Home Made Tasers (2011)

(Marvin Gaye) Monster Chetwynd

performative sculpture

Leicester Museum & Art Gallery

Classification:

Performance, Sculpture

Materials:

Digital video, 16mm film

Credit:

Presented by the Art Fund and the Contemporary Art Society, 2014

Scheme:

Testing Media (2014)

Ownership history:

Purchased from Sadie Coles HQ, London by the Contemporary Art Society with the Art Fund's Testing Media initiative, 2014; presented to Leicester Museum and Art Gallery (New Walk Museum), 2014

Relationship:

Sadie Coles HQ, London Leicester Museum & Art Gallery

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd's performances and videos harness elements of folk plays, street spectacles, literature and multiple other genres. They generally employ troupes of performers – friends and relatives of the artist – and feature handmade costumes and props. Through improvisatory, irreverent and carnivalesque dramas, Chetwynd’s work traverses a panoramic range of subjects.

Acquired through Testing Media, a scheme designed in association with the Art Fund to support the acquisition of significant contemporary works presenting particular challenges around display and conservation, Chetwynd’s Brainbug is a large-scale performative sculpture. Based on the leader of a bug colony in Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997), the tent-sized Brainbug is animated in ‘low energy’ by a few performers on the inside to make it look alive, and by a full dance, with costume dancers, for the performance Home Made Tasers.

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