The Dating Show
IMA at TCB
27 June–27 July 200827 Jun–27 Jul 2008
This exhibition explores the habits, language and practices of dating—the rules of romantic engagement. Mutlu Cerkez paints gouaches of messages women left on his answerphone in response to his dating profile. Robin Hely secretly video-records a date organised through a phone service, collecting solo mother Sherrie’s life story, then putting the moves on her. Grant Stevens’s video restages a generic love letter, scattering its words in a starry-starry night. Photographer Darren Sylvester shows a young woman in a face-pack, fighting aging, hanging on the telephone. David Rosetzky’s video features voiceovers—interior monologues—reflecting on the dynamics of relationships, desires, encounters, and breakups. With herRelationship Contracts, Gabrielle de Vietri takes the necessity of consent too far, imagining that even the parties in a stalker/victim relationship might sign off on it. Love is a battlefield.