Alexandra Noel at NEOCHROME

Artist: Alexandra Noel

Exhibition title: Bone-in

Venue: NEOCHROME, Turin, Italy

Date: January 28 – February 27, 2016

Photography: images copyright and courtesy the artist and NEOCHROME

NEOCHROME is pleased to present Bone-in, the first European solo show by Alexandra Noel.

An actress is quietly and precisely eating a bone-in steak at a dinner party. The other characters are rambunctious and loud, arguing to argue and theorizing about the scene they are in. The camera takes sporadic breaks on the actress’ face as she eats. She is slicing the steak into thin, diaphanous strips and picking up each bit with one prong out of the four on her fork. Her lips are air tight in between bites. Each ribbon swiftly slips into her pinched mouth until her utensils can no longer reach the meat on the bone. The camera cuts to the actress as she pauses. She looks up, just slightly past the camera and down again to her plate. She puts her utensils down and picks up the meat with her hands. She chews on the bits of meat stuck to the bone and rotates her head to get the best grip with her teeth. Her hair falls into her mashed potatoes on one side. She rotates her head, lifting the food with her hair only to let the other half of it fall into her spinach on the other side. She lifts her head up straight. The bone is clean, her hands are covered in juices and she goes for the marrow. As she sucks, the camera pans to a dog at her side licking his chops around a long string of gelatinous goo. She places the bone on her plate. The camera returns to the others who are leaving the table, still boisterously babbling to themselves and taking dirty dishes with them. The dog runs over to the other side to join them. The actress also gets up. The meat she was eating has reappeared on her plate. A flub or a tease, the food always looks so damn good and they never eat enough.

Next on screen, there is a cartoon animal of some sort, a horse or a deer. It is with a friend on an adventure. They walk and talk and do dumb things. They eat plants and bugs of all shapes and bright colors. The scene is painted slimy and soft, squeaking under a dusting of velvety pollen.

Alexandra Noel (b. 1989) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She has previously exhibited at Hester (New York) and Shanaynay (Paris). Her first book By Rote was published by Holoholo Books (Paris) in 2015.