Do you all remember the Columbia rape victim who carried her mattress around campus in protest of the way the campus handled the investigation and case? She has come back with a BDSM performance art piece in New York. While I applaud Emma for the intent behind her work, I’m not sure I enjoy BDSM as spectacle. Watch the video and let me know what you think in the comments.
DK says
For a so-called “artist” to have done no preparation (i.e. tried it out, determined her limits, scripted something) is pathetic. Apart from the fact that this one is a publicity-seeking liar, it speaks to art being just the vague thought behind the execution (akin to Constable asking someone else to paint a picture of a haywain in mid-stream).
But now, presumably, she will be able to talk about the mindless violence and lack of consent (female of course) by the subject and how BDSM represents the patriarchy. Oh, actually she already has – if it’s a male-masochist it’s apparently consensual, but a female-masochist is aggression by the male-sadist.
Lori Koonce says
If that was supposed to be performance art, there wasn’t much in the way of performance. I think it would have been a better piece if it was just the rigging and the suspension.
MrMots says
Had it been anyone else performing I would have appreciated the attempt at showcasing our lifestyle.
Neil Martinson says
Which performer?
Ernest Greene says
Actually, it kind of takes me back about thirty years when BDSM performances were big in the hipper galleries of NYC, LA and SF. I did a lot of rope tricks and floggings, etc. for crowds of art fans (who were overall much quieter and more polite than this audience seems to be). At least the rigger knows the physical part of his job though his manner is a bit abrasive, and the model seems quite relaxed. I think the era for this kind of thing has passed but I don’t have a problem with putting a show-pony through her paces for an appreciative crowd of onlookers, including vanilla onlookers, provided they behave politely. That was missing here I thought.
As a sort of fun footnote dating to those long-gone Eighties when coming out kinky in Mr. Reagan’s America was genuinely a bit edgy, my performances saved me from homelessness. I was living in the LACE building downtown here, occupying one of exactly four units of subsidized artists’ housing in the entire county. The neighborhood was rough back then (now it’s all nightclubs and upscale restaurants over there) but it was fun to live in such a small, informal community of artists. We actually used to drop in on one another announced, something you wouldn’t dream of doing in modern L.A. unless you fancy standing outside of a locked door waiting for your friends to come home. At that time, BDSM was much more controversial than it is today and there was some resistance to having a guy who tied up women for a living (I was rigging professionally then) living under the same roof with a contingent of rather judgmental feminists who regarded such conduct as abusive. In fact, the board of directors was on the brink of voting me out when Senator Jesse Helms struck. When he attacked the NEA and attempted to get it defunded (as Trumpenstein almost certainly will), he cited the performance space in our building, which got some NEA money, as an example of the kind of degenerate art that offended the sensibilities of ordinary taxpayers – not to mention Adolf Hitler who coined the term “degenerate art.” Specifically mentioned repeatedly in Helms’ rants were fellow BDSM performance artists Ron Athey, Bob Flanagan and Karen Finley. Overnight I went from pariah to culture hero. Suddenly we were leading marches on the federal building and giving big fund-raising events at which I was invited to perform. It would have appeared an unthinkably cowardly political capitulation to kick me to the curb when we were all under siege from Helms so I ended up staying another year before getting tired of living with no heat and having my junker car broken into by street folk looking for a place to sleep. So maybe I’m a little sentimental about this kind of show, but I actually rather enjoyed watching it.
kinkweekly says
Thanks for the insight Ernest! Super interesting history on this sort of thing. I had no idea that BDSM performances had their day in the sun in the art community. It sounds like you were there for a really fun time in history before the political big wigs took it all away. It would be interesting to stage something like this now a day. It probably be less shocking i imagine. -anniebear