CATEGORY
DIMENSIONS
variable dimensions
YEAR
2019
PRICE
Not for sale
ABOUT THE WORK
Material: wire,paper,objects
1.)Touch Me. Not. is an installation using wire figures, nudes on Braille, stream of consciousness and ready made objects. It... Read More
1.)Touch Me. Not.
is an installation using wire figures, nudes on Braille, stream of consciousness and ready made objects. It focuses on women's hidden stories. Many victims of sexual violence or domestic abuse never talk, others feel deep guilt about personal decisions, like abortion, and keep these stories hidden too. They are silent because they fear they will not be believed, and their stories become a fata morgana. Touch me not, were Jesus words to Mary Magdelena when he appears to her after death, referencing his ghost-like presence. I ask: What is real? In the installation Touch me. Not. I use Braille as an overarcing metaphor to refer to women's way of voicing - or not voicing - their stories. Braille cannot be erased, like these experiences. Braille is a secret language, and it is sensual. It must be touched to be read. Touch Me. Not, the title, is an intended contradiction and a poetic notion.
The slide show embedded on Vimeo has images of the elements with bold lettering.
2) Overview (on video
1.)Touch Me. Not.
is an installation focusing on women's hidden stories. Many women never tell anyone when they have been a victim of sexual violence or domestic abuse. Others feel deep guilt about personal decisions, like abortion, and keep these stories hidden too. Many women stay silent because they fear they will not be believed. Their stories become a fata morgana. Touch me not, were Jesus words to Mary Magdelena when he appears to her after death, referencing his ghost-like presence. What is real? In the installation Touch me. Not. I use Braille as an overarcing metaphor to refer to women's way of voicing - or not voicing - their stories. Braille cannot be erased, like the experiences women have had. Braille is a secret language, and it is sensual. It must be touched to be read. Touch Me. Not, the title, is an intended contradiction and a poetic notion.
Vimeo slide show has images of the elements.
2) Overview (extensive details directly below, and on video) The installation is inside a room with three sides. Female torsos made of chicken wire inhabit the room, wearing thin skin with Braille texts made of upholstery nails that protrude both inwards and outwards. On the walls hang life study nudes on Braille, like selfies of the torsos. White-on-black text is interspersed, ie. stream of consciousness self-dialogue. Across from the Braille portraits hang images of Canovas neoclassic sculptures in photo-booth style, referencing perfection and beauty, role models and enemies of the chicken wire torsos, especially because Canovas sculptures have been pierced by their maker. A spiritual corner offers hope through quietude is created by ready-mades using musical scores/instruments with Braille-like qualities that resemble religious objects.
3) Detail/Description : Braille is the installation metaphor; it is a language that requires
touch to be read, making it both tactile and sensual. And yet secret. The female
torsos are made of chicken wire; the small octagonal forms of the
chicken wire appear similar to a chemistry
formula, another hard-to-understand code and a reference organic
mystery. Chicken
wire is malleable, while at the same time, dangerous to work with. The
figures
have strength yet are light as air. Into their thin skin, I stick
upholstery
nails to create Braille texts inside and some poking outside the skin.
The story becomes a physical threat to anyone getting too close. The
actual Braille texts on the featured sculptures are: Connect the Dots (black figure), When Words Fail (white figure), Touch Me Not (skin color)
The figures inhabit the space. On the walls hang drawings of nudes on Braille. These I create by finelining the outlines of nudes on Braille pages. To give the figures volume, shadowing and contour (ie., life) I circle selected tiny nipples of text. Thus Braille gives the figures a 3-dimensionality in the drawing, and holds their secrets. A story can be seen and touched, but not understood. (I use Cruse Scans of the Braille pages.)
Between drawings and on the wall, white-on-black text is interspersed, indicating stream of consciousness self-dialogue.
My experience is that women who have buried stories are often overly concerned about physical beauty. Why? Beauty offers protection. You feel ugly on the inside and want to compensate. Beauty deflects from pain, and it also deflects from language. Classic beauty infers eternal silence. Here I use (my) photographs of Canovas neoclassic sculptures. Canova's neoclassic sculptures actually have rows of nails that he hammered into them himself, possibly to determine perfect dimensions and for reproduction purposes. Like DNA. These nail-heads/dots appear to be a secret language, or a pathway of pain. With cursive writing I connect the dots, adorn the white marble perfection with harsh textual realities that include: "Beauty sells" "Silent naked women sell even better" or "Beauty protects".
