Money Shots
A Darling Pearls & Co group exhibition @ Platforms Project 2023 (Athens) presenting a set of artworks that engage with the idea of a “money shot” in the broadest sense.
Denise Alves-Rodrigues | Rolina Blok | Carly | Holly Crawford | Marcia Beatriz Granero | Stewart Home | Ira Lupu | Gang Stalker | Systaime | Itziar Bilbao Urrutia | Lee Wells
Curated by Alessandra Falbo
PV: October 26: 19.00 – 22.30
Exhibition Continues: October 27 – October 29, 2023
Today, every teaser or trailer has one … or two, or three, or eighteen money shots. Whatever it takes to convince audiences that it’s the biggest movie of the summer (…). These days, blockbusters aren’t culled for great trailer moments — they’re reverse engineered to deliver them.” – Matt Patches, New York Vulture, Brief Histories (July 9, 2013).
There is some lack of consensus over the milieu that gave origin to the slang expression “money shot”, which in its plural form titles the current exhibition: A. the most expensive to produce or most memorable scene in a film industry type of movie, and B. “a scene in a pornographic film or photograph of a man ejaculating outside his partner. Perhaps because it is the one shot that justifies the cost of the scene, US, 1977.” – The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 8th edition, 1st published in 1984.
The term money shot, popularised by Stephen Ziplow and specially Linda Williams , where she analyses the development of pornography from the stag films of the 50s to the industry porn of the 70s. Another text also relevant here is Daniel Harris’s “The Money Shot” (1995) by, in which he analyses how the AIDS epidemic changed gay porn in the 80s.
Some of the artists in this exhibition, also independent porn producers, present work for the “Money Shots” exhibition as partially ready-made pieces that directly reference the texts mentioned. One might say these artworks offer a hands on dialectic with the academic context. The show as a whole aims at presenting a set of pieces that engage with the term ‘ money shot’ in a broader sense: as indexes of beauty, fame and wealth, as literal shots of money or acquisition of such, as donation pieces in which the art is only finished after it is sold… And perhaps most notably, as ” your meme has been assimilated”. Its humour and distinctiveness have been added to our own. Resistance is futile.
[1] Life’s shocking as it is (DON’T STOP) (2023) by Rolina Blok is an artwork from a new series in which the artist presents performing pieces that intend to touch people positively, in the sense of providing care in the environments in which they are placed. They are sincere motivational pieces that reference pop songs so commercial we have hopefully all heard them before; in this case “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac. Two hand sewn flags each have one of these words appliquéd over diamond shaped Harlequin patterns. Fabrics are black satin, red pleather and white cotton tablecloth. The choice of fabrics is inspired by her interpretation of what she perceives as Transylvanian hyper-kitsch. The work is influenced by the idea of the race car as a conceptual palindrome; the text works both ways depending on how it is installed and on how the viewer chooses to engage with it. The piece is constructed out of individually cut factions of clashing fabrics that traditionally don’t work together. Antithetic materials to suggest struggle to pass the finish line in a race against time, achieve the money shot #thestruggleisreal.
[2] & [3] “Poolside Party (2023)” is a playful series of AI-assisted artworks by Lee Wells that reincarnates the Naiades from ancient mythology into lavish 21st-century pool parties. The project began earlier this year while the artist was in residency in South Crete. During this period, he endeavoured to communicate with the local goddesses through meditation, natural medicine, and various AI tools. These tools served as channelling mediums, helping him gain a deeper understanding of the realms they inhabit, as well as our own. The digital artworks serve as a new form of painting, showcasing intriguing and exquisite figures relaxing and revelling poolside at mesmerising garden house parties. Through this collaborative effort between the artist, the spirits, and AI, the overarching message conveyed is that life is fleeting. Thus, the most crucial thing is to enjoy ourselves, have fun, and strive to love as best we can in this wonderful and strange world we call home.
[4] stickers from 1989 advertising Stewart Home’s first novel Pure Mania. At the time these could be seen all over east London and especially Poplar E14 where the novel is set. This trashy adventure story takes the form of a blatantly falsified tour of eighties youth trends. It’s a pastiche of the fiction published by New English Library during the 1970’s. Situationist fun and anarcho-punk adventure à la Jamie Reid meets Cockney Red street violence, Pure Mania by Stewart Home was first published by Polygon Books in 1989 & is now back in its original form in a new edition published by Lemington 6 Books on 17 August 2023. Sticker Titles: Marx, Christ & Satan United in Struggle (Red); Marx, Christ & Satan United in Struggle (Black); A Fourth Way Beyond Dictatorship, Democracy and Nationalism (Red); A Fourth Way Beyond Dictatorship, Democracy and Nationalism (Black); Sexual Perversion at its Very Worst (Red); Sexual Perversion at its Very Worst (Black).
[5] Ágio 17112021 (2021) by Denise Alves-Rodrigues is a photograph of the “touro de ouro” (golden bull), installed by B3 in the historical centre of São Paulo. It is a replica of the Wall Street Bull in NYC, a bronze installation piece at the financial district in NYC. Denise Alves-Rodrigues’ series Gestural Art explores uncertainty and instability within representations of global trading systems.
