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On Monstering: “My Head Is a Haunted House” at Sadie Coles HQ and “Dracula’s Wedding” at Rodeo, London—Curated by Charlie Fox →

by Bianca Stoppani

Disorientingly familiar, the entrance of My Head Is a Haunted House is covered with a Twin Peaks–esque Red Room floor vinyl that grounds whatever happens there in another dimension. But in contrast to David Lynch’s tricks, there are no velvet curtains bordering an outside;1 there is no alternative to rambling through the rooms suffused in green and pink lights and joining the mad tea parties thrown by the resident ghosts and ghouls. Among them is Charlie Fox, the orchestrator of this group show at Sadie Coles HQ and of Dracula’s Wedding at Rodeo, both in London.

Charlie Fox authored This Young Monster (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017), a collection of letters, essays, plays, and diary entries that stays with the affects that monsters generate and by which they are generated, and that prompts their queering technology. Recommended reading if you, like me, sometimes need an extra hit of oxygen, his incantatory prose convenes troublemakers Diane Arbus, Leigh Bowery, Claude Cahun, Larry Clark, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, among others, and turns his “I” into their many eyes. 

Such cross-dressing blossoms in the works of the twenty-seven artists featured in the two shows, which explore feelings related to not only the brittleness of identities and bodies, the unspeakable slippages of gender and sexuality, and traumatic histories, but also to the power of storytelling.

 My Head Is a Haunted House, then, enacts the Freudian aesthetics of the “unhomely” (unheimlich) as an emancipatory practice of estrangement from an interior, the mind as much as the body, which is a haunt for and is haunted by desubstantialized ontologies.2 Sue de Beer inflects such identitarian strangeness in her white, doll-sized Witch House (2019), which has no rooms but has two costumes placed on the pink back side, one of a black, fully fanged lycanthropic bat and one of a white wolfhound. Repetition and doubling belong to the unhomely’s engine and so to another work by de Beer, Making Out with Myself (1997), a wicked self-portrait in which we see a narcissistic, almost cannibalistic kiss between the artist’s selves, and to Mary Ellen Mark’s sinister portrait of a child wearing an executioner’s costume (Edward Simmons, Halloween, South Bronx H.E.L.P. Shelter, New York, 1993). 

Other works expose the body in its fragilities, leaks, horrors, and desires, including Cameron Jamie’s neat composition of formless spillages of urine photographed on the streets of Paris and printed on blue paper (Peking Skinny, 2014). Robert Gober’s Untitled Candle (1991), with its base clothed in human hair, is an erotic and melancholic cross-examination of the myths of masculinity, ready to be lit and to melt, and it is echoed by Mike Kelley’s ironic iconography of bones and dicks in his series of silk banners Pansy Metal / Clovered Hoof (1989). Marianna Simnett operates an imposing, crude sex scene between a stuffed swan dressed in a silk and tulle emerald gown and a hyena in a laced blue velvet garment, which alludes to Leda’s myth and possibly to the double moral standards related to rape and queerness (Hyena and Swan in the Midst of Sexual Congress, 2019).

Fox does not miss addressing the often pathetic psychopathological landscape related to toxic anxieties by excavating the wunderkammer of traumas produced by gothic literature, horror movies, and popular culture. Alex Da Corte’s video Slow Graffiti  (2017) retakes Jørgen Leth’s The Perfect Human (1967) but substitutes for the actors—a man and a woman—Boris Karloff and his interpretation of Mary Shelley’s creature in Frankenstein(1931). Making the infomercial aesthetics of the former murky, Da Corte offers a humorous and heartbreaking account of making sense of oneself. Daggering (2011), also by Da Corte, shows a looped image of an emotionless, white-faced Michael Myers, who is stuck oscillating in a TV. Opening Dracula’s Wedding, the Bogeyman in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) is doomed to the automatisms of his alienation and invites us to ponder the dreams and fears negotiated within the self in relation to creaking/cracking social structures and how they are interpreted by the marketing-driven mediascape. Alex Bag’s series Twelve Spells (1999–2012) expands upon these concerns and shows the “obvious” correspondence between astrological sign and favorite drug, commenting on the psychological dependency on prescribed identities.

