DANI MARTI’s video work Time Is the Fire in Which We Burn and sculpture Time is the Fire (2010) are the subjects of an essay by Daniel Mudie Cunningham, published as part of MUMA’s new writing project: ‘Queer Readings of the Monash University Collection’.
‘Queer Readings of the Monash University Collection’ invites 20 LGBTIQ+ writers to make queer readings of artworks from the MUMA Collection, forming part of MUMA’s ongoing efforts to diversify writing on the Collection and launching alongside their 60th anniversary program in 2021.
Daniel Mudie Cunningham, curator, writer and Director of Programs at Carriageworks, Sydney, writes:
"Marti’s video practice borrows from the codes and questionable ethics of observational documentary. Naming the exchange established between artist and subject as Intimacy Porn foregrounds the arousal of sexual desire for a spectator of images trading in so-called reality. Watching Marti with John is like being at the end of their bed, positioned polyamorously as a viewer hanging on their every word like foreplay for an excised sex act.”
Image 1: Dani Marti, 'Time Is the Fire in Which We Burn’ [still], 2009, video, colour, sound; 1 hour 8 minutes 4 seconds; Image 2: Dani Marti, 'Time Is the Fire’, 2010, stainless steel, galvanised iron and copper scourers and galvanised fencing, 220 x 200 cm