricature of masculinity (whatever that is), looking at the performative: a posing process where a heightened exposure of worked-on muscles is intensified (to be admired or assessed) and then—after a brief duration—released. Her fourteen coloured indoor images are lined up on the long end wall opposite the windows.

Read more:http://eyecontactsite.com/2019/08/an-unusual-pairing#ixzz66zKbXPPI
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