Patty Chang
Melons (At a Loss)
1998
SD video, color, sound
3:47 min

July 5 – September 1, 2024
(Schaufenster am Hofgarten & online)


In Melons (At a Loss) (1998), a single-take video, Chang narrates a monologue about an imagined cultural ritual of being given a commemorative plate of her deceased aunt, who passed due to breast cancer. She simultaneously attempts to perform cutting, deseeding, and eating a cantaloupe that is held inside her long-line bra, all the while balancing a plate on her head. The melon appears to be uncannily synonymous with Chang’s breast. Chang takes a serrated knife to slice it open in an act of self-mutilation. Eating the melon, then, is also a form of a cannibalistic devouring of the self. The gesture paired with an attempt to sustain the monologue of imagined ritual becomes a site of production for the construction of memory, narrative, and gender.