Commentary on my sculpture Angel of Ascesis
Before the Dawn, I Saw a Prototype; before the Tongs Pulled Up a Lobe of Sky: I Saw the Light! Reflected in your Eye; is open by appointment at Triest, NYC
As you know now from my previous piece, there are four irreducible dimensions of reality: Sheymn, Ylylcyn, Ananon, Ololon. Each dimension pertains to a lifeworld, a type of activity that activates or excavates the dimension. The activity proper to Ololon is called Ascesis, and it is to Ascesis that the sculpture this text addresses is devoted1.
Reclaimed metal countertop, wooden panel board, place mat, menstrual pad, light bulbs, mirror tray, laser engravings of original digital patterns, spray paint
12 x 24 inches
Angel of Ascesis is a sacramental work, like the Eucharist, or like an icon. It is not fine art, it is NFS. It is the first work on the show’s checklist to invoke the theme of menstruation: blood, fertility, waste, shame, disgust, agony, sexuality, imperfect industrial-consumer management of the body’s natural functions, the ‘lunacy’ of the lunar cycle, ingestion, digestion.
A pair of dripping lightbulbs lay upon a gilded menstrual pad enframed by a decorative placemat. A meal resting on a reclaimed aluminum kitchen surface which I found on the street, I forget where.
When Christ said ‘this is my blood’ and told his disciples to drink in remembrance of him, he meant all of this. The blood of Christ is a difficult, contradictory substance; it exceeds the concept, it exceeds morality. It is out of step with good taste, sociality, common sense. The anguish of Christ being beaten and humiliated, forced to carry his own cross, abandoned even by God, freely accepting all of it, willing it. This is a real substrate, an ongoing collective process. Ongoing right now, as I write this, as you read this, immanent, immediate. Thomas Merton called it the body of broken bones. It generates miracles against all odds, at unspeakable cost. There is no way to face it directly and survive, much like staring at the sun - or at least not for long. But we do face it directly in brief moments, when we have no choice.
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