Her Own Private Spectres Janieta Eyre's "Melancholy Grotesque" - Érudit
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Document généré le 1 mars 2020 08:47
Ciel variable
Art, photo, médias, culture
Her Own Private Spectres
Janieta Eyre's "Melancholy Grotesque"
James D. Campbell
Théâtre de la mélancolie Résumé de l'article
Theatre of Melancholia Mettant le travail de Janieta Eyre en parallèle avec celui d’autres artistes - la poétesse
Numéro 73, septembre 2006 Sylvia Plath, la photographe Diane Arbus, les cinéastes David Lynch et Alekseï
Balabanov -, l’auteur estime qu’elle a élaboré un genre personnel de « grotesque
URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/19857ac mélancolique ». Selon lui, la mélancolie n’aura jamais paru aussi séduisante que dans
la récente série de l’artiste, What I haven't told you (2003-2006). Il fait appel aux écrits
de Rudolf Otto sur la crainte du sacré, puis souligne la parenté de sensibilité entre le
Aller au sommaire du numéro
travail d’Eyre et Malpertuis de Jean Ray, chef-d’oeuvre du grotesque romantique.
D’après La métamorphose de Kakfa, il avance que, chez Eyre, l’identité est
complètement mutable et que ses métamorphoses frôlent le sublime.
Éditeur(s)
Les Productions Ciel variable
ISSN
1711-7682 (imprimé)
1923-8932 (numérique)
Découvrir la revue
Citer cet article
Campbell, J. D. (2006). Her Own Private Spectres: Janieta Eyre's "Melancholy
Grotesque". Ciel variable, (73), 27–29.
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HER O W N PRIVATE SPECTRES
Janieta Eyre's "Melancholy Grotesque"
JAMES D. C A M P B E L L
/ am inhabited byacry. something deft and vivisector-like about the hands
Nighdy it flaps out that work the surgical steel under cover of darkness
Looking,with itshooks,for something tolove. or, for that matter, in plain sight. There is areal frisson
-Sylvia Plath,"Dm" 1 to be had in experiencing her work.
For a long time now, Eyre has been working
N
o other contemporary photographer's w o r k u p a p r i v a t e m y t h o l o g y that i n t e g r a t e s her o w n
has come closer to being inhabited by Plath's promiscuously imaginative and w a y w a r d imagery
aforementioned cry than that of British-born, with the effluvia of a very deviant thought-world. In
Toronto-based artist Janieta Eyre. N o other series such as Lady Lazarus, Motherhood, Rehearsals,
contemporary photographer's work has come and I n c a r n a t i o n s , her dreamscapes m o r p h e d into
closer to being inhabited by Plath's cry, quoted above, w h a t seem t o be w a k i n g n i g h t m a r e s , a l t o g e t h e r
than that of British-born, Toronto-based artist Janieta unnatural in mien for the viewer but probably, for
Eyre. Indeed, that fatal cry is incarnated harrowingly her, very natural and pertinent.
well in her recent thematic series of theatrically staged In her recent series What I h a v e n ' t told you
p h o t o g r a p h s - so w e l l , in fact, t h a t it is s i m p l y ( 2 0 0 3 - 0 6 ) , her m e l a n c h o l y has never been m o r e
impossible for us to remain deaf to its compellingly unfettered, auratic, r a p t u r o u s . In this respect, the
funereal overtures, for it flies into her viewers' life- work demonstrates ahard-won emotional integrity. It
w o r l d s w i t h feral intensity. E y r e has evolved her reminds us of Sylvia Plath's poetry (and her journals),
o w n signature manner of "melancholy grotesque." D a v i d Lynch's d a r k c i n e m a t o g r a p h i c fables
H e r imagery and the territory that she stakes claim (particularly the early shorts but Lost Highway, too,
to are wholly and uniquely her own. And, for all its w i t h R o b e r t Blake in Luciferian whiteface), and
theatricality, her work refuses easy answers, and it can D i a n e Arbus's similarly unflinching, hungry, and
and does eviscerate hypocrisy and convention. i n t e r r o g a t o r y eye. In fact, E y r e seems t o be t h e
Eyre pursues the myriad raptures and ruptures natural heir to Arbus for the twenty-first century.
of being across her o w n inner thoughtscape coura- O f c o u r s e , E y r e ' s p h o t o g r a p h i c w o r k is,
geously and with abandon. Never one to shy away above all, a methodical amplification of her o w n
from images that might be construed as gratuitously i n t e r i o r life. H e r w o r k s a r e n o - h o l d s - b a r r e d
lurid or even outright loony, she revels in unfurling m e d i t a t i o n s o n m a d n e s s and m e l a n c h o l y b y an
their most painful implications like patterns on yellow artist in close t o u c h w i t h her o w n u n c o n s c i o u s -
wallpaper 2 - and she seems just unstoppable. and one with a demonstrably cinematic gift.
