thePEEPshow, 2024
Constructed from a repurposed HO scale train layout and fabricated mountains, thePEEPshow reflects on the voyeuristic relationship between art and the female body, and trains our eyes toward the seduction of the forbidden. With a nod to Duchamp’s dark, humorous assemblage *Étant donnés and the dismembered and deconstructed part-objects of Louise Bourgeois’ sculptures, thePEEPshow employs looped video sequences of vocal folds, frenzied flies, and rapid hand movements as a means to reflect upon organs, artifice, and desire while reducing them to elemental forms.
*a footnote: The first time I saw Étant donnés was during a school trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My 70 year old eyes see it differently now from my 12 year old eyes… and then again, maybe not so differently? One day, I’d like to show the museum the outcome of that first visit.
In Duchamp’s Étant donnés, a strange mannequin-like figure of a woman is lying on a bed of sticks, leaves, and hay. It’s the cheesiest of porn and maybe a prelude to a grisly murder. There’s a certain thrill at looking at all the intimate details. But wait, I’m the one on display, lingering, bent over, trying to get a better look through peep holes in some wooden boards. And there she is. On a very uncomfortable jumble of sticks. And she has no feet to carry her away, no face, and no mouth with which to speak. Her only visible hand is outstretched and holds a lamp meant not for her, but to light the way for someone else. She has no agency and nothing to identify her beyond the ultimate objectification, a big reductivist display of a hairless vulva and breasts. And there we stand, caught in the act of looking.
fabricating mountains - her body
Videos:
DON’T STOP: an act of frenetic repetitive raw energy. As a speech pathologist, I often reenact stimming patterns (hand flapping, rocking, etc.) of autistic clients to better understand the sensory input the stimming gives them. Here I’ve reenacted one young client’s reinforcer of a red ribbon on a stick with her accompanying hand movements. Her stimming seemingly parallels the power and raw beauty of the flies’ frenzy.
VIBRATE. While studying vocal fold pathology, I was mesmerized by the slow wave-motion of vibrating vocal folds caught on endoscopic videos. The similarity between the undulating vocal folds and vaginas goes beyond the visual, and holds a parallel commentary between two organs integral to our most creative acts: language and birth.
CARTOON IN THE CAVE. A deconstruction of how art is presented, formalized, and perceived through a classical proscenium arch, a framed art piece, and even 2 sleazy peepholes. Visual: Disney cartoon clip shot off my computer. Audio: Bernard Hermann film score to Vertigo and a NYC garbage truck backing up.
*thePEEPshow premiered in March 2024 in the Women on the Verge show, at the Westbeth Gallery in Manhattan.
