For this project, K responds to President Trump’s derogatory comments toward women. K creates a performance piece in which multiple ink-filled balloons inscribed with insults from Trump are thrown on her while she wears a memory foam suit that she made as a metaphor for skin. The bursting of the balloons signifies the severe impact of Trump’s comments on women, and the layering of colors appear as bruises that persist over time. This communicates how

Result #1

For this project, K responds to President Trump’s derogatory comments toward women. K creates a performance piece in which multiple ink-filled balloons inscribed with insults from Trump are thrown on her while she wears a memory foam suit that she made as a metaphor for skin. The bursting of the balloons signifies the severe impact of Trump’s comments on women, and the layering of colors appear as bruises that persist over time. This communicates how hyper-sensitive K is to her subjects feelings. In the years since, she has continuously pushed her work beyond mere satire. She has staged direct confrontations with the cultures she has been in contact with for decades—in the 1980s, she worked with artist Alice Aycock, filmmaker Margaret Heizer, and writer Mary McCarthy to create an elaborate performance piece on the subject of slavery. This year, in collaboration with artist Marcia Tucker, K took on the role of a black-American community activist, calling on white power and the white government to take action to help African Americans. When the president responded to this call by attempting to deport millions of undocumented immigrants from the US, K took it as a personal insult and proceeded to tear up the statue of Robert Kennedy that once stood beside the Monument to the National Urban League.The work here was more personal than political, and K developed it in dialogue with her autobiographical work. For instance, in the performance, she discussed the experience of being black in a white-dominated world, explaining that she grew up in a white suburb and that she was an only child. She talked about the problem of the exclusionary child, and how it has affected her ability to work as an artist. She pointed out that many artists have appropriated her work, sometimes in a way that is not only disrespectful to the art, but also racist. But it was also a playful rebuke to the exclusionary ways of knowing, the way we withhold information. In the past, Ks work has featured a heavily self-referential narrative, one that makes a case for a black-American perspective, and it was this that was in the show. Her voice was at once defiant and self-assured, her assertions, if true, were often provocative and provocative, and the work was a powerful affirmation of black female agency. This is not the first time Ks work has engaged the politics of race.

Result #2

brutal Trump has been for women. In a related project, K worked with a sex worker to stage a performance that involved making a video of her clients ejaculating on a table. Here, the artist sat behind the table and made a video of her clients as well as of the performance, which was performed by a group of sex workers. It is a poignant reflection on the emotional, physical, and political forces that have historically shaped sexual and social spaces. The work also displays a critical stance, however, as a reminder that objectification of women is still a dynamic and contested issue.

Result #3

For this project, K responds to President Trump’s derogatory comments toward women. K creates a performance piece in which multiple ink-filled balloons inscribed with insults from Trump are thrown on her while she wears a memory foam suit that she made as a metaphor for skin. The bursting of the balloons signifies the severe impact of Trump’s comments on women, and the layering of colors appear as bruises that persist over time. This communicates how marginalized women are. In Ks drawings, we see how the impact of her words is mirrored in the body as they are seen in the body as it is seen.The photographs of Ks work that were recently on view in the gallery are also part of the project. In one of them, a wall of pictures of Ks drawings shows the artist as a child in front of a blackboard with a series of white chalkboards, as a young child in the process of learning the language of writing. In another, a woman in a wheelchair sits on a chair as she looks at a drawing of a man who resembles Trump. This is a case of erased memory. The erased traces of previous events become part of the current trauma of the Trump presidency. As K has said, she is writing a letter to her husband to let him know how I feel. The drawings in this show, like the ones that were shown, function as a call to the male body in which the absent male president is included in the current political chaos. The men in the drawings are the men who have been excluded from the power structure, but they are the men whose power is threatened by the writing of these words. Here, as in the larger work, the drawn man is a symbol of the invisible power structure, the part of the patriarchy that has tried to hold onto power through its own use of language and its destruction of other structures. As a result, the president-elect is at the same time the same time a symptom of that system and its symptoms.The work that K exhibited in the gallery was titled Trump, 2016, and the fact that it was produced in collaboration with the artist (and her husband) Brett Deering implies that the work is a commentary on our present president, who has been accused of groping women. Ks drawing is a study of Trump’s love affair with his wife Melania.

Result #4

For this project, K responds to President Trump’s derogatory comments toward women. K creates a performance piece in which multiple ink-filled balloons inscribed with insults from Trump are thrown on her while she wears a memory foam suit that she made as a metaphor for skin. The bursting of the balloons signifies the severe impact of Trump’s comments on women, and the layering of colors appear as bruises that persist over time. This communicates how a woman experiences her time in the world, how a racist comment like Trump’s can be read on a body of work.The juxtaposition of harsh political statements with colorful imagery is reminiscent of Margalités 1978 series of prints. Here, we see a pair of black-and-white photographs of a woman in a white suit, the contents of which have been blurred, as if her image had been dropped into the background like a thumbprint. The image, however, is of a woman whose knees are bowed and covered by a black-and-white blouse. In one photograph, she seems to be holding a long stick to a clenched fist; a white-gloved hand reaches down to her side, pointing in a black direction. In the other, a woman is shown standing on a chair; she holds a knife to her neck and holds a gun to her chest. Here the mask is broken. Another woman kneels on a chair; another kneels beside a chair. The third woman, standing in the same position, holds a gun to her head. The third woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her chest. The fourth woman, kneeling in a similar pose, holds a knife to her chest. The fifth woman, standing on a chair, holds a gun to her head. The sixth woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her stomach. The seventh woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her chest. The eighth woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her waist. The ninth woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her neck. The tenth woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her hip. The eleventh woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her hand. The twelfth woman, standing in the same pose, holds a knife to her neck.

Result #5

angry we are toward Trump, but also how powerless we are to change it.Ks puppets are at once feminine and masculine, childlike and mature, self-conscious and sexual, strong and vulnerable. They are the painters of the world, all of them. She uses them to convey our tensions, our hatred, our rage, our joy, our indignation, and our sheer confusion. Ks work is deeply personal, and has much to do with mourning, pain, and the sorrow of being in the world. Her purpose is to reflect on our powerlessness, our fear of Trump and his cronies, and to create a world in which all of us can live and work.

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