Head-Painting (Asbestos Tracking in Hi Red Center 1972)

History returns as farce in the work of Guy Benfield. His campy video-performances and installations mix references to a 1970s Sydney bohemian lifestyle (witnessed first hand as a child) with references to sensational avant-garde art of similar vintage. The video Head Painting shows Benfield pouring paint on himself while dragging himself down the gallery wall, leaving paint-trails where his head and shoulder make contact. The performance recalls Paul McCarthy's famous 1970s performance, painting a line on the floor using his head as a brush. What Benfield leaves on the wall looks like Zen-inspired action-calligraphy after Max Gimblett. However, Benfield's behind-the-scenes document presents his creative act as not heroic, expressive or meditative, but routine, abject, forlorn. (Snake Oil, 2005)

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