Loop
Dimensions: 220cm x 175cm
Format: 2 x Video projections without sound
Duration: 2x 1 hour loops
Date: 2004
Loop is installed as two projections shown in sync, back to back on each side of a single screen, suspended in the middle of the gallery. The two films show a female figure spinning a hula-hoop around her waist. On one side of the screen the viewer sees the woman head on, while on the other side the viewer is presented with footage of the woman filmed from behind. Both videos are made up of seamless loops created to give the impression that the woman is rotating the hoop endlessly.
“Loop (2004) consists of two images, one on the front of the screen, the other on its dorso. They are synchronised views of a woman spinning a hula hoop with her body, arms stretched horizontally. The intriguing differences between the expected and the delivered, between two flat images and added walk that joins them, define the art as a convincing lie, a term I borrowed from Pablo Picasso. His Acrobat on a Ball (1905) is a reminder of the Modernists interest in the subject, his print Acrobat (1930) after all inspired the beautiful blue female Acrobats (1952) by H Matisse. Doherty’s video shares with them the silence, the concentration, the calm confidence as significant qualities. The sting and the twist come from the medium – the loop may run as long as the equipment lasts – and no longer.”
Circa Art Magazine ‘Maurice Doherty’ – Slavka Sverakova.”
“Repetition and the joys and pains of forgetting come to mind, the fact that we circle around our desires and symptoms with equal pleasure. We rub it until it bleeds. In this respect the art object becomes a locus of contradictory urges, and the viewer circles the object like a patient trying to figure out why life hurts so much. This was made explicit in his film installation ‘Loop’, 2004, in which a female figure spins a hoola-hoop around her midriff. We are presented with front and back shots of the scenario, and the viewer is invited to walk around both screens, mirroring the on-screen action. The film too is looped and could, in the theory, continue to spin until something breaks.”
‘Maurice Doherty – The Art Of Memory’ – Alexander Kennedy – The List Magazine, Scotland.”
