KultureDrome

Spirit Girls

An eerie childhood longing increasingly characterizes much LA art. It is hard to say how such a particularly nostalgic iconography has emerged so strongly. Probably an over-simplistic reception of Mike Kelley and co.’s use of adolescent and teen signifiers has had a lot to do with it. But, what started out as a reactive position to prior art eras, has over time become a style – albeit not a style based on form, but one based on content (our favorite records, etc.). In this regard, Marnie Weber’s work stands out in an odd way. The iconography of sick and hobbled animals was already present in her childhood sketchbooks. As if it is literally derived from a Freudian-brand trauma, Weber has seemingly been obsessed with her imagery for all these years. Over time the iconography has grown to include other elements, equally strange in their use of the conventional imagery of girlish fantasy. Weber’s latest video Spirit Girls (2005) is a 13-minute dream sequence in which a number of these fantasies are acted out. Even though formative surrealist films come to mind like Jean Painlevé’s Methusalah (1926) and the camp retro-surrealism of Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures (1963), a yawing cultural divide separates Weber’s film from these potential precedents. Spirit Girl’s exemplifies a much more contemporary position in which the historical avant-garde is reasserted as an extension of middle class sensibilities. This is particularly true for Weber's more recent work. Over time the production value of the imagery has become much more suffisticated. The footage of the new work is often strikingly beautiful, and has, consequently, become much more comfortable, and far less weird.