My edges are sharpening
Jenine Marsh, Aurélien Potier, Iris Touliatou
Jenine Marsh, Aurélien Potier, Iris Touliatou
“If only I could sleep. If I could shrug off consciousness for even just an hour. (…) Sleeping in five minute patches. Slipping out of fuzzy consciousness, it’s back–the dream. Can’t even call it that now. Animal eyes gleaming wild, presence of blood, unearthed skull, again those eyes. Rising up from the pit of my stomach. Shuddering awake, my hands, I need to see my hands. Breathe. My fingernails still soft, my teeth still gentle.
Can only trust my breast now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts. I’m okay. I am still okay. So why do they keep shrinking? Not even round anymore. Why? Why am I changing like this? Why are my edges all sharpening–what am I going to gouge?”
Han Kang, The Vegetarian
My edges are sharpening is an exploration towards liminal desires. Borrowing from Han Kang’s novel “The Vegetarian”, within which the protagonist brutally defies standardised categories of desire, consumption and ultimately the constitution of what it ultimately means to be human., My edges are sharpening is looking into acts of agency, defiance, subversion and ultimately self actualisation.
Liminal desire here is used not only as a trope of authenticity, but more profoundly as an affective and emotional history that plays out in liminal spaces between the social and domestic stratifications determined by a capitalist and patriarchal law. The radical nature of liminal desire is adumbrated as a force that cannot exist or thrive within, and thus refuses, the hierarchical spaces of power structures and will for now flower at the edges.
Can only trust my breast now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts. I’m okay. I am still okay. So why do they keep shrinking? Not even round anymore. Why? Why am I changing like this? Why are my edges all sharpening–what am I going to gouge?”
Han Kang, The Vegetarian
My edges are sharpening is an exploration towards liminal desires. Borrowing from Han Kang’s novel “The Vegetarian”, within which the protagonist brutally defies standardised categories of desire, consumption and ultimately the constitution of what it ultimately means to be human., My edges are sharpening is looking into acts of agency, defiance, subversion and ultimately self actualisation.
Liminal desire here is used not only as a trope of authenticity, but more profoundly as an affective and emotional history that plays out in liminal spaces between the social and domestic stratifications determined by a capitalist and patriarchal law. The radical nature of liminal desire is adumbrated as a force that cannot exist or thrive within, and thus refuses, the hierarchical spaces of power structures and will for now flower at the edges.
16.03.23—29.04.23
GIANNI MANHATTAN, Wassergasse 14, 1030 Vienna
> Installation views
“If only I could sleep. If I could shrug off consciousness for even just an hour. (…) Sleeping in five minute patches. Slipping out of fuzzy consciousness, it’s back–the dream. Can’t even call it that now. Animal eyes gleaming wild, presence of blood, unearthed skull, again those eyes. Rising up from the pit of my stomach. Shuddering awake, my hands, I need to see my hands. Breathe. My fingernails still soft, my teeth still gentle.
Can only trust my breast now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts. I’m okay. I am still okay. So why do they keep shrinking? Not even round anymore. Why? Why am I changing like this? Why are my edges all sharpening–what am I going to gouge?”
Han Kang, The Vegetarian
My edges are sharpening is an exploration towards liminal desires. Borrowing from Han Kang’s novel “The Vegetarian”, within which the protagonist brutally defies standardised categories of desire, consumption and ultimately the constitution of what it ultimately means to be human., My edges are sharpening is looking into acts of agency, defiance, subversion and ultimately self actualisation.
Liminal desire here is used not only as a trope of authenticity, but more profoundly as an affective and emotional history that plays out in liminal spaces between the social and domestic stratifications determined by a capitalist and patriarchal law. The radical nature of liminal desire is adumbrated as a force that cannot exist or thrive within, and thus refuses, the hierarchical spaces of power structures and will for now flower at the edges.
