Reading the title of Rachael Haynes' latest performance installation is likely to get a certain Madonna song stuck in your head, and that might just be the point. The contemporary artist, curator and writer likes to explore the limits of language and subjectivity, and to re-examine art history and philosophy in relation to gender politics. Her choice of name can't be accidental.
Indeed, on several levels, Like a Burden has a fitting moniker for a collection of works about feminist histories. Again, that's Haynes' wheelhouse. In both solo and group shows around the country, she has mixed language codes and pictorial systems in her pieces, using everything from abstract and conceptual art to pop music, as well as art criticism and philosophy.
Here, she incorporates video, painting and drawing within the format of a lecture performance. It's an exhibition, show and talk all in one — and a look at gender, feminism and alternative art combined, too. A burden to view, consume and contemplate, it's not.