GALLERY 3
FANATIC
DREW PETTIFER
Fanatic is a new two-channel video work by Melbourne artist Drew Pettifer. The work interrogates notions of fandom, masculinity, desire and celebrity. Shot in high definition night vision mode, the video documents a former AFL footballer sleeping on one screen and the artist watching him sleep for the duration of a full night’s sleep on another screen. The endurance piece alludes to the obsessive nature of sports fandom in contemporary culture. With shifting technologies and the rise of social media there is a growing expectation that celebrities will share the intimate details of their lives with their fans, with the mundane sometimes becoming noteworthy simply due to celebrity. This work takes this expectation to the extreme, while concurrently exploring the tension between objectification and identification in representations of contemporary masculinity.
Images Courtesy: Aaron Christopher Rees