In this room, a Beautiful Corner (in the Russian Orthodox sense) offers hope. With an old piano scroll "ready-made" either the Torah or the Dead Sea Scrolls are easily imaginable. The scroll is tactile, the musical composition can be felt as it was created by punching thousands of tiny dots into paper. It has the same qualities as Braille and the same unknowability. And, like small devotional candles, tiny bright brass music boxes with metal dots emerging from shiny metal tubes are another type of music that is felt but not heard. Here, in this corner, I will also encase the original Braille book with my drawings to imply a Catholic Relic. This Beautiful Corner offers hope that one day all stories can escape from buried places, that real language can decontaminate the history and tame the women's beasts, as easily as music can be heard.
4) In closing: I think we all want someone to connect our dots, and we all want to be touched. This installation should reach out to the many people who have tried and failed to talk about things that have shamed them. It makes clear that no woman is alone in this situation. Many elements are sensual; when we are open to the sensual we can finally experience vulnerability. And only when we admit to being vulnerable, when in a place without fear, we can begin sharing stories. And with words, with spoken language, the beasts of the past get tamed.
) The installation is inside a room with three sides. Female torsos made of chicken wire inhabit the room, wearing thin skin with Braille texts made of upholstery nails that protrude both inwards and outwards. On the walls hang life study nudes on Braille, like selfies of the torsos. White-on-black text is interspersed, ie. stream of consciousness self-dialogue. Across from the Braille portraits hang images of Canovas neoclassic sculptures in photo-booth style, referencing perfection and beauty, role models and enemies of the chicken wire torsos, especially because Canovas sculptures have been pierced by their maker. A spiritual corner offers hope through quietude is created by ready-mades using musical scores/instruments with Braille-like qualities that resemble religious objects.
3) Detail/Description : Braille is the installation metaphor; it is a language that requires
touch to be read, making it both tactile and sensual. And yet secret. The female
torsos are made of chicken wire; the small octagonal forms of the
chicken wire appear similar to a chemistry
formula, another hard-to-understand code and a reference organic
mystery. Chicken
wire is malleable, while at the same time, dangerous to work with. The
figures
have strength yet are light as air. Into their thin skin, I stick
upholstery
nails to create Braille texts inside and some poking outside the skin.
The story becomes a physical threat to anyone getting too close. The
actual Braille texts on the featured sculptures are: Connect the Dots (black figure), When Words Fail (white figure), Touch Me Not (skin color)
The figures inhabit the space. On the walls hang drawings of nudes on Braille. These I create by finelining the outlines of nudes on Braille pages. To give the figures volume, shadowing and contour (ie., life) I circle selected tiny nipples of text. Thus Braille gives the figures a 3-dimensionality in the drawing, and holds their secrets. A story can be seen and touched, but not understood. (I use Cruse Scans of the Braille pages.)
Between drawings and on the wall, white-on-black text is interspersed, indicating stream of consciousness self-dialogue.
My experience is that women who have buried stories are often overly concerned about physical beauty. Why? Beauty offers protection. You feel ugly on the inside and want to compensate. Beauty deflects from pain, and it also deflects from language. Classic beauty infers eternal silence. Here I use (my) photographs of Canovas neoclassic sculptures. Canova's neoclassic sculptures actually have rows of nails that he hammered into them himself, possibly to determine perfect dimensions and for reproduction purposes. Like DNA. These nail-heads/dots appear to be a secret language, or a pathway of pain. With cursive writing I connect the dots, adorn the white marble perfection with harsh textual realities that include: "Beauty sells" "Silent naked women sell even better" or "Beauty protects".
In this room, a Beautiful Corner (in the Russian Orthodox sense) offers hope. With an old piano scroll "ready-made" either the Torah or the Dead Sea Scrolls are easily imaginable. The scroll is tactile, the musical composition can be felt as it was created by punching thousands of tiny dots into paper. It has the same qualities as Braille and the same unknowability. And, like small devotional candles, tiny bright brass music boxes with metal dots emerging from shiny metal tubes are another type of music that is felt but not heard. Here, in this corner, I will also encase the original Braille book with my drawings to imply a Catholic Relic. This Beautiful Corner offers hope that one day all stories can escape from buried places, that real language can decontaminate the history and tame the women's beasts, as easily as music can be heard.
4) In closing: I think we all want someone to connect our dots, and we all want to be touched. This installation should reach out to the many people who have tried and failed to talk about things that have shamed them. It makes clear that no woman is alone in this situation. Many elements are sensual; when we are open to the sensual we can finally experience vulnerability. And only when we admit to being vulnerable, when in a place without fear, we can begin sharing stories. And with words, with spoken language, the beasts of the past get tamed.
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