And she stops us in our tracks at every juncture H e r mythology has ademonic aspect,too - one
w i t h the stark, hallucinatory clarity of her visual that transcends mere nightmare yet is always on the
language. Never completely benign, even when ironic cusp of expression. Ghosts are birthed and channelled James D. C a m p b e l l is a writer on
whimsy holds sway, never wholly annihilating, even there. In the past, she has been obsessed with spectral art and independent curator based in
when darkness moves restlessly across it, her imagery apparitions and has looked closely at n i n e t e e n t h - Montreal. The author of over a hun-
dred books and catalogues on art and
can be at once unsettling, hypnotic - and eminently century spirit photography that suggests both etheric
artists, Campbell contributes frequently
twisted. It isalways epic in scope. plasma and the afterlife, and the psychic energies that
to art periodicals such as CV ciel
Viewing Eyre's photographs reminds me of the she channels are aggressively fey and wilful. variable, Border Crossings,Parachute,
vicarious pleasures to be had in ogling the instrumental Rudolf O t t o names the feeling of n u m i n o u s Canadian Art, and ETC. He has taught
3
eye candy of capital operating and amputation sets dread with the Latin phrase mysterium tremendum. history ofphotography at the University
f r o m t h e C i v i l W a r era, w h o s e a e s t h e t i c s w e r e This succinctly expresses our feelings in front of Eyre's ofOttawa.
ineluctably wed to their implementarity. O n e may be work. Perhaps her spectres attract us because they are
seduced by the sight of Tiemann crosshatched ebony wholly Other and induce inusanastonishment which is, J a n i e t a E y r e lives in T o r o n t o .
saw handles aglow with soft polish, and Liston knives after all, a very human response to the numinous. It Since 1995, she has had a number
looking unbearably sharp, and trepanning instruments may repel at first, but it then stakes an irresistible of personal exhibitions and her
work has been shown regularly in
ready to burst forth from their velvet beds in rosewood claim u p o n us. Dread and helpless fascination are
Canada, the U n i t e d States, and
cases to relieve the pressure inside swollen, wounded co-extensive in our experience of Eyre's w o r k and
Europe (particularly Italy). She is
heads. Across awide array of imaginary tableaux - and exert in tandem an inexorable pull.
represented by Christopher Cutts
with razor-sharp precision and aprophylactic grain of In The Metamorphosis, Kafka's lovely entomo- Gallery, in Toronto, Diane Farris
ironic whimsy - Eyre transfixes our voluptuous optic logical n i g h t m a r e , G r e g o r Samsa emerges from a Gallery, in Vancouver, and B&D
a n d p e r f o r m s h e r o w n t r e p a n n i n g o p . T h e r e is human chrysalis like a chitin-wrapped gift from the Studio Contemporanea, in Milan.
CV CIEL VARIABLE 27
insect world. Kafka's is a fable of the tremendum - close she is in spirit to Jean Ray's masterpiece of the
anda bracingmeditationonmelancholy,mutilation,and Romantic grotesque,Malpertuis.Thestrange intensity
mutation - for Samsa's body has become its own of that tale,inwhich events surgeupwith wild clarity
nameless Other. Kafka was perennially attempting to asin a feverdream,inducesinthereader a consummate
communicate the incommunicable, and perhaps sense of dread, much like that brought on by Eyre's
Samsa's struggle mirrored his own. So too, Eyre, in recent works. Malpertuis (House of Evil),the many-
braveactsofdoublinginherstagedphotographs,gives roomed mansion of the title, echoes those rooms in
voicetothe inexplicableand inexpressible asshemakes whichEyrehopestoendherlife.Herdoppelganger is
theperiloustransitfrom theonetothemanyinworkas reminiscent of Lampernisse, the mad hermit who
intractable as it isintense.If words for Kafka were his haunts the mansion's labyrinthine halls.The splendid
onlywayout,imagesforEyreareheronlywayin. melancholy of that modernist Gothic novel slowly
Eyre has been compared to New-York-based seeps out like adhesive sap that gilds allthe rooms in
artistCindy Sherman,but Ithinkshesharesmorewith its namesake. Giddy in self-consciousness but never
Joel-Peter Witkin. Francesca Woodman is another merely narcissistic, and rich in dark fantasy, Eyre's
obvious comparison, but I find a more eloquent photoworksthematizetheirownmelancholic content
predecessor still in Ralph Eugene Meatyard, whose from seriesto series, work to work.
