Martin Eder: Parasites, Newport Street Gallery

until 17 Feb 19

Who the parasites are is unclear: is it the fluffy puppies and kittens that look threatening amid their surroundings, is it the naked bodies, the artist themselves, the gallery owner? Is it the teleological backgrounds that intercept other hyperrealistic representations of realities, occupied often by hybrid creatures?

Whoever they are, the results are disturbing and interesting.

Eder’s collage-worlds, seem to be the exact instances when, through a glitch, multiple worlds invade each other while the bodies present seem to just reflect the viewer’s fantasies, likes or fetishes. From teenage girls to older bodies, we find ourselves uncertain whether they are offensive, out of a sense of seeing over sexualised young bodies or the hyper-realistic techniques. Are those bodies emancipated or objectified? Are those offended by the younger naked bodies seeing them as semi-pornographic simply because of their own desires being triggered while seeing the older bodies as ‘sickly’ also reflects their immature experience of beauty?

These are paintings of undeniable mastery. The debate on the subject matter should not automatically negate the talent under discussions on morality. After all, maybe our sensibilities are more pronounced because the artist is still alive and the subjects still young, still old, still here. Sketches of even younger naked girls in more explicit postures were exhibited in the latest Klimt/ Schiele exhibition in the Royal Academy, yet hardly any visitors had a moral breakdown. Is it because Eder’s paintings are hyper-realistic or because Schiele, and his early teen prostitutes are long dead and buried, our moral responses masked by the safety of the past and the immortality of Schiele as a master?

A minimum of 1000 young women currently in the UK are reported to be subjected to Breast Ironing, a practise imposed on these young girls by their mothers and female relatives to delay the signs of puberty and in doing so hoping to avoid them being subjected to rape and unwanted male attention. The falseness of all these intentions and connotations is abysmal. When will finally the female teenage body be left alone by all adult preying eyes, a sexual or not being released from the over-sexualised fantasies of the grown-ups?

In this sense, I find Ender’s naked bodies of all ages more honest. They all feel as covered in a film of violence, they are more disturbing than seductive. In this play on classicism and technically perfect, these Parasites are earning their role to disturb rather than to shock in their ambiguity.

more info: https://www.newportstreetgallery.com/exhibition/martin-eder-parasites/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/25/damien-hirst-newport-gallery-callous-exercises-in-brutal-pornography-martin-eder-parasites-review
https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/martin-eder-parasites-review-newport-street-gallery-london