butterflies & bile

Some images have a way of burning themselves into the mind. In the same way looking into a bright light for too long will fatigue your photoreceptors, allowing you to see an afterimage even after you’ve shifted you gaze. Most afterimages last only a few seconds. Some things that we see, be it a face, a horrific event, or a work of art, stay with us in this same way. And we know from the very second our eyes decipher the shapes and light before us, that we can never un-see the image, we can never regain our innocence.

This is how I felt when I opened my email the other night to view the invitation to yet another show at the World of Wonder gallery Austin Young will participate in on Friday night. Along with an invite to the show, which you can view here, Austin sent this JPG of a new piece called “David Burns with Pink Lipstick.” It just so happens that both David Burns and Austin are friends of mine, and that the pair were lovers for 6 years.

When I went to sleep last night, this image went with me, sitting proudly in my mind like a maraschino cherry atop a banana split. The image was demanding and unapologetic. It was unfettered, refusing to mingle with the other thoughts and images in my brain. When I woke up this morning, it was still there. As I drove an hour-long commute to a job, there it was blocking my view. I tried to remember the last image to do this to me, maybe it was the face of a crush object, or the lynching scene in the new Denzel Washington film.

Some people might suggest that my own sensibility is relatively Victorian, but this doesn’t mean that I don’t have a strong taste for the transgressive, the vulgar, even the pornographic.

I’m not afraid of assholes. In fact, for a woman, I might have an unusual fetish with men’s assholes. The asshole is important. It is the most forbidden, politicized part of the male anatomy. In the United States, as recently as 2003, Sodomy was considered a “Crime Against Nature,” a Felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. In 2003 the law was finally determined Unconstitutional under Lawrence & Garner v. Texas. As per a report I read, dated November 2007, Sodomy remains illegal in many parts of the world today. Some countries consider it a misdemeanor, most countries still impose a prison sentences that may range from 2 years to life, while a few countries such as Nigeria, Sudan & Afghanistan, to mention only a few, may even sentence a Sodomite to death.
It’s clear that some people don’t understand the joys of butt sex.

So where was I? Oh yes. David Burns! I think David’s asshole is my favorite in all the land, above and beyond even my own. David’s asshole is no stranger to the Los Angeles art world either. As exemplified in his photo, video & performance pieces Asswax, Search For Truth, and Self Made Man, to name a few, it is evident that David understands, assholes are centers of the Universe. They are centers of exile, of filth and fear, of pleasure and identity, of consumption, creation and control. I’m not suggesting that David’s work is axiomatic or resplendent. It offers its own brand of challenge to the viewer, as does this photo of him by Austin Young.

Lipstick is said to originate in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago. In antiquity, it was made of crushed semi-precious jewels, later it was concocted with poisonous halogens. The intent is always to decorate or adorn, although the seemliness of its application has changed over the decades. What started out in the royal court as high fashion, centuries later, became the common lure of the prostitute, red lips symbolizing vulgarity. (Rita J.)

This photo is stuck in my throat. It’s bringing up bile. It’s giving me butterflies. I feel like there is a code that has been broken. Like finding your grandfathers porn magazines. Maybe the way the body is dismembered, or the way the thighs open and go every which way into nothing. Or maybe it’s the way the mirror is placed just so, to ensure optimum visibility, double visibility even. I think for sure, it’s the lipstick, they way it is frozen in orbit. It’s a threat, a bomb, a phallus, a kiss, a target, a way of making something more beautiful. A way of saying fuck you.

the end