A cue mark, or “cigarette burn,” is a small circular dot within a single frame of film — an imprint in cinema history, appearing on the screen like a flash of photic retinopathy. Cue marks were crucial in analogue film, notifying projectionists of an upcoming transition.
On display are ten works, each an autograph. Autographs differ from signatures in that they are public, not private. Yet, when detached from fandom, the autograph reveals a compulsive gesture, hovering between self-assertion and disappearance — a compression of identity.
Ten Autographs, Ten Personas: Isabelle Adjani, Asia Argento, Drew Barrymore, Emmanuelle Béart, Helmut Berger, Juliette Binoche, Alain Delon, Klaus Kinski, Nastassja Kinski, Romy Schneider.
Each film star’s autograph is a mirage of embodiment, emanating the name with mythos and proliferating with each repetition in the same near-exact manner of hand. Holes in the narrative begin to appear, and scandals are forgotten, allowing the focus to linger on interiority and persona — a rupture of self and screen.
The canvas, like the film frame, is perforated — violent and exposed — in gold and silver leaf, palladium, enamel, oil, silk organza, and crushed stones. The debris operates as residue and evidence. Each work occupies a distinct mode of exposure: actors whose images exceeded their agency. And yet the autograph remains a keepsake, punctured in a state of flow.
Ian Wooldridge
