Lightboxes
Yoko Ono – Cut Piece (1965)
interactive performance with artist and scissors, filmed at Carnegie Recital Hall
[it’s mostly women who begin cutting Ono’s clothes away. not violent. not careful. all white. they focus on the artist’s sleeves, starting with her wrist on the floor, furthest from her face. they pocket fabric souvenirs, each a piece of art they made. her mouth stays flat, chin raised. her eyes blink and swallow every hand that passes. a man circles her body to laughter and applause. as if landing on prey. how often is vulnerability so intentional? this is the moment the air in the room starts to heat. turns acrid. turns kerosene.
don’t let them see you cry is something parents and coaches like to say. don’t give them the satisfaction. confusing expression with exchange. this assumes they would enjoy it, which is not always the case. when i wore eat the rich to a party, a straight couple took it as a dare and stalked me all night, explaining why they were good people, self-made—and they loved the gays. you do you, she said to me, reasoning that she keeps her vote in her wallet and after that, it’s out of her hands. they wanted the gift of my approval, or else they wanted to strip the frightening shirt away. when someone calls an issue delicate, they mean they are afraid.
it’s hard to watch humans be this human on tape. we don’t know what we’ll allow until it’s too late. i don’t even wait. and when you’re a star, they let you do it. you can do anything. a dare can be a clock. can be a gun. can be an offering. a score is what Ono called it, ready to play. in her finest suit, she wanted to give, to invert the artist’s urge to take. when we take apart an artist, what of ourselves do we make?
maybe sometimes they do enjoy it. sometimes you are the game. at the end of Ono’s video, a man in a trench coat approaches. very delicate, he says to the audience. might take some time. a polished smile. he enjoys slipping one blade into her cleavage. he enjoys cutting down to her bellybutton. he enjoys circling her torso, letting his cut lead the way. he enjoys snipping both straps—of her slip and then her bra, so she has to hold the cups in place. does he enjoy the way her body jerks or the way she tries to hide it? the audience says playboy. the audience says cornball. he bows a little, to the audience, as he sets the scissors down. he does not bother to take a piece of fabric away.]
Faith Ringgold – American People #20: Die (1967)
[at the poetry reading in the art museum, a photographer strides down the aisle to shoot and everybody turns / everybody turns into light eventually / eventually, i pass her enough times that the missing girl on the flyers outside starts to seem like family / like family, fear’s got your back / you’re back from the dead, you said to me every morning / until every morning, i thought about it—being dead / being dead is the wrong way to say it; dead people can’t be / be yourself, they say, then erase us from their books and chase us from their schools / school kept you and i from getting married and thank god / thank god for the radical feminists i read in college classrooms / classrooms here hemorrhage children as they fill with bullets / bullets are just one part of this Guernica / this Guernica is hyperreal / this Guernica only looks like a performance / this Guernica, from the future, could be a mall or church or concert shooting / after shooting the stage from down on one knee, the photographer exits left in front of this painting / in the lefthand panel of this painting, a baby mirrors its mother, arms raised in learned surrender / surrender is one way of life / one way to keep living / living happily means taking a certain amount for granted / what grants me the right / the Black woman on the right is lit with terror, eyes like stoplights / stop looking before you get stuck there / where worry has burrowed blue into her face / in every face the same hypoxic shade / tint of violence in the ones like you, the well-dressed white men / the women’s arms all stick out, occupied by blood or prayer or children, which are used as weapons too / true to the era, the men wear suits and the women wear dresses and this too is strategic / binaries stretched into a composition of black and white and brown and pink Xs / a choreography of limbs and torsos into excess / of all my exes, you were my favorite, but i was still afraid of you / you can’t really know what it’s like / like where we intersect is where we cross and leave each other / like when we intersect, one body holds another]
Artemisia Gentileschi – Judith Beheading Holofernes (1620-21)
[does anger get an era? in the 90s, girl power meant blue mascara. i bought it from a catalogue, my power. i wore it out with butterfly clips and platform Mary Janes. but less went over my head than you might assume. how do you think Judith got into Holofernes’s tent? he was overcome with wine and lust, the record states.
Gentileschi was seventeen when her painting tutor raped her. that person and that night are over, says my horoscope. today they overturned Roe, a law i never had to use but knew i needed—what my mother taught me before that person and that night were over. Judith stands over Holofernes and watches carefully as the sword enters his neck. you do it on top? more than one college friend asked me in disbelief. it’d never occurred to me not to. when word got around to the men in our circle, they didn’t hide their intrigue. nobody discussed how they liked to do it, though it wouldn’t have taken much guessing.
in court, they tied Gentileschi’s fingers and squeezed them blue to conjure the words it’s true, it’s true, it’s true. rape wasn’t illegal then—only not wedding your victim. convicted, the tutor never served his sentence. sometimes it’s hard to believe women will ever be taken seriously. they want us to get over it. protecting her homeland, Judith’s right hand grips the sword, left clutching his beard for leverage. hair sprouts between her animal fingers. the arc of the blood-spray from his jugular to her arm is sublime, a liberation. it beads itself around, echoing her bracelet.
over time, my body has become my only home. i live in here beside a fire. i can’t get over this: Gentileschi’s friend closed the door on them, looked the other way. but here in the painting, a maid whose own rape would never make it to court is Judith’s accomplice. a spot of blood on her arm sisters a drop on Judith’s breast. through a tiny window in the cameo bracelet, Artemis draws back her bow.]
