Ronnie van Hout

Psycho

Artwork Detail

Ronnie van Hout’s Psycho is a self-portrait with a case of pre-millennial anxiety. Riffing off Alfred Hitchcock’s film about identity disastrously undone, van Hout’s work is a send-up of the tortured artist of popular mythology. Rather than the sombre figure of Colin McCahon, striding across the New Zealand

landscape and thundering apocalyptic proclamations, van Hout gives us a fanatical hobbyist trapped in the cage of his bedroom. Simultaneously playing the roles of obsessive fan and unrecognised creative genius, the artist constructs a hall of mirrors.

Title
Psycho
Artist/creator
Ronnie van Hout
Production date
1999
Medium
house model, cardboard, paint, found object (table), video sender, colour television, video cassette recorder, video (single channel, standard definition, 4:3, colour, stereo sound)
Dimensions
1180 x 1840 x 615 mm
Credit line
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2001
Accession no
C2001/1/9/1-6
Copyright
Copying restrictions apply
Department
New Zealand Art
Display status
On display

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