Photo: Ben Aqua
WHAT ONE MIGHT SAY ARE LANGUOR'S MARKS OF BEAUTY
2008, wood, spray paint, clamp light, TV monitor, mirror ball, DVD, projector, electrical cables, extract from a poem by C. Baudelaire, Dimensions VariableMexic-Arte Museum: YLA 13: Everything's Going To Be Okay (curated by Leslie Castro)
Show dates: October 3– November 9, 2008
The second "episode" in the FANTASY VISION MEDITATION series (c.f. Part I), What One Might Say Are Languor's Marks of Beauty continues my investigation into the subconscious elements in Fred Halsted's A Night At Halsted's, while integrating sculptural elements inspired by the shapes and materials of the sex "furniture" portrayed in Halsted's film. A fragment of a poem by Charles Baudelaire (see below) strengthens the connectins between the decay of these gay subcultures and the decay of the queer bodies who succumbed of AIDS during that period. Conceptually, this piece is a prologue to FANTASY VISION MEDITATION (IN COLOR).
Fragment from Baudelaire's I Love to Think of Those Naked Epochs:
He feels a gloomy cold enveloping his soul
Before this dark picture of terror.
Monstrosities bewailing their clothing!
Ridiculous torsos appropriate for masks!
Poor bodies, twisted, thin, bulging or flabby,
(...)
Degenerate races, we have, it's true,
Types of beauty unknown to the ancient peoples:
Visages gnawed by cankers of the heart
And what one might say were languor's marks of beauty
Photos: Ben Aqua
