Cover image of the review
Emily Floyd, Anti-totalitarian Vectors, 2019, installation view, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne.

Emily Floyd: Anti-Totalitarian Vectors


17 Aug 2019
Anna Schwartz Gallery 13 Jul - 17 Aug 2019

Totalitarian. Adjective. Relating to a system of government that is centralised and dictorial and requires complete subservence to the state. An exploration and dissection of such a powerful, driving term is shown through the meticulously crafted sculptural works of Emily Floyd all throughout Anti-Totalitarian Vectors, currently showing at the Anna Schwartz Gallery in the Melbourne CBD.

A playful aesthetic alongside excerpts from A Philosophy of History in Fragments, written by Hungarian philosopher Ágnes Heller, bounce off each other to depict a narrative surrounding the power of language and the juxtaposition of power that certain words contain. The excerpts themselves reflect upon these motifs, pondering various scenarios and landscapes (such as works of art exist – how are they possible?, and catastrophe is repetition and repetition is catastrophe) to the viewer, urging them to critically examine the, as Emily Floyd says herself, 'thingness' of language. Overall, the outcome is both philosophically striking and esoteric, with each portion of Heller's text playing a pivotal role in Floyd's collection.

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