Rodeo’s windows have been covered with a blood-red film that makes the objects less detectable to the camera of my phone; contours are hazy, and time is out of joint. John Waters’s John Jr. (2009) retro-inters the present into the past by adding his iconic moustache—a drawn prosthetic—to the reframed print of a tender portrait of him as a child commissioned by his parents. Black matte sculptures by Jason Yates punctuate the space, which brilliantly resembles the bedroom of goth teenagers, including the fiberglass basset hound with a disproportionate head (Please Don’t Ever Leave Me (The Existential Sadness), 2019). Cornered, it cries over Stefan Tcherepnin’s Crash Survivor (2018), a red version of Cookie Monster, here corpse-like, annihilated on the floor, and perhaps liberated from their fate of insatiable hunger. Similarly dug up from collective and personal memories, Matt Copson’s Untitled (2019) is a macabre baby crib mobile made of resin bones, while Karen Kilimnik’s approaching night, the edge of the forest (2013) is a romantic and spooky painting of a luring and unsettling threshold: What is beyond there? Where am I?

Fringing the affections and desires of fandom,3 these deliriously excellent shows engage with visible and invisible monstrosities from different moments in (art) history and speculatively reanimate them. At the same time, they de-monstrate that monsters per se are not the antidote to horrors, means of oppression, or retention of privileges.4 Rather, it is only when their logic of the undone is critically performed that destinies become reversible. And in such wayward misbehavior, we haunt back.

[1] See Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie (London: Repeater Books, 2017), 53–59.

[2] See Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Winchester: Zero Books, 2014), 16–21, 120–27.

[3] See Catherine Grant, “Fans of Feminism: Re-writing Histories of Second-Wave Feminism in Contemporary Art,” Oxford Art Journal 34, no. 2 (June 2011): 265–86.

[4] For example, Bram Stoker conjured Dracula’s body with fragments of racism, patriarchy, compulsory heterosexuality, classism, and nationalism. See Jack Halberstam, Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 86–106.

My Head Is a Haunted Houseat Sadie Coles HQ, London
until 10 August 2019

Dracula’s Wedding at Rodeo, London
until 14 August 2019

Jennifer Herrema w/guest Kurt Vile and Jason Yates – The Banana Question (02.28.18) →

KCHUNG: Pass The Paint Brush with Jason Yates on George Clinton →

Homemade Ice Cream, Acid, and L.A., Louise Parker meets Jason Yates

Shooting Louise Parker in the middle of artist Jason Yates’ Boyle Heights studio gave us the opportunity to pivot from our so-called ‘usual’ turf. The always lovely Louise was the perfect idea: a recent L.A. implant, a model and a great photographer in her own right. See here and here and ok–we get it, Louise–you’re talented. Detroit-born, Los Angeles-based Yates had arranged some works of his–inanimate (barely), nostalgic and part of his exhibit Homemade Ice Cream–so Louise could stand in front of them, as one does, and role play a life as a gallery assistant. The artist and ‘miner of ontological garbage’ has been in L.A. some twenty years cultivating his work, and cultivating the art scene itself, but you won’t be able to see his Homemade Ice Cream there; it’s at the Wasserman Projects gallery–in Detroit. His largest solo installation to-date also marks a 25 years since his last exhibit in his hometown. Louise spoke to Yates for Models.com.

How would you describe your work?
I’m usually trying to locate the beauty in dysfunction. I cherish the same pathologies people go to therapy to get rid of. I guess I’m a miner of ontological garbage.

Have you always worked with mixed media?
Yes. I’ve never been a purist. I mix media. I mix styles. I mix emotions. I thrive on anxiety.

Who inspires you and who are your favorite artists?
From the time I was young the work of Chicago artist Pedro Bell has excited me. He is a grand escapist with a visual and written language of great complexity. Most people would know him from the covers he did for Funkadelic, amongst others. He altered the greater consciousness and is a true source of inspiration that most people have never heard of. He remains relatively obscure and I fear most of his accomplishments were not preserved or archived.

Gotta ask, what was it like working for and being a student of Mike Kelley’s? 
It was expensive. It was also very rewarding. If I’m to being very honest–it was also stifling. Being much younger, his brilliance and tenacity was a lot to process and there were times that I was overwhelmed by this. I think of the famous quote by Brancusi on his time assisting Rodin, “Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree”.

Being much younger, his brilliance and tenacity was a lot to process and there were times that I was overwhelmed by this. I think of the famous quote by Brancusi on his time assisting Rodin, “Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree”.

