SOMETHING MORE NO.I, 1989
TRACEY MOFFATT
cibachrome photograph on plexiglass
115.0 x 149.0cm
signed, dated and numbered verso: Tracey Moffatt '89, 11/30
Stux Gallery, New York (label attached verso)
Paul Morris Gallery, New York (label attached verso)
Private collection, Melbourne
Tracey Moffatt, Nassau County Museum of Art, New York, February - April 2001 (label attached verso)
McDonald, J., 'Challenging dislocations,' The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 Sept 1989
Macdonald, M., 'Maximum from the Minimum', The Scotsman, 5 May 1992 (illus. another example)
Newton, G., Tracey Moffatt: Fever Pitch, Piper Press, Sydney, 1995, pp. 38-39 (illus. p.39, another example)
Martin, A., 'Tracey Moffatt's Australia (A Reconnaissance)', Parkett, no.53, 1998, p.23 (illus. another example)
Snelling, M., Tracey Moffatt, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, 1999 (illus. p.55, another example)
Reinhardt, B. et al., Tracey Moffatt: Laudanum, Ostfildern, 1999, p.10 (illus. another example)
Travis, L., 'Mirage: Drysdale and Moffatt in the Australian Outback', Art and Australia, Fine Arts Press, Sydney, 2000, vol.37, no.4, pp.548-555 (illus. p.552, another example)
Savage, P., & Strongman, L., (ed.), Tracey Moffatt, City Gallery Wellington, New Zealand, 2002 (illus. p.17, p.26, another example)
The following extract is quoted from Newton, G., Tracey Moffatt: Fever Pitch, Piper Press, Sydney, 1995, pp.15-16:
Something More proudly wears its sources on its sleeve, from old movies, torch songs and soft porn to the folk stories swimming around any society. A young country girl of mixed race aspires to 'something more', perhaps even the role of the bottle-blond screen goddesses in satin. In the subsequent eight images of the series our heroine spurns her place geographically and metaphorically, is abused, abased, thwarted and finally lies dead in stockings and lame dress on the road to the big city. Whodunnit? We don't know. Although the clothing suggests the fifties, the story could be set in any remote society with mixed races and outcasts at the peripheries of power.
...In the opening image, we are compelled by the vision of a fresh Eurasian/ native beauty in a luscious red satin cheongsam. She is well groomed and made-up with red lipstick and nail polish. Her dress however, tells tales on our would-be glamour queen. The tattered hem shows it is secondhand. She takes a tentative step forward, lips slightly parted, eyes raised toward some distant and uncertain goal. She clasps some object or talisman (actually a pair of sunglasses) in a gesture of prayer. Colour, gesture and symbols clash. The girl is both virgin, whose symbol is the rose (even if shown here in black on the dress), and whore at the same time; Eve destined to fall.
The young hopeful is watched by a frowsy older woman whose over-red lips and creased satin chemise proclaim her as white trash. Her mouth is shut tight round a dangling cigarette and the fading peroxide hair is showing its dark roots. She has closed her false-lashed eyes against the hopeful view, even if she still clings to the trappings of glamour. The boozing Aboriginal man inside the shack watches her with a smirk. Are this couple the parents whose demeanour suggests their hope that the young woman will fail and thus confirm their own hopelessness?