The Large Glass by Shelley Lake
Shelley Lake, The Large Glass, 2019 inflatable vinyl with camera, 60 x 28 x 24 inches, installation view
THE LARGE GLASS: The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even
October 26, 2019
ABOUT
The Large Glass is a readymade assemblage that combines an inflatable vinyl figure with a camera. The sculpture is life-sized and wall mounted.
Yellow plastic hair, blue eyeshadow, black mascara and red lipstick characterize the smiling face of the mannequin. Her protruding breasts, bent arms and outstretched legs exemplify an austere, beckoning, caricature.
Pink shiny skin, narrow hips and a slim waist are so extreme as to be impossible. Her hands have been reduced into soft paddles. Minimalistic feet terminate in points with scant detail in the shin, calf and thigh. The gesture in her arms is a siren call to her audience, an invitation to an embrace. An uncanny quality permeates the figure––she is simultaneously familiar, yet unfamiliar.
The point and shoot camera with its zoom lens is proportional to the character and is slightly pushed into her crotch. With an economy of color, the red lipstick and red camera subliminally connect the mouth to the genitals.
MAKING THE SCULPTURE
Inflation is a performative act requiring an oral connection––surrounding one’s lips around a nipple and physically engaging the art object. With each breath, the vinyl blow-up doll metaphorically rises to the occasion. Inflation produces an erection in the model at large. The once limp jumble of plastic is quickly transformed into a life-sized phallus.
With the addition of the camera–the photographer’s phallus–the combine is complete. The camera is a microcosm of the figure’s macrocosm. The camera is a vehicle for memory, an instrument of time travel and the precursor for reproduction. The penultimate apparatus for recording space time relationships has been relocated to grand central station.
“If we must turn the art of photography into a sexual metaphor, this is how it usually goes: The camera represents the photographer’s phallus. The camera’s lens is the artistic extension of the male gaze. Female subjects “make love” to the camera, and by extension, the artist.”
-Amanda Hess, Female Photographers, the Phallic Camera, and the Male Gaze
Installation photographs of the figure exhibit some ambiguity as to whether the model is standing or recumbent. Interpretation of the character would be far different if the model were lying on the floor. A recumbent position would further sex objectify the installation, imparting submission. To the extent that parity is possible, the vertical installation conveys a greater sense of dignity and moral equivalence with the spectator. As you approach the sculpture, the figure hangs a little high to slightly dwarf the viewer and suggest the possibility of oral sex.
The inflatable is secured to the wall at the back of the head with industrial velcro. The camera is secured to the pelvic area with a hidden metal mount.
WORD PLAY
In the aftermath of research into the life and times of Marcel Duchamp, The Large Glass picks up where Duchamp left off–in the Valley of the Dolls. For Duchamp, female masculinity and male femininity were recurring themes. From Mona Lisa with a mustache to his cross dressing Rrose Selavy.
The title The Large Glass is appropriated from Marcel Duchamp’s masterwork by the same name:
“Duchamp called The Large Glass: The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even his “hilarious picture”, it engages wit, absurdity, non-traditional materials, and conceptualism to push the boundaries of what was acceptable and possible in the art world of his generation.”
-Dr. Lara Kuykendall, Khan Academy
The selection of a readymade is Duchampian, to the extent that it is a found object with erotic implications. However, it is not visually indifferent. Duchamp described his “erotic climate” as hidden, underlying and disguised. In that respect, the choice of an overt visually provocative inflatable draws stronger connections to Jeff Koons, the King of inflation.
Shelley Lake, The Large Glass, 2019, inflatable vinyl with camera, 60 x 28 x 24 inches, detail
Shelley Lake, The Large Glass, 2019, inflatable vinyl with camera, 60 x 28 x 24 inches, detail
In addition to the readymade assemblage, there is a second combine, The Large Glass No. 2. Like the readymade, this artwork also explores gender identity, word play and the phallus. Simulation technology is employed to represent the female figure with an integrated camera embedded at the pubis.
Unlike the previous readymade, her heroic stance and concerned demeanor exudes autonomy and bravado. She is nude, but there is no seduction, no invitation to an embrace. Paradoxically, the simulation is more realistic than the “real” doll, but just as uncanny. The simulated camera is angled slightly downward, making for a less confrontational experience.
Included at the bottom, is a wireframe representation of the same model, revealing the polygonal mesh that defines her underlying architecture. The wireframe mesh is more representative of the look of the character if she were rendered as a monochromatic three dimensional powder print.
In making a distinction between male genitalia and the phallus, we can conceptually transcend gender, we can open a window into the human psyche. Gender roles are constantly shifting with the cultural tides of evolution, to include cybernetic contributions from artificial life. As the human and meta human communities merge, our thinking must adapt to the rise of the sex machines.
Shelley Lake, The Large Glass No. 2, 2019, digital scene simulation, 80 x 40 inches
“The phallus is a mobile concept that represents power in general, not just the power of biological males.”
“Masculine girls and women do not have to wear their masculinity as a stigma but can infuse it with a sense of pride and indeed power.”
“In the woman who lacks the penis but has the phallus, it is phallus envy, the desire for desire, that motivates her actions.”
––Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity
“The penis is an organ, the phallus is a structure.”
––Marjorie Garber, Fetish Envy
“Halberstam resists the “old-fashioned” feminism that “understands women as endlessly victimized within systems of male power.”
––Judith Kegan Gardiner, Female Masculinity and Phallic Women
“A great deal of male competitiveness is conducted in the symbolic language of who has the biggest cock. School boys test this out quite literally, showing off their penises, measuring them with a ruler and competing for who can pee furthest and even ejaculate furthest.”
-Warren Colman, Celebrating the Phallus
Shelley Lake, The Large Glass No. 2, 2019, Digital Scene Simulation Wireframe Detail