A BSDM dungeon is not your run-of-the-mill contemporary art exhibition venue, but it was fitting for Sexual Fragments Absent, a recent one-night show held at the New York basement dungeon Paddles (27 April). “People are in a very difficult space to see art,” says Tiona McClodden, one of the three artists presented in the show. “That dungeon is a very active dungeon.” In fact, it was the dungeon’s best-attended event in years, says Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi, curatorial assistant at Performa, who organised the exhibition as part of his candidacy for a Master of Arts in Curatorial Practice at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. Sexual Fragments Absent presented performance, video and sculpture by McClodden, Doreen Garner and Shawné Michaelain Holloway, all black female artists who make work that involves the BDSM community (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) and related issues, such as power dynamics, gender, race and sexual orientation. “There’s still a dearth of black representation in kink,” Onyewuenyi says.
McClodden, who engages in play as a dom within the BDSM community in her personal life, presented video works, which included her reading aloud from texts such as The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual (1988, edited by Pat Califia), an enlightening text for those unfamiliar with BDSM that outlines the mutual trust, care and consideration involved in play. “I just found it very special that people would sit in the dark to listen to me read text in there,” she says, “and I think that is the power of the art”. She also carried out play sessions with visitors throughout the evening as part of the show. “It was really important for me not to go into ‘art world Tiona’,” she says.
In one of McClodden’s performances, Requirements/Exigences, she would only interact with people who were wearing red lipstick—even holding friends she wanted to speak with to the rule. “I was interested in power exchange—power dynamics and seeing how far people would go to engage with me,” she says. McClodden had red lipstick available for those who wanted to speak with her. (One visitor had a sneaky work-around: kissing his girlfriend, who was wearing lipstick.) “This is my comfort zone, and I’m letting a lot of [people] in here,” she explains of maintaining her rule and the boundaries of her typical play, which involves “gestures of power and restraint”. The artist discusses the fun in play as well, saying that one of her sessions in another type of play she carried out during the show—tying visitors (newbies and seasoned participants alike) with rope and leading them around the space—was particularly amusing. “It was good to show that it can still be funny,” she says. BDSM “doesn’t have to be dark, with knives and shit”.
McClodden is also a curator, and a two-part group exhibition she has organised, Predicated and A Recollection, opened at the Slought Foundation in Philadelphia this week (until 28 May). Meanwhile, SVA’s Curatorial Practice MA year-end exhibitions continue through 14 May.