Can only trust my breast now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts. I’m okay. I am still okay. So why do they keep shrinking? Not even round anymore. Why? Why am I changing like this? Why are my edges all sharpening–what am I going to gouge?”
Han Kang, The Vegetarian
My edges are sharpening is an exploration towards liminal desires. Borrowing from Han Kang’s novel “The Vegetarian”, within which the protagonist brutally defies standardised categories of desire, consumption and ultimately the constitution of what it ultimately means to be human., My edges are sharpening is looking into acts of agency, defiance, subversion and ultimately self actualisation.
Liminal desire here is used not only as a trope of authenticity, but more profoundly as an affective and emotional history that plays out in liminal spaces between the social and domestic stratifications determined by a capitalist and patriarchal law. The radical nature of liminal desire is adumbrated as a force that cannot exist or thrive within, and thus refuses, the hierarchical spaces of power structures and will for now flower at the edges.
Jenine Marsh uses defunct markers of capitalism and exchange, such as train pressed coins and expired currency, shift contact into realms of mechanical mutilation, forgery and destruction. In their reimagined state as sculptural entities, coins become an interface for the deconstruction and dispossession of subjugated identity. Together with newspaper cuttings from the laste existing socialist newspaper in Toronto and artificially preserved flowers, ageing unperceivably under a layer of artificial latex, her works propose micro utopias of resilience and resistance.
At the core of Aurélien Potier’s suspended sculptures is the interpretation of loss, but also of resilience. It is a subdivision of a traumatic individual and collective experience and its remains. Here, inner paradoxes of the three elements - mortar, crystals and nodes - are equally explored, emphasizing the fragility and impermanence of the structures that tie us.
Mortar, extremely tangled metal cables hanging from the ceiling, seawater distilled crystals on nodes are three major components of his inner-construction site exposed to the public.
This construction site is examined by reflecting on the immediacy of his body and the landscape of Montrose beach, a gay cruising spot in the Calanques of Marseille.
At the core of Aurélien Potier’s suspended sculptures is the interpretation of loss, but also of resilience. It is a subdivision of a traumatic individual and collective experience and its remains. Here, inner paradoxes of the three elements - mortar, crystals and nodes - are equally explored, emphasizing the fragility and impermanence of the structures that tie us.
Mortar, extremely tangled metal cables hanging from the ceiling, seawater distilled crystals on nodes are three major components of his inner-construction site exposed to the public.
This construction site is examined by reflecting on the immediacy of his body and the landscape of Montrose beach, a gay cruising spot in the Calanques of Marseille.
For CURES FOR KNOWN FEARS; CURES FOR UNKNOWN FEARS, Iris Touliatou utilises scent diffusers, normally used in scent marketing to subconsciously target a consumer’s sense of smell. Her scent diffusers emit a perfume made by the artists, comprised and distilled of various treatments and ointments taken by or given to Touliatou to supplement her body as it encounters various emotional and physical states. The fragility to target the oldest and most evolved sense, leaving the room as if you had just missed a person but their smell lingers on, yet addressing ailments mostly caused my late stage capitalism such as sleeplessness, anxiety and stress disorders.
For Untitled (diversion), all phone calls to Touliatou’s landline are being diverted to the gallery’s phone, now installed in the exhibition space.
The work speaks to what theorist Lauren Berlant articulates as “intimate publics”: “Would it be possible to talk about a biography of gesture, of interruption, of reciprocal coexistences (and not just amongst intimates who know each other)?” its whole constitution is centered on the institutional and emotional conditions of the artist’s existence—physical or not.
For Untitled (diversion), all phone calls to Touliatou’s landline are being diverted to the gallery’s phone, now installed in the exhibition space.
The work speaks to what theorist Lauren Berlant articulates as “intimate publics”: “Would it be possible to talk about a biography of gesture, of interruption, of reciprocal coexistences (and not just amongst intimates who know each other)?” its whole constitution is centered on the institutional and emotional conditions of the artist’s existence—physical or not.
