Last week I met an artist friend of mine with whom I visited some exhibitions in Bethnal Green which is flourishing with many exhibition spaces and it’s becoming a hub for the arts in East London. From that afternoon, I mention two exhibitions that I liked and work well together: MDAM (27 April – 26 May 2017) at Roman Road Gallery, and Perverts (1 April – 4 June 2017) at Cell Project Space. I have found these two shows powerful in relation to the relevance/irrelevance of our physicality within the society and how the body is likely becoming indifferent to sexuality, gender, and eroticism.
MDAM is a duo exhibition of new works by Mia Dudek (Poland, 1989) and Alix Marie (France, 1989), both recent graduates from the Royal College of Arts, London. The showcase includes three photographs by Mia Dudek depicting parts of an abstracted body of which two, Casing I & II, are a single shoot split into two parts interrupted by the presence of a concrete wall, Body Recast III. Here the architectural intrusion obstructs the physicality of the body depicted in the photographs while being itself a metaphor of the contemporary body. Indeed, Body Recast III echoes the skin texture which, once again, is broken by the small holes excavated from the concrete wall. Also by Dudek is Body Recast IV, a layer of ‘skin’ made of silicon which covers the right corner on the entrance side.
Walking past Dudek’s wall, there are four works by Alix Marie who investigates the artificiality and development of the contemporary sexuality. On the left: Lilith, a penis-shaped fountain built using industrial objects such as a chemical waste barrel and a piece of aluminium ducting to which is added a dildo in silicon pouring out water. Some small tongues are hanged on the opposite wall creating the piece If Walls Could Not Hear. On the floor: Eve, a trembling and noisy aluminium ducting ending in a silicon phallic shape, and Pharmacopornographic Relict 1, a double dildo covered with salt crystals in a tiny glass aquarium.
What I have seen in this is that the dialogue which emerges between the two artists opens a discussion on how the body is getting more and more disempowered of sexuality and eroticism as if it is not the means through which we communicate our instincts anymore. Sexuality does not come from the body which is becoming cold as ice, an engine.
Instead in Perverts, the body is missing and there is much to read and listen about eroticism, reading pleasure, and our desire for it as being a gesture which manifests in our physicality. The show presents the output of 9 amongst emerging and established artists and writers – Kathy Acker, Zuzanna Bartoszek, Harry Burke, Loretta Fahrenholz, Juliana Huxtable, Pierre Klossowski, Bruce Nauman, Keston Sutherland & Stephen G. Rhodes. The exhibition spreads through the first floor where there is a display of videos, sketches, drawings, and two poster-like texts.
Some of the works are kind of spicy for the mind, like “Body Pressure” (1974) by Bruce Nauman, and “Raw Heat” (1977) by Kathy Acker. Body Pressure lies between conceptual text and performance and consists of a poster in which Nauman provides the visitor with the instructions for merging her body with the exhibition space. Here, the visitor is invited to become the performer of a “very erotic exercise”. Instead, Acker’s work is a video documenting the experimental novelist and punk poet reading three of her writings as part of the American Writers Series. The reading includes Raw Heat which is a poem Acker has written as a present for one of her friends. These texts are characterised by meticulous descriptions which allow the spectator to visualise and perceive the situations Nauman and Acker induce through their writings. This results in an immersive experience offered without the physical alteration of the surrounding space. Back on the ground floor, there is also a reading room which implements the exhibition visit and expands the experience inviting the visitor to consult research and supporting material about the exhibition theme.
In Perverts, our physicality becomes an abstract concept and our emotions and sensations can be experienced through mental stimulation by means of reading and listening. The body is a concept.
Of course, this is just the peak of the iceberg and there is much more to say about each of these two exhibitions, but I liked to have seen them one after the other as being two shows linked together. Also, the way they ignite a discourse on the physicality of the body and its relation, if any, with eroticism, sexuality, and society is powerful and offers plenty of information and point of views on postgenderism and pleasure.
