LADY FACE// MAN BODY (THE ZINE) NOW ONLINE

cassils — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:25:39 +0000

CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT MY NEW COLLABORATION WITH

ROBIN BLACK:

On Exhibit Now in Los Angeles: CUTS: A TRADITIONAL SCULPTURE

cassils — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 00:24:07 +0000

TIME: Tuesday, September 27 at 8:00pm - Sunday, January 29, 2012 at 6:00pm

PLACE: LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)

6522 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
t: 323.957.1777 I f: 323.957.9025
e: info@welcometolace.org

DESCRIPTION:

Cuts: A Traditional Sculpture is a durational performance resulting in a 2 channel video installation, a pin up, photographic ephemera and a zine. The work is structured in dialogue with two seminal performance works, Eleanor Antin’s Carving: A Traditional Sculpture,1972 and Lynda Benglis’ 1974 Artforum Magazine intervention Advertisement. My new work interprets these pieces, while linking them to performative practices associated with the production of hypermasculine and transgendered bodies.

Antin’s performance (in which the artist photographed herself while dieting) responded to notion that Greek sculptors found their ideal form by discarding unnecessary material from their marbled blocks. Rather than crash diet, over three months I built my body to its maximum capacity. I did this by adhering to a strict bodybuilding regime, constructed by master body building coach Charles Glass. David Kalick, a nutritionist specializing in diets for sports competition, designed a diet where I consumed the caloric intake of a 190-pound male athlete. I also took mild steroids for eight weeks of the training.

I documented my body as it changed, taking 4 photos a day, from 4 vantage points. I collapsed 23 weeks of training into 23 seconds creating a time-lapse video (part of the 2 channel installation Fast Twitch Slow Twitch). Juxtaposed against the speed of the time lapse are highly stylized scenes, which play in painful slow motion that depict moments from my training- a raw egg dropping into a mouth or a decontextualized face as it “maxes out”.

When my body reached a peak condition in its transformation, I collaborated with photographer Robin Black to stage a homage to the Benglis’ Advertisement. Rather than buying advertisement space in Artforum, we will use Black’s connections in the gay fashion/ art publications (both on line and off) to disseminate Homage to Bengalis. Substituting my ripped masculine physique for a double ended phallus, we will leak our image without disclosing anything about its subject but will link the image to our blog about the project. Placing Homage to Bengalis within these contexts signals the shifts in our cultural landscape, and the role of artists like Benglis in bringing about those changes.

Additonally many artist friends helped me generate documentation: Zackary Drucker, Rhys Ernst, Cathy Davies, and especially Robin Black.

For this exhibition I was commissioned by LACE- and it was also made possible with the generous support of my people who kicked in for my Kickstarter fund.

Image credit:

Advertisement (Homage to Benglis) by Heather Cassils and Robin Black, 2011.