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LOVE SONGS, 2005-07

The works that make up the Love Songs project remix images and accounts of the 1970s Women’s Movement from Mary Kelly’s archive. Flashing Nipple Remix uses time-exposed photographs to capture three moments from a re-enactment by younger performers of the 1971 Miss World protest at the Albert Hall in London. WLM Demo Remix projects a film-loop with a slow dissolve to create a bridge between past and present representations of the 1970 Women’s Liberation demonstration in New York, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment. In the centre of the room, Multi-Story House illuminates, and allows visitors to step inside, the intergenerational dialogue about the historic ‘moment’ of activism. The Love Songs series asks what, if anything, is passed on from one generation to the next. Rather than a nostalgic evocation of the 70s, the works synthesize past and present, exploring the ongoing investment of the artist and performers in both the history and current relevance of sexual politics.

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Love Songs

Installation view, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 2011

Multi-Story House, 2007 

Mary Kelly and Ray Barrie

Wooden frame, cast acrylic panels, plate glass floor, fluorescent light

244 x 183 x 244 cm

Installation view, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 2011

Collection, Whitworth Art Gallery 

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WLM Demo Remix, 2005
90 second black and white film loop
Dimensions variable
Collection, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw

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Flashing Nipple Remix, 2005
1 of 3 black and white transparencies in light boxes
96.5 x 121.9 x 12.7 cm

Collection Whitworth Art Gallery

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Flashing Nipple Remix, 2005
1 of 3 black and white transparencies in light boxes
96.5 x 121.9 x 12.7 cm

Collection Whitworth Art Gallery

12_MaryKelly_Flashing_Nipple_Remix_1of3_

Flashing Nipple Remix, 2005
1 of 3 black and white transparencies in light boxes
96.5 x 121.9 x 12.7 cm

Collection Whitworth Art Gallery

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Seemed Right, 2005
3 units, laser cut cast acrylic, linear strip lighting, wood support
1 unit, 38.1 x 50.8 cm, 2 units 60.9 x 50.8 cm each
183 cm overall

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Flashing Nipple Happening, Documenta XII, 2007
100 women, 300 flashlights
Bergpark, Documenta 12, Kassel, Germany
Video documentation
7 minutes, 11 seconds, color

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