"Anything...If You're Brave Enough"
April 6 - May 2, 2019
The Piano Room of INDEX ART CENTER
237 Washington Avenue, Newark, NJ
Open Hours:
Saturday April 13 12-5, during the studio tour.
link hereThursday April 18 5-8pm
Thursday April 25 5-8pm
*Closing reception* Thursday May 2, 6-9pm
(link to live feed during open hours)
I could say this show has been in the making for thirty years. Three decades ago, I was a little girl and fascinated by the secrets of the curtained rooms at the local video rental store. It was my first experience with the clandestine. I didn’t learn until years later that there was only pornography back there, but my curiosity to know what happens behind closed doors and drawn curtains only grew from those trips.
“Anything...If You’re Brave Enough” was a thrilling exhibition to produce. From an open call, every sculpture that met the criteria was to be included. Gathered together are 52 dildos presented by 45 artists, all in answer to the call for objects no larger than twelve inches in length and four inches in diameter. The conversation is set with this survey of dildos: sculptures, readymades, altered objects, most made by artists yet many made by non-sculptors and non-artists alike!
With this exhibition, I invite you to consider your own private moments, to consider the constructs of your intimacy, lust, fear, that for which you hunger, and to what ends you go for satiation. All of the objects before you await your imagination and into your thoughts they wish to slither. Would you find yourself most unfettered envisioning yourself alone with them? Or would you need another person with you? Do you picture yourself a recipient? Or a wielder of these tools? Are you a willing participant or subject to another’s whims? No matter where you find yourself, you are not alone. As far back as there are traces of humanity, dildos have been unearthed. Don’t let a few of the most prudish archaeologists and historians tell you otherwise. Those “ice-age batons” from 30,000 years ago were what they were, and not spear-throwing tools. Who do the archaeologists think they are fooling??
The dildo has had many names and not dissimilar from the works in this show, they have been made from endless different materials over time, all likely chosen for utility and accessibility: bread, bone, dung, glass, horn, ivory, leather, metal, tar, teeth, stone, and wood. These works are more than stand-ins for the penis, they are embodied representations, figurative and abstracted. Because most of the works were made in the first months of 2019, they are loud in presence, through each dildo, the artists pose questions immediate to this moment in time. In pursuit of understanding these works, the artists dare the audience to let the objects into their thoughts, to put them into mouths, vaginas, and anuses, to fuck themselves and others with the dildos in the safety of the audience’s minds. Some are fantasies, some nightmares, and many in the grey areas between, this exhibition is a dare for the imagination. Are you brave enough?
FEATURED ARTISTS:
Ace, Aliza Augustine, Edwina Ball & Lucien, Anastasia Beaverhausen, Anonda Bell, Jo Boys, Chee Bravo, Fernando Carpaneda, ChaoticAttractors.com, Lesley Colis & Laurie Pettine, Susi Colin, Billy Dingle, Kate Eggleston, Egnekn, Eronin, Sonoko Fagans, Eileen Ferara, Lori Field, Kelly Green, Marco Gonzo, Ellen Hanauer, Instant Jersey, Morris Jurgensen, Jill Kastner, Rachael Borth Krehel, Donna Conklin King & Malinda Giannetti, Belinda Lavonna, LIPS, Sinéad Day MacLeod, Klaus Matthews, Keely McCool, Brian McCormack, Militia, Zaharoula Morfogen, Erica Engfer Pizza, Irving W. Rice, Jillian Rock, Keary Rosen, Joan Sonnenfeld, Sarah Stengle, Charlee Swanson, Joya Angola Thompson, RoByn Thompson, Tingle, Vazquez, X Lady, Juno Zago
Link to the facebook event page from opening reception.
(Image credit: Photograph of a hole discovered in a space station that was briefly plugged by an astronaut's thumb - late 2018.)
