guyswithiPhones
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(Virtual) Opening Reception May 23rd, 2020 4pm-6pm (Virtual) Closing Reception June 20th, 2020 4pm-6pm
Show runs from - May 23rd, 2020 - June 20th, 2020 |
Video recording of the virtual Opening Reception from 5/23/2020 |
Artist - Spoon Popkin
Statement
When I chose to return to "guyswithiPhones" for this show, no hint of the coming pandemic was in view. A subject I’ve turned to over the last decade suddenly took on a new meeting. No longer a study on the male gaze, it became a study on survival. How do we express longing and desire in a world where physical proximity can kill us? Perhaps this community learned from HIV/AIDS that virtual reality was the safest reality. As a single friend texted me “all dicks are virtual now“. This is sexuality at a social distance.
The focus of the "Guys with iPhones" continues with "the gaze". These images were taken by the subject, as documenter, alone, mostly in bathrooms (possibly the most personal space in existence) to be shared with a very specific audience. There is a fractured relationship to "the gaze" here. As he looks at himself in the mirror, he is both subject AND photographer. His image is reflected back from the mirror into the iPhone's camera lens with his desires laid bare. The image is then transmitted via satellite to the website, where it is then swiped up by the final viewer on their own iPhone to be interpreted anew. The internet makes limiting the intended audience impossible, giving me free rein to view to these men's most personal desires.
The focus of the "Guys with iPhones" continues with "the gaze". These images were taken by the subject, as documenter, alone, mostly in bathrooms (possibly the most personal space in existence) to be shared with a very specific audience. There is a fractured relationship to "the gaze" here. As he looks at himself in the mirror, he is both subject AND photographer. His image is reflected back from the mirror into the iPhone's camera lens with his desires laid bare. The image is then transmitted via satellite to the website, where it is then swiped up by the final viewer on their own iPhone to be interpreted anew. The internet makes limiting the intended audience impossible, giving me free rein to view to these men's most personal desires.
Biography
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Spoon Popkin received her BFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art and has studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Glasgow School of Art and the Chautauqua Institute for Performing Arts. She has had residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Kunstlerhaus in Salzburg, Austria. She has had solo exhibitions at the the Kunstlerhaus (Salzburg, Austria), RGB Gallery (New York City), The Garfield Artworks (Pittsburgh, PA), The Ground Floor Gallery, Fells Point Creative Alliance (Baltimore, MD) and The American Institute of Architects Gallery (Baltimore, MD), and the International Festival of Women in the Arts (Glasgow, Scotland) among others. |
Website - https://www.spoonpopkin.com/
Facebook - www.facebook.com/spoon.popkin
Instagram - www.instagram.com/spoonpopkin
Facebook - www.facebook.com/spoon.popkin
Instagram - www.instagram.com/spoonpopkin