Polymorphous Perverse
dal 28/2/2008 al 28/3/2008
Segnalato da
28/2/2008
Polymorphous Perverse
Deitch Projects, New York
Works by Tim Noble & Sue Webster. The focus of the exhibition is a kinetic sculptural installation entitled Scarlett, which features a worktable on which numerous disturbing and monstrous mechanical toys are defecating, rubbing, sucking, fucking and the like.
Polymorphous Perverse, an exhibition of work by Tim Noble & Sue Webster that was presented at The Freud Museum in London in the fall of 2006, will be recreated at Deitch Projects, opening on February 29, 2008.
The title of this exhibition references Freud’s belief that young children are “polymorphously perverse”—meaning they demonstrate sexual behavior that the adult world regards as deviant. While education stifles these sexual tendencies, it cannot purge them completely, leaving them dormant in the adult subconscious. Grotesque and unsettling Polymorphous Perverse forces viewers to confront these repressed infantile desires.
The focus of the exhibition is a kinetic sculptural installation entitled Scarlett, which features a worktable on which numerous disturbing and monstrous mechanical toys are defecating, rubbing, sucking, fucking and the like. The moveable parts are brought to life by sensors detecting the viewer’s circumnavigation of the piece, giving the viewer control over the displays of sexual violence, perversion, neglect, death, filth and chaos. In Noble & Webster’s “Garden of Earthy Delights”, unlike the original by Hieronymus Bosch, playing the part of the innocent bystander is impossible.
Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who work as a team, are among the most celebrated of their generation of British artists. Their first exhibition in New York, I <3 You was held at Deitch Projects in the spring of 2000. Like alchemists or magicians, Noble and Webster make something extraordinary out of the most humble materials. They create romantic images of hope out of darkness and debris. Their shadow sculptures are complimented by light sculptures made from the cheap crystal bulbs of fairground signs. The artists are inspired by the way modest illuminated signs become beacons of hope in the gloomy mist of Blackpool and other downmarket seaside resorts of the artists’ native Britain. They evoke romantic dreams that transcend the squalor and bleakness of the streets that prosperity has not reached.
Deitch Projects
76 Grand Street - New York