Madame descending the staircase
30 July 2024
Chaptered, which is currently on display in our winter season of exhibitions, is an exhibition designed to create space between artworks for the imagination to wander. The monumental photographic installation Madame descending the staircase (1999) does just this – piecing together a stop-motion storyline where all the action takes place just off-camera.
Madame descending the staircase is a 6-panel installation that is made by Madame and the Bastard, a collaborative partnership between artists Julia Morison and Heather Straka. Madame and the Bastard have collaborated on several projects over the years, including a series of 30 second films that screened on television. These fast-paced film snippets carry the same narrative style to Madame descending the staircase – dark and ambiguous scenarios that draw in the viewer but resist any tidy conclusion. You can see some examples and hear more about the collaboration in this interview with Morison on TVNZ’s Artsville.
Noho ora mai
Lucy Hammonds
Kairauhī Curator
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
[image: Madame & the Bastard (Julia Morison & Heather Straka) Madame descending the staircase 1999. (Installation detail) C-Type print mounted on board. Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Given 2016 by the artists.]