Untitled, 1972 re-imagines information technologies as an ecosystem of narratives bridging egalitarian fantasias about social spaces at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, exploring identity and colonization, access and limitation, agency and refusal. While waiting for fabrication tests for this large jacquard weaving commissioned by The Shed, I started sketching my source material, a photo manipulated iPhone image of a transgendered friend. They were the first drawings I’d attempted since recovering from a stroke. I was surprised to find my hand no longer “belongs” to me, and dictates its own language. These arduous gesture drawings of her Ben-Day dot fingertips, executed with graphite sticks held in both hands, evolved into detailed pencil renderings of the background, a digital photo-manipulation of a silver leafed surface. The resulting mural-sized drawings document a reacquaintance with my own disobedient body, raising questions that exceeded my explorations of gendered representation, as it morphed into a series of personal inquiries about corporeality as a system in flux. The suite of Silver War Storm murals are named for Henry Darger’s 15,000-page tome that situated his mural drawings, which it is said he never saw fully opened the way we see them now. His apartment was too small.
Untitled, 1972, 2019. Wool, cotton, and lurex. 126”w x 78”h. Commissioned by The Shed. Photo: Tahir Carl Karmali
