近距离内射合集

Sa煤l Ram铆rez is a trans nonbinary artist and poet whose University of New Mexico master鈥檚 thesis exhibition, 鈥淪eeds of Compromise: In Search of Digestive Architectures,鈥� is currently on view at the nonprofit AC2 Gallery, aka Albuquerque Contemporary Art Center. Their assemblages are multilayered but approachable, with a lack of preciousness 鈥� some are literally held together by shoelaces 鈥� that keeps the focus on the materials and the stories those materials tell, as opposed to the mechanics of their assembly.

Ram铆rez, a descendant of the Rar谩muri people of Mexico, blends the Mesoamerican myth of Tlazolteotl and the Greek myth of Persephone into a complex allegory of artistic upcycling and personal transformation. Tlazolteotl, whose name means 鈥淔ilth Goddess鈥� or 鈥淒eity of Dirt,鈥� is associated with literal dirt as well as sexual 鈥渄irtiness.鈥� Her adherents believe she causes sexually transmitted infections but also cures people of them by eating the disease. Persephone, meanwhile, is a nature goddess associated with blossoming and fecundity. But because she once ate pomegranate seeds in the underworld, her soul is metaphysically bound to return to the underworld once a year. The ancient Greeks believed Persephone鈥檚 yearly descent is what causes winter, while her return to our above-ground world is what causes spring. If an ordinary human had eaten the same pomegranate seeds as her, they would have been condemned to the underworld permanently, but Persephone, being an immortal goddess, like Tlazolteotl, can consume and digest things most mortals cannot.

The ability of these goddess figures to metabolize filth or death corresponds to the artist鈥檚 own practice. As Ram铆rez states in the exhibition text: 鈥淏y thinking of the studio as a stomach, painting can absorb an earthly function of digestion where waste and death are reborn as fertility and generosity.鈥�

Most of the works in 鈥淪eeds of Compromise鈥� are found-object wall installations that use paintings as one element among many. Some of Ram铆rez鈥檚 paintings are representational 鈥� self-portraits or paintings of pomegranates, mostly 鈥� while others are abstract. Ram铆rez places them on shelves or hangs them next to the cabinet-of-curiosities-style wall installations, which include a m茅lange of objects, both sacred and profane, from old library books, images of saints and bundles of dried herbs to lacy underwear and bondage gear.

The idea of curating one鈥檚 own art into a self-consciously 鈥渕useumified鈥� presentation dates back, at least, to Marcel Duchamp鈥檚 鈥淏ox in a Suitcase,鈥� which he launched in 1935. It included miniature facsimiles of his most famous artworks. Duchamp was partly inspired by the American outsider artist Joseph Cornell, who had begun making his signature found-object shadow boxes just a few years prior. Later artists introduced the practice of arranging found objects on shelves, including Haim Steinbach in the late 1970s, Damien Hirst in the early 1990s, Carol Bove in the early 2000s and Rashid Johnson from 2008 on. How we interpret such works depends, in part, on whether we think of the shelves as referencing anthropological museum displays, retail shelving or domestic interiors.

Ram铆rez鈥檚 wall installations seem to operate in the personal, domestic, quasi-spiritual space of memorialization or enshrinement, since the objects the artist chooses are personal in nature and their presentation lacks the regularized formality of museological or retail displays. People of many spiritual traditions have small home altars or shrines, and even nonreligious people often place special souvenirs or mementos on shelves alongside their favorite books, a practice that might be regarded as secular shrine-making. The works in 鈥淪eeds of Compromise鈥� contain a mix of sacred, mundane and even potentially embarrassing objects one might find buried in an attic or closet. By reconfiguring them into shrine-like assemblages, Ram铆rez gets us to reconsider each object鈥檚 symbolic potential.

