In her 16 minute single channel video, Kate Gilmore enters a room much like the one where her video is projected. Precariously suspended from steel straps is a makeshift heart cobbled together from scrap wood. Gilmore in a yellow cocktail dress and heels (and wielding an axe) proceeds to have at it for the next quarter hour. It's a simple premise, one that calls to mind both Martin Kersels and Buster Keaton.Kate Gilmore's Heart Breaker, 2004
Like her other video pieces, Gilmore has constructed some obstacle she must work her way through in real time. But unlike kicking her way though walls or crawling in narrow passageways, Heart Breaker creates metaphors that the brokenhearted know. Like love itself, the construction overwhelms Gilmore's presence, threatening to crush her as she attempts to hack it into manageable pieces. It's messy, it's surreal, and like love, we laugh at the painful recognition of having gone through a similar process ourselves.
Kate Gilmore's Heart Breaker is at Steve Turner Contemporary Art through March 21, 2009.
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