I had no idea how plain Chloe Sevigny is until I saw her standing alone on a windswept beach in Slater Bradley’s mournful DVD projection The Laurel Tree (Beach) (all work 2000.) Her blunt features, wavy blond bob, and slumping shoulders seem the perfect androgynous accessories for her quietly unassuming uniform of white t-shirt, black skirt, and black knee-high boots. Bradley’s choice of a casual urban shorthand for his protagonist heightens the surreal nature of Sevigny’s deadpan address, even as the murmuring waves crest, foam and evaporate just feet away. But make no mistake, her modish simplicity is a uniform.
Also clocking in at just under three minutes is the DVD projection titles Female Gargoyle. A tattooed young woman sits on the ledge of a tall building, one leg dangling over the side. She smokes and contemplates suicide, with equal deliberateness. Bradley has edited out all traces of the firemen and concerned passers-by who attempt to talk her down, but added a thin grey band at the top with the words “Amateur Video”, confirming what we already suspected. What are we left with? The cornice of her confusion? A pediment of grief, blithely indifferent to architectural ornamentation? Human suffering as ready-made? All of the above, leavened with Bradley’s compassion, plus heart; about as rare as stumbling upon a female gargoyle in the first place.