Does Ram铆rez like and agree with the books they incorporate into their assemblages? Probably yes, in the case of 鈥淰isions of Excess鈥� by the early-20th century philosopher of transgression, George Bataille. Bataille鈥檚 idea that mystical transcendence can be achieved by immersing oneself in everything grotesque and painful about human bodies seems to have influenced Ram铆rez significantly. But that鈥檚 probably not the case for 鈥淲e Were There with Cort茅s and Montezuma,鈥� a 1959 historical fiction novel for children, which Ram铆rez has wrapped in underwear and shoelaces and affixed to the wall as a standalone sculpture, titled 鈥淎 Thing of Awe.鈥� The bundled underwear could suggest sexual violence 鈥� part of the story of Spanish colonization in the Americas that鈥檚 often left out of children鈥檚 history books 鈥� or it might symbolize the artist鈥檚 own nonbinary identity in contrast to the macho warrior identities of both Hern谩n Cort茅s and Moctezuma II (Montezuma). By wrapping the book in underwear, the artist enacts a ritualized profanation of a sanitized, bowdlerized work of historical fiction, thereby reclaiming their own cultural and sexual identities in a way I think Bataille would have approved of.

A book that shows up in at least two works in 鈥淪eeds of Compromise鈥� is 鈥淭he Word: A Philosophy of Words鈥� by Edna Sarah Beardsley. This obscure and rather bizarre 1958 linguistic treatise claims that some letters of the alphabet are 鈥渓iterate,鈥� while others are 鈥渋lliterate.鈥� The author also classifies various English verb forms as 鈥渕asculine鈥� or 鈥渇eminine,鈥� noting that words are 鈥渇orever propagating鈥� according to what she calls 鈥渢he spiritual logic of the sexes and the literacy of word-gender.鈥�

In one assemblage, Ram铆rez balances the ripped cover of Beardsley鈥檚 book on a stack of bricks on the floor, beneath a shelf assemblage that includes pomegranate art and underwear 鈥� motifs that reappear throughout the show. In this case, Ram铆rez鈥檚 relationship to the text is not entirely clear. While I might assume that a nonbinary artist would be irritated by the book鈥檚 gender essentialism, which Beardsley exaggerates to the point of absurdity, the fact that she imbues ordinary letters with both sexual and mystical significance opens the possibility of an alternative, 鈥渁gainst the grain鈥� reading of Beardsley, and the English language itself, as something fundamentally queer.

In a floor piece, Ram铆rez sandwiches a small, abstract-expressionist-style purple canvas between two tall, rectangular pieces of roughly cut mattress foam. The front of the foam is pale green and stamped with a grid of holes, some of which Ram铆rez has plugged with purplish-pink dried flowers. When I saw the long, pale green forms riddled with holes and interspersed with flowers, I immediately thought of cholla cactuses, which are commonplace here in New Mexico, as well as in the artist鈥檚 ancestral homeland of Chihuahua, Mexico. Ramirez鈥檚 sculpture is like a boxy, Minecraft version of chollas. At the base of the smaller shaft of foam is a stack of library books, including ones by the 16th century proto-scientist, Francis Bacon, and the 19th century naturalist, Charles Darwin 鈥� two of the most significant figures in the development of Western science. A pink charm bracelet rests precariously on the taller foam shaft.

How are we to interpret this sculpture? By pitting Bacon and Darwin against a highly unnatural representation of organic forms, are we meant to question the meaning of the word 鈥渘atural鈥�? By connecting a sentimental piece of jewelry, sentimental dried flowers and a painting emblematic of turbulent emotions with materials like mattress foam that have no inherent emotionality, are we meant to ponder how artists are able to enliven inert matter with genuine human feelings?

The paintings themselves are of such disparate styles that I read them less as expressions of the artist鈥檚 authentic self or soul than as found objects, no different than the other objects Ram铆rez uses. They happen to have been painted by the artist, but probably at different times and for different reasons. Some look like academic exercises. Collectively, they represent the art-making impulse, but the real art is what Ram铆rez creates by cannibalizing them.

Ram铆rez鈥檚 practice involves struggling against, or struggling through, various texts and materials in search of an artistic, linguistic or even alchemical transformation. Whatever else the work is about, it is first and foremost 鈥渁rt about art鈥� 鈥� an exploration of the processes by which artists turn the ugliness, filth, pain or even boredom of everyday life into something transcendent. Like Tlazolteotl, who can only create health and beauty by consuming filth and disease, or Persephone who can only create the bright fecundity of spring after journeying deep into the underworld, Ram铆rez metabolizes pain and suffering and produces visual poetry.

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the 近距离内射合集. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .