A. R. T.
77 Testicular Imprints
Audience
Keywords
The exhibition presented 77 paintings produced with oil paint applied directly to the artist’s testicles and imprinted on various bound and ephemeral printed matter including: mainstream magazines such as Time and Life; art market staples such as Artforum, Art in America and Art News; exhibition and auction catalogues; rare magazines and artist’s books; personal letters; and lastly, on an assortment of original artworks, poems and studio notes by Vito Acconci, Simon Bedwell, Alejandro Cesarcom and Dan Graham.
Like Marcel Broodthaers’s eagles, the testicular imprints also delineate a critical archive, acting like stamps of inclusion. What Guagnini establishes through this process are the relationships between Patriarchy, Private Property, Power, Progress, Position, Packaging and Personality in 20th-century art production. The geniuses that shaped the century – Picasso, Duchamp, Joyce, and le Corbusier – are paraded alongside Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the atomic attack on Hiroshima. Minimalism, Postminimalism, Conceptual art, Abstract Expressionism, experimental film, Lettrism, Situationism, and other significant outgrowths are integrated, illustrating their instrumentality in becoming history.