After Carolee: Tender and Fierce, Jan - July 2021
cured bodies or the transmogrification of labor into sausages or how atrophy leads to alchemy leads to agency (installation view)
shredded and pulped work clothing, industrial and cosmetic binders (wax, silicone, cement), butchers twine, hog ties, stainless steel and hardware
Through artisanal means, ‘cured bodies’ pulls apart and repurposes artists' work wear. Work shirt threads coalesce into meaty appendages that embody strong and lively past endeavors. Embedded with unique sweat equity and creative laboring, a collective portrait of suspended effort has arrived. Makeshift displays of meat curing in shop window, dangling from dowel rods in suburban basements, or strung up in curlicues on industrial racks, set the material stage for metaphors about the body at work and at rest, about aspiration, desire, futility and transformation over time.
*Curing relieves symptoms of disease and reduces pain. Curing eliminates injury. Curing preserves, purifies and protects. Curing requires time and produces a fundamental change in the nature of a thing.