Rachel Maclean's show at the Venice Biennale, representing Scotland at this feast of visual art, is rich, florid, intense, funny, shocking and involving.
Like her other, acclaimed, work, it is a film: 37 minutes of film which she has written and designed, as well as played all the parts - her image is doubled, tripled, enhanced with prosthetics, make up, elaborate costumes and special effects.
Spite Your Face is displayed on a very large screen in the Chiesa di Santa Caterina, which is otherwise soaked in midnight gloom, and it is a visual feast: dominated not by the candy-coloured hues of her past work, but deep Marian blues, opulent gold and pale marble in a landscape in which Pic, a modern Pinocchio, rises to fame and fortune.
Rich is the word that sums this film up: it looks ravishing, especially Maclean's Madonna/Fairy character. But the themes tackled by the circular narrative are rich too - demagogues and lies, un-truths and the media, consumerism and advertising are all addressed in Maclean's slippery, off-kilter aesthetic viewpoint.
Misogyny is also tackled, and in a alarming central section - which moves abruptly from sex scene to rape scene - Pic moves from a fabulous figure to one of hatred and assault. Maclean is a singular talent, but alongside her creative power one also marvels at the sheer amount of detailed and seamless work which she, and her collaborators, put into this lavish-looking film in a relatively short period of time.
Beautifully produced, and ably acted by Maclean and her voice cast, the show is powerful, and it lingers.
The rest of the Biennale is revealed today, Tuesday, and one wonders, beyond critics and journalists, who will venture into the quiet north of the city to see this show, which is definitely off the beaten Biennale track. Because it deserves a wide audience.
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