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Machismo
Paul Murphy, James Payne, Paul Clark, Ann Course, Rebecca Knapp

13 Jan – 12 Feb 2006

Machismo conjures up images of strength, silence, stoicism and self-reliance, the lone man (must it always be a man?) on a constant quest to master all that is around them. Central to the idea of machismo is the conceit of what is right, what is proper: ‘This is not how a man behaves’, and what is brought into question is the virility of the hero character.

In this show five artists explore this gendered conceit of machismo and in doing so pit its inherent destructive urges, the desire to smash up the things that one doesn’t understand, against its other trait, the willing-up of something out of nothing through sheer force of will.