Chloe Piene

Chloe Piene, The Woods (installation view), 2002

Chloe Piene, Untitled Drawings (installation view), 2002

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Extreme behaviour and actions in contemporary society is a recurring theme in Piene’s (b. 1972, Stamford, Connecticut) work. Many of her projects to date have been built around the emotional axis of the oppressor and subjugator in relation to the dominated and vulnerable. The result is an often ambiguous human drama of power, control and survival.

In The Woods (2002), a video commissioned for the International 02, Piene harnessed the rituals and actions of hardcore music fans in a mosh pit. Fans systematically establish a physical space where they can unleash their aggression and angst, almost as a form of tribal rite. This unique place acts as a locus and catalyst for the violence and frustration of the teenage protagonists. Piene worked with their natural energy to reveal what happened to the body when it is immersed in the mosh pit: it is attacked from all sides by open-air aggression, unchecked machismo, unbridled anger and lust.

The interplay of emotion and drama is manifest in Piene’s drawings. The series that accompaniesdher video installation for the International 02 consisted of four humanoid figures and a goat. These animal and human forms presented a kind of hideous grace – both seductive and horrifying, fragile and hostile, ethereal and bold. Piene’s graceful handling of abject strength, so punctuated by the unlikely beauty of the testosterone-fuelled teens in the video The Woods, was condensed in these solitary figures on paper.

Chloe Piene at Liverpool Biennial 2002

The Woods, 2002
Video Installation
Commissed by Liverpool Biennial 2002 in association with FACT (Foundation of Art and Creative Technology) 
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

1. Untitled (Wishbone), 2002 
Courtesy of Anthony and Linda Grant
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

2. Untitled (Bonemouth), 2002 
Courtesy of Anthony and Linda Grant
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

3. Untitled (Hands Counting), 2002
Courtesy of Anthony and Linda Grant
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

4. Untitled (Bucktooth), 2002
Courtesy of Anthony and Linda Grant
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool

5. Untitled Goat with Ghost hand), 2002
Courtesy of Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert Inc., New York.
Exhibited at Tate Liverpool