Gatekeeper

source: artspace

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, the chosen name of the artist born Alalia Chetwynd, is a British Turner Prize–nominated performance artist. In her work, she re-creates historical cultural events with a shoddy, slapdash aesthetic, highlighting the gap between the real and interpretation. The narratives she explores run the gamut from the work of Karl Marx and Charles Dickens to Star Wars and the Addams Family to puppet-based plays riffing on Paradise Lost. Her work often blurs the line between restaging and copying, challenging our ideas about inspirations and co-option. The handmade props and stage sets for her performances subsequently have an afterlife as sculpture and installation work, imbued with the values of her performances.

Chetwynd was born in London in 1973. She studied social anthropology at University College London (UCL), graduating in 1995, after which she went on to study for a second bachelor’s degree in fine art the Slade School of Art, also at UCL. She earned her graduate degree in painting from London’s Royal College of Art in 2004. Chetwynd formerly went by Spartacus Chetwynd, before changing her name again in 2013. Her work is in the permanent collection at Tate Modern, and she has been the subject of solo exhibitions at galleries and institutions across Europe.
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source: huffingtonpost

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, previously known as Spartacus, was raised around film sets and props — her mother is an Oscar-winning production designer. The Turner Prize nominee channels her cinematic upbringing into her anarchic production sets, overflowing with piñata-esque stimuli and literary references. Imagine a drag carnival referencing Dante, Karl Marx and Starship Troopers and you’ll get a sense of the calculated madness that ensues.

Chetwynd was born Alalia, then changed her name to Spartacus, before becoming Marvin Gaye. “Artists should live experimentally, I think, so this was just a simple and cheap idea I tried, to see what would happen,” she told The Guardian. This easy, breezy — yet aggressively experimental — attitude pervades Chetwynd’s performances and sculptures, giving them a fiery energy, as if folks from the literary canon, cult film, the streets and the imagination all came together for a raucous parade.

Accompanying the show, Chetwynd will also perform a new piece entitled “The Green Room,” which deals with issues of personal debt… while incorporating the temple from the movie “Cat Woman” and Chewbacca’s nuclear family from the famed flop “Star Wars Holiday Special.” Her exhibit will also feature two large, performative sculptures, a Brainbug and a Catbus, which viewers can enter and use as a video lounge.