Flanagan’s Wake
Curated by Sabrina Tarasoff
September 10, 2022- November 5, 2022
Set the stage to domestic darkness. An idea is found in the undertow of left-on fairy lights following some kind of grand fête. Dimmed images appear in the fragile atmosphere of last night’s memory loss. A crushing comedown. Tinsel and serpentines shimmer against a marble-heavy heart. Gut-wrenching lines hang still in the air as garlanded into festive form. Balloons can weigh as much as the pre-occupied mind as it shapes refrains in the aftermath of things said. What is left behind often amounts to a poetic atmosphere. In this case, courted in the debris and scatter of the significant event is a poetics of restraint. Death, play, performance, eroticism, and release are bound into the leftovers of what was loved. This exhibition is a small monument to the poetic works of Bob Flanagan (1952-1996.) It is a wedding of everything, a wake, the waking light on what really happened: ‘explosions, fireworks, ka-boom.’*
Participating Artists
Julie Becker
Nayland Blake
Bob Flanagan
Robert Gober
Jack Goldstein
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Mike Kelley
Monica Majoli
Amy O'Neill
Michael Queenland
Sheree Rose
George Stoll
’*Flanagan, Bob. “The Real Story,” in The Kid Is The Man (Bombshelter Press, 1980.)