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Deborah GardenValentine's Manifesto To LustInvitationPress release / Catalogue textsBackgroundValentine de Saint- Point was a performance artist who worked for a period with the Italian Futurists, in 1913 she published her Manifesto to Lust. Her manifesto is a strident document reflecting the Futurists pre-occupation with war and the machine as expressions of the modern age. Although the work bears her name there is no direct reference to her manifesto, she has simply provided the initial inspiration. V.M. to L creates a visual language that references sex & eroticism from a tactile & corporeal perspective. The work alternates between installation and performance. The first work in the series, an installation, is My Box (C.C.A.S Gallery in Manuka, Canberra in Nov of 2001). Followed by Part Two: Exchanging Fluids (Linden Gallery, Melbourne 2002 and Ocular Lab. Melbourne 2004). The 3rd part is Private Acts in Public Places ( Platform Artists Inc., Campbell Arcade. Flinders Street Station). The 4th part is Sex With Stranger ( not yet shown).The group of four works are related thematically and by the use of a shared pool of materials and objects that link the works together. The pink latex is a constant in all of the works, its skin like properties, slightly disturbing sensuality and associations with sex and the body have made it an ideal medium for the subject matter of these works. Valentine?s Manifesto to Lust. Part One: My Box, The gallery itself became a representation of the body, inviting the viewer to enter via the narrow furry lips into the pink and fleshy interior. The title is a play on the word box, referencing both the white box of the gallery and the slang for the female genitals The gallery was entered via a narrow opening that led into a 5 metre passageway created by 2X 5 metre lengths of flesh coloured latex. This work forms the starting point of the manifesto to lust and begins with the suggestion of orifice. The viewer has to actively penetrate the space, to squeeze into it. The exterior of the gallery exploited materials (fur & red velvet) that evoked sex in a quite cliched way, from outside the gallery the impression is bordello. Entering the gallery this changes. The interior space is austere and sanctum like.Valentine?s Manifesto to Lust. Part Two: Exchanging Fluids is related to the mouth and the wet and messy outcomes of sexual exchange. Sexuality is represented outside of the eroticised visual, and located in a physical process that evokes fluids, movement, chemical reactions and messy ambiguous outcomes. Objects have been chosen that reference the laboratory and chemical processes (a glass-separating flask, glass funnel and laboratory stand). During the 3-4 hour performance10 litres of opaque liquid is slowly transferred, by mouth,. The opaque colour of this liquid refers to body fluids. Wet, slippery and messy, the growing mass of crystals, that the liquid drops onto, form an expanding physical residue. My physical appearance (matronly and staid) is constructed to operate outside of the usual set of visual associations of the sexualised woman. Valentines Manifesto to Lust part Three: Private Acts in Public Places This work directly references an actual event witnessed on the train. The titillation of displaying in public places, acts normally restricted to the private domestic space, forms the main pre-occupation of this 3rd part of the manifesto. Valentines Manifesto to Lust. Part Four: Sex With Stranger?s is the final work in this series. ("
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