It’s finally happened. Weldon Arts in Bushwick is breaking new ground between what is art and what is cool with Robyn Hasty’s new art installation and performance “Dark Corners, Savage Secret,” which is done in collaboration with Alex Pergament. Two women naked in lingerie chained up with handmade decorative animal masks on – one masked as a wolf, one as an owl. It’s as if performance art, the Suffragette movement, or the entire 20th century, never happened. To name one, the work of Carolee Schneeman’s performances beginning in the early 60s sparked conversations around sexuality, animal-human relationships, bestiality, shamanism, eroticism, using live cats, naked figures, and sex. But you don’t need an art history lesson. Just rent Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut or Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, curl up underneath the Christmas tree with your favorite beverage, and forget you ever heard about Robyn Hasty’s show. Or if you like to take her advice for an evening, forget the modern world exists.

When Wood Work is Better Than Sex

Hasty’s show was the live performance of her and a friend dressed in costume masks with their tits hanging out. To accompany them were a few suitcases with more naked pictures for the viewer to look at and an old timey screen projector like you used to see in grade school. I’m assuming I don’t have to tell you what was on it. In the back of the space, near the wine, were a few wood carvings she had done as well, which unfortunately didn’t make me consider Hasty’s endless talent, but instead ask myself why there wasn’t more of this. 

Are you lookin’ at me? Sex-owl posing in Robyn Hasty’s art performance at Weldon Arts in Bushwick, NYC. Photo: Camilo Fuentealba

Know what your good at and do it. If you are really good, evolution will come naturally – it’s called growth. Disneyland has measuring sticks outside each ride to size people up before they are allowed on, galleries should have those measuring sticks; if you’re not apt enough to play this game don’t try. A guy will come through with a measuring stick (designed appropriately for the ride you are on) and tell you to leave if. They do it to protect their reputation. If someone does sneak on and die that’s a scandal. Same thing with galleries. If the owners don’t really look at what they are presenting to the public, and say something half-baked slips through, how are we supposed to trust their judgment and want to come back, or even recommend the place? Or worse, write a bad review? Plus, a gallery owner should have the balls to tell the artist when they’re show isn’t going to work. They see the work first and are in a great position to stop bad work in its tracks.

I dread to think what the music would be playing here. Nature sounds? Banjo? This is sounding like the atmosphere of a Starbucks for people who want a wank with their cup of coffee.  And where to put this in your house? If you can even afford to consider that question, you are even more of a “criminal” then those people on Wall Street.  

• Weldon Arts Robyn Hasty (AKA Imminent Disaster) and Alex Pergament “Dark Corners, Savage Secret” December 15th 2012 – January 12th 2013. [Price of artwork: NYC-Artparasites estimates $500-1000]

Article written by Thomas N. Comstock 

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