WHAT ONE MIGHT SAY ARE LANGUOR’S MARKS OF BEAUTY, 2008

Materials: wood, spray paint, clamp light, TV monitor, mirror ball, DVD, projector, electrical cables, extract from a poem by C. Baudelaire, Dimensions Variable

The second “episode” in the FANTASY VISION MEDITATION series, 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.

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

Here’s a “3rd party” video of a test for this installation:

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