photographs still count among the spookiest around. Let us return to Kafka for a moment. Samsa's
Like Meatyard, Eyre is utterly unafraid in her work; predicament ismuch likethat of anyperson suffering
shealways moves beyond anything like conventional from melancholy in its malignant form, like Plath's
imagery and meanings and embraces the far side of cry, which can disfigure the spirit as tumour and
her project, which most often integrates her own metastasis do the body. Kafka draws on his own
image doubled, opening up consummately strange melancholy, adding lustre and authenticity to all the
parallel universes in which to waylay the unwary dark adjectives that are in mind to say. A new chitin
viewerin a vivisectionist'shook-fraught wonderland. jacket means perceiving differently from before;
In the astonishing polyptych What I haven't senses are sharpened, spatial perception changes,
toldyou (2003), Eyreappearsinmultiplelikeclonesthat and so forth. Similarly, Eyre is aware that today
are melancholy but also look, frankly, pissed. Their identity isentirely mutable.Her own metamorphoses
Erosmaybemelancholy,buttheprospectofvivisection verge on the sublime, in that it is difficult to tell
invests the melancholic with a decidedly sadistic where in her work the numinous leaves off and the
twist. In / had tohave a smalloperation (2004), Eyre sublime begins,and viceversa.The sublime, like the
replicates herself into four unhappy transgendered numinous,defeats allattempts attaxonomy, preserves
selves.Still,she isbest known for her doppelgangers, its own mysteries and is thus the strangest and
and the promise of their death-bound subjectivity is most compelling of attractors.
pervasive.Eyre'sart is oneoftotalizinginteriority. Eyre's fidelity to her own private spectres, to
Incommenting on Eyre's work, Iam drawn to numinosity and the sublime, and our ongoing
the work of a fellow traveller: St. Petersburg-based infatuation with all of her possible worlds, makes us
directorAlekseiBalabanov.His OfFreaksandMenis hopeful for the many metamorphoses that are surely
a lush and vivacious wedding of porno, insanity, the still tocome.
sex life of Siamese twins, and the whole wounded
madhouse of our timebrought up closeand personal. 1. Sylvia Plath, Collected Poems, ed. T. Hughes (London, Faber &
Faber Limited, 1981).
Eyre'sown Siamesetwinsfantasia,Dresswith Holein
2. The reference istoCharlotte PerkinsGilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
the Heart, comes immediately to mind. Her ironic, (first published 1899 by Small & Maynard); Gilman is a kindred
whimsical perversity certainly matches Balabanov's. spirit of Eyre's.
His isarealfreak show,of course,but itisatruismof 3. SeeRudolf Otto, The Idea ofthe Holy:An Inquiry into the Non-
ourcondition thatweareallfreaks toagreaterorlesser rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the
Rational(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958).
extent.Thisuncomfortable truth comes hometousin
4. See Russel Joslin, "Interview with Janieta Eyre," in Shots,No. 84
regarding Eyre'swork. OfFreaksandMen,like What (May, 2004.)
Haven't I told you, may seem nihilistic but, upon
closer inspection, this is far from the truth. And it is
alteritythat isthe touchstone. Résumé
Eyre's Ophelia-like self-portraits, skin whiter- Mettant le travail de Janieta Eyre en parallèle avec celui
page 22-23 than-white, have adistinctly Gothic feel without the d'autres artistes-la poétesse Sylvia Plath, la photographe
March 27 th Quartermoon overttrappingsofcontemporary Goth.Her penchant Diane Arbus, lescinéastes David Lynch et Alekseï Balabanov - ,
diptych
eachpanel 76 x 1 02 cm for funky cosmetics, crinolines, knee-high stockings, l'auteur estime qu'elle a élaboré un genre personnel de
2003 masks,bandages,vibrantpatterning,blindfolds, andso «grotesque mélancolique». Selon lui, la mélancolie n'aura
page 24-25 forth isradiant and helps to amplify her "melancholy jamais paru aussi séduisante que dans la récente série de
What I haven't toldyou (details) grotesque." There is no dead space in Eyre's images. l'artiste, What I haven't told you (2003-2006). Il fait appel
4-panelpolyptych
eachpanel 76 x 1 02 cm
Everything resonates. And the humour in her art is aux écrits de Rudolf O t t o sur la crainte du sacré, puis
2003 mostoften pitch-black. Ifyou missit,you missout on souligne la parenté de sensibilité entre le travail d'Eyre et
page 26 the lighter touches, albeit limned with portents of Malpertuis de Jean Ray, chef-d'œuvre du grotesque roman-
The Mystery of Claire exclamatory darkness astheyare. tique. D'après La métamorphose de Kakfa, il avance que,
76 x 102 cm
Eyre has said, "I have in my mind this elusive chez Eyre, l'identité est complètement mutable et que ses
2005
place, a home in which every room is painted in a métamorphoses frôlent le sublime.
page 29
Eating Meat different colour and at each doorway is a different
diptych,leftpanel 4
76 x 102 cm
costume. This is where I hope to end my life." The
2004 quotation is interesting, because it reminds us howr ~r„„,^r
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