The Dialogue Between Bodily Boundaries & Everything Else
28 January 2023By Kalina Nedelcheva
Walking into Sacred Spit, curated by Lea Rose Sebastianis in Open Space Gallery’s “Black Box,” felt like crossing the threshold of a site teeming with unruly spirits and transgressive energies. Illuminated by soft spotlights, three artworks by Karice Mitchell, Lauren Pirie, and Noelle Perdue come together in a simple installation against the backdrop of theatrical black curtains. At the corner of the Black Box and diagonal to the entrance, a little translucent box sits atop a white plinth. The sign reads “Prayer Requests.” The show explores how the complicated theme of the grotesque manifests in spheres of degradation and divinity. It destabilizes and shifts the boundary that separates the perverted and the sacred in human consciousness. In fusing them, Sebastianis creates a discernable tension that juxtaposes a sense of stillness with the hurricane of what she deems “the boundless body”—a body with no limits that absorbs its environment to inspire “an intrinsic unity with human, animal, and natural worlds.”1 These anarchic artworks tell corporeal stories. Amidst them, and in the darkness of the Black Box, the viewer loses their sense of separation between the embodied self and the contents of the exhibition. The “Prayer Box” catches visitors red-handed in the middle of the grotesque space of boundless bodies and fluid lust, inviting one to repent, confess, and show desire.
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