Regis Golay
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Form follows function 1
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11am is a work that brings to its forefront themes of the homogenization of culture, alongside thoughts of the multiple selves who inhabit our bodies. A Vietnamese coffee filter acts more like a suggestion than anchor of place. The plate of grapes that recur throughout the work reference the fruit’s prolific inclusion in still lives by painters throughout history only serves to highlight that a still image is exactly what this piece is not, despite the imperceptible nature of its movement. Combined with a classic black, high-heeled shoes and elegant dress, the slow rotting of the grapes’ egg-like form alludes to other types of clocks otherwise absent from the images. mind, biological and clock time all meet at ‘11 am’ in a situating of the modern human condition within a wider contemporary culture. Taking place over the course of one week, 11am is a performance that saw Cam Xanh stay each night in a different Airbnb around the central districts of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where she also calls home. the documentation of the performance was filmed by Swiss photographer Regis Golay on an iPhone X, shooting Cam Xanh in a moment of self-reflection for one minute each morning at 11am; a duration extended to just over 47 minutes – the length of a standard television show – and multiplied to 24 hours, creating a video with a week-long duration to match the performance. (Text courtesy of the artist)