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The
setting for this exhibition is a ‘fictional’ version
of a town called Dannevirke,
a small New Zealand provincial town. In Le Fleming’s Dannevirke,
the inhabitants have a some what distorted perspective of the
bigger world that surrounds them. This is perhaps due to the comprehension
of its inhabbitants, local media and leading towns folk. Highly
sexualised music videos on mtv pump out from the local 'fish &
chip' store tv, and the girls from the most fashionable fashion
store on the main road smoke cigerettes and chew gum, whilst wearing
stilettos on their morning tea break.
Not having
learnt a suitable learned helplessness to advertising like most
of the civilised world, they set about selling their products
and services in a way that is to them logical and fair play..that
is, using what ever sexual exploits they can muster, which in
one way or another, ends up being someones dolled up aunty or
cross dressing uncle, from good farming stock. Food products such
as tin cans are appropriated, car boots are fashioned into street
signs, and different persuasions of what sexy really is, are explored
in this study of advertising and the consumer. It’s a certain
climate or awareness which the artist is endeavouring to convey,
a climate within a small community that has something nicely naive
about it. |