What are your thoughts on the fashion industry? Have you collaborated with fashion before?
That’s a big question. Mostly, the “industry” is everything that’s wrong with humanity. That said, there is so much poetry and beauty located there, too. At best, it’s art. At worst…the worst. I absolutely love pouring over magazines like Pin-Up, Supplement, AnOther Magazine, and Purple…I really enjoy magazines. Tactility is very important to me. I did a project with Christophe Lemaire a few years back. It wasn’t a great experience. He and his people lacked integrity and failed to honor their commitments. It was a great lesson for me and I actually am very grateful. It reinforced how I wanted my relationships to be and to beware anytime someone wants to “collaborate”. It’s usually parasitic.

Tell us about your studio space…
My studio is an old dance hall in Boyle Heights. It was built in the late teens. I’ve been here for about a year and I share it with painter Jed Ochmanek.

You said school wasn’t for you, what are other life experiences that informed you and your artistic practice?
Going to “good” schools can give you a lot of access. There are things to be learned there. But the environment is typically pretty sterile and contrived. Art is really about conversations and relationships. While you can get this in school, it’s absolutely possible…but, hanging out and developing relationships outside of schools and institutions was fundamental to my development. My friendships and rivalries are far more rewarding. I am a city kid. I’m from Detroit and have lived in both NYC and Los Angeles. New York in the late 80’s and early 90’s was a great education. Getting mugged and stabbed on 14th Street after leaving Peggy Sue’s or dropping acid at Oppenheimer’s cabin in New Mexico, or being chased by a pack of rabid wild dogs in Goa–for instance–was just as enriching as four years in an institution of higher learning. Curiosity, willingness, and inviting the unanticipated are my favorite tools for mind expansion. Adventure.

You said you’ve been in LA almost 20 years, how have you seen the art scene change during this time? 
It’s changed dramatically. There was a time when you could see everything in a couple days. Now it just isn’t possible. LA has always been competitive, but not like New York. Now I would say that’s not true. People come here thinking they can carve out a “career”. This town will chew you up and spit you out. I mean, it’s always had the ability to do that, but now it’s really hungry. It’s getting very expensive here. I moved here for a variety of reasons, one of them being that it was inexpensive and you could take risks in both lifestyle and artistic practice. Now you have to have your proverbial shit together and that simply isn’t as much fun. We need a good earthquake.

New York in the late 80’s and early 90’s was a great education. Getting mugged and stabbed on 14th Street after leaving Peggy Sue’s or dropping acid at Oppenheimer’s cabin in New Mexico, or being chased by a pack of rabid wild dogs in Goa–for instance–was just as enriching as four years in an institution of higher learning.

What are you working on right now? 
I’m working on a show in Detroit at Wasserman Projects that opened September 22nd. It’s one of the more ambitious shows I’ve done and it will function as a sort mutant survey and party that will go on for 3 months. I’ve invited various artists to participate. Penny Arcade, Bruce Hainley, Allee Willis, Third Man Records, and many artists of various disciplines from Detroit will be either presenting, cooking, performing, or “collaborating” with me. The show honors oral traditions and will be very social. The show is called Homemade Ice Cream. I’m also working on a project with Charlie Fox for a show at Rodeo Gallery in London that is supposed to open next spring. I’m having fun.

What advice can you give to young aspiring artists?
Don’t listen to me. I can’t be trusted. Also, it’s not an “art career” and you should be suspicious of anyone who calls it one.

Louise and Jason Yates.

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Fugue State: Bruce Hainley on Julie Becker

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Undergound Museum + LA Film Fest Benefit Auction

Artists Noah and Karon Davis founded The Underground Museum in 2012 and operate the ongoing not-for-profit project. The Underground Museum is a revolutionary platform for the arts and community in the West Adams/Crenshaw district of central Los Angeles. It offers a new public entity for exhibitions and programming as no inner-city institution has done before. Through exhibitions, film screenings, and a public garden and library, The Underground Museum upholds the belief that art is an essential part of a vibrant, just, and healthy society.

Please help support the Underground Museum by bidding on artwork in the online Paddle8 auction.

The auction ends Wednesday, May 6 at 10:30pm PT. Proceeds from the sale of the Noah Davis piece go to the LA Film Fest; proceeds from the sale of everything else go to the Underground Museum.

The auction features donations from Uta Barth, the Bruce High Quality Foundation, Shepard Fairey, Piero Golia, Francesca Gabbiani, the Haas Brothers, Dennis Koch, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Ry Rocklen, Ed Ruscha, Eddie Ruscha, Henry Taylor, Jason Yates