Horse Play

Abstract

Anna Nazzari’s exhibition Horse Play at Turner Galleries presents the losing game, and the dogged impulse to try again, as an inescapable aspect of the human condition. With a nod to the absurdist existentialism of Albert Camus, Nazzari’s games, which are impossible to win, allude to the futile quest for meaning in an inherently meaningless world. For Nazzari, this nightmarish scenario provides the ground to stage an acerbic investigation of gender revolt, in which the desire to transcend the restrictive gender roles set out within patriarchal culture is repeatedly thwarted by the fact that the game is rigged.