Last night I wondered along to Curdle, at Don't Look Gallery in Dulwich Hill. It was an installation staged by Zoo. Zoo's name has been coming up repeatedly over the last few months, various people have claimed her as a friend and she worked with Necrotitties in a performance at Hellfire earlier this year. When my friend mentioned her exhibition to me recently, I thought it would be a good opportunity to go and see what she gets up to.
Zoo's Curdle Journal was my first port of call: http://galactablogue.blogspot.com/. It contains a detailed record of her life in the gallery and her thoughts around the experience. It is at once, witty, warm, thoughtful, funny and beautifully written. It is intimate and welcoming and not the slightest bit pretentious. For me this record is the crowning achievement of the installation.
The space itself is small, and had it not been closing night and the small space chock full of friends and supporters it would have been very confronting to walk into if you were not already a friend or at very least acquaintance of Zoo's. Zoo herself seems to have been alarmed by some of the strangers who entered to view/participate in the installation over the ten days she was in residence, not all of them well wishers.
The grey areas created when you bring together breasts, lactation, poetry, prose, porn, philosophy, multimedia and art in general are pretty confounding. Like so much art in the Renaissance that claimed to be wholesome and pious, but was filled with orgasmic imagery, Zoo's installation took the "wholesome" image of the nursing mother and frankly filled in all those grey areas, exposing the pornographic and salacious side of lactation.
The performance side of the closing night was appropriately chaotic. Necrotitties was to read poetry from behind a veil on one wall. A young boy read from a mezzanine level above the crowd and music played, all of which had some reference to milk. While this was going on the multimedia displays played continuously and you could watch some of the milk and colouring experiments that had been done through the week. One display played a video of an amusingly ritualistic performance Zoo had gotten a couple of her friends involved in. Looking very Greek and vestal-like, Zoo's friends struck poses around her while she exposed a breast from under her toga folds to squeeze milk into a waiting vessel. For me this was really very amusing, but I am old enough to remember too many films of lesbians re-enacting ceremonies on Lesbos, be-toga-ed and chanting various new-age absurdities. This association put this performance into a lesbian context for me that couldn't help but make me giggle.
As the crowd went quiet all focus turned to a couple of black and white televisions in one corner of the room. Zoo was sitting in a chair, topless. Someone was swabbing her down and it was obvious something was about to happen. It became quickly evident there was a scene being played out that involved cutting and cupping. This was at once mesmerising and discomforting. A large crowd of mixed interests and not all people into or acquainted with these practices made for various audience responses. My friend Marina asked "Why would you do that?" to which I responded "because you like it." However, it was obvious from Zoo's reactions that she wasn't really in the zone for the scene. It looked as though her exhaustion from the days living in the gallery made the cutting and cupping intensely painful. She didn't appear to be enjoying it in any way. Five cups had gone on and she seemed to hesitate before they proceeded to add the final two. She then got slowly to her feet and came into the front room. All eyes turned from the monitor to the cupped Zoo, each glass cup with its little puddle of blood and some on her breast with puddles of milk and blood in them. She smiled to the crowd and I felt comforted that she did seem at last to be enjoying it at some level. She returned to the back room and, Sam King, who did the cupping, proceeded to remove them, a procedure, it seemed, even less enjoyable than putting them on.
My friend Lisa picked up the visitors' book and we stood for a while reading through the recollections, reflections and even poetry visitors had written. Zoo eventually emerged in a sequined dress, beaming and looking appropriately like the star of the evening. She had a couple of friends there with her in character, one a lady blower and another spaced out character, but Lisa and I weren't able to work out their significance, if indeed they had any.
As it seemed to now be the time for friends to celebrate Zoo's success, Lisa and I left the gallery, briefly pursued by Zoo who came to tell us of future performances we might be interested in. It was a very thought provoking experience. Zoo's installation and performance did what in my opinion the best art does, it broke down the boundaries between things and made them all flow together in a creative confusion. There were no answers, no arrogant assumptions, just a great many thoughts and ideas floating about and inviting participation. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for her work in the future.
You can view pictures of the event here: http://www.flickr.com/gp/23865920@N00/U593Y4