[6] TV TRIP (2010-2012), a video art piece by Marcia Beatriz Granero, is a string of media hallucinations imagined by Jaque Jolene. Falling into an exciting reverie, fragmented divas start to emerge from her remote control.
“A remix style video which talks about television and its hypnotic effects as well as about its potential influence on our imaginary, projecting prototyped and stereotyped diva’s feminine attitudes and characters. Indeed the main character, Jaque Jolene, almost disappears within the swirl of “mediatic imaginary”.- Elmur.net
[7] & [8] Systaime offers explosive mashups of Internet aesthetics, where information, images and comments provide a frame of today’s Digital Pop culture. The artist remixes web images and uses an audiovisual spectacle to display the patterns that are dominating the Internet, its icons, its manifestations and its digital prosperity. We are the spectators of what he chooses to present to us. What happens in the work has not much to do with our own lives, but it is more a kind of close esoteric manifestation of this web culture that is part of today’s pop culture. internet ecology #3 (2016) is a digital collage print and Happy Deep Home (2016) is a video collage both from his series ¡nt3rn3t 3Col0gy ( Internet Ecology ).
[9] Yana Shooting a Rifle (2022) by Ira Lupu is from her most recent series Time of the Phoenix (2022-ongoing), a photo and mixed-media project looking at the shifting perception of home during a military invasion, as seen by an immigrant who returned to her motherland. By travelling all around Ukraine, from safer border towns to the actual warzone, Ira Lupu witnessed how, for many, the invasion has become an inflection point, merging the historical with the painfully intimate. The artist seeks to counter the visual approaches in which this war has been presented in the global media, and find ways to photograph Ukraine that do not fall prey to a spectacle. Part of the proceedings from the artworks goes directly in support of private Ukrainian volunteers working on the ground.
[10] THE PROCESS 01 – laser print and duct tape on wall, 2023. When is an art piece ready to show? The Process 01 is Schroedinger’s art: an idea in flux, both unfinished draft, duct-taped on the studio wall for reference, and finished wall sculpture, flaunting the evolving and ephemeral nature of most art. How does the artist know when to stop? The Process 01, first in a series of open-ended wall art, nods at the transitional nature of street art by adopting its strategies to the gallery environment, polluting the elitist notion of high-end, technically flawless art of art fairs. Its title and subject are a reference to both Kafka’s story and to the political iconography of state violence and grassroots resistance, deep in Basque artist Itziar Bilbao Urrutia’s history and lore. The Revolution is never finished.
[11] Sell Your Soul (2020) & [12] Iryna’s Heels (2020) by Ira Lupu; series “On Dreams and Screens” // A core part of her photography is centred around the female experience — in her own body, emotional mind, or given space, be it the online fantasy machine or a Post-Soviet landscape. In “On Dreams and Screens”, Lupu focuses on a group of seven Ukrainian females with experience in online sex work (called webcam models, or cam girls). Merging ethereality with carefully researched human worlds, she photographed the models in moments of self-contemplation — in the places of their childhoods, favourite nature spots, and at home.
In 2020 and 2021, human relationships have been rendered increasingly remote, occurring over video calls on the other side of a screen. “On Dreams and Screens” investigates how intimate and real we can get through a web camera, and what emotional patterns are likely to be formed after hours of broadcasting on the Internet. It scrutinises the liminal space where the physical body transitions into an electronic one, and observes how the virtual gaze seeps into our day-to-day existence.
Eastern Europe is one of the biggest online sex work hubs. “On Dreams and Screens” provides a more nuanced portrait of an Eastern European cam girl, and celebrates her beyond any fantasies or cliches. The proceeds from every photograph are being shared with the woman depicted, or donated to the Ukrainian charity of her choice.
[13] The Silence Drew Off, Laughing With Medusa, is an ongoing series created under the sign of Medusa. Portraits are done in fragile media—WC on paper—but we are not fragile creatures of sugar and spice. Medusa is not nice! Nor quiet. Nor sugar. She is a beautiful and laughing presence. A mortal who was raped by a god and then turned into a Gorgon. She survives as a muse, a sign for powerful women and a symbol for our present age. We are her and she is us.
The Gift: Several of Crawford’s art projects have dealt with gifting and art. Given the subject matter of this body of work—power, rape, abuse, and murder—the artist will donate 25% of each sale to a charity that helps people selected by the collector. The donations will be documented.
[14] Wargasm in Pornotopia (2022) is a video sculpture by Carly & Stewart Home which follows the logic of The One and the Many (2010) by Stewart Home. Carly, a camgirl who sells art, thought it would help Home sell his piece if she produced an artwork that included books by Home and sold all the books, exemplifying the immediate profit element.
“I’m showing a roughly 30 min camroom actual live recording of me reading a chapter of Stewart Home’s Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie on an Ipad over 15 signed books, and during that excerpt there is a conversation between the Suicide Kid (a transgender curator) and Belle de Jour (supposedly), the alias of an actual escort and writer later IRL identified. When he was writing this novel a lot of people on the literary scene assumed that Home was Belle de Jour because he often writes from escorts’ perspectives, based on diaries of his mother.
That part of the book is v graphic as the Suicide Kid proposes Belle writes back explicit text. And she does. Then I read it to the punters and record it. I then show it to an arts audience. Some punters are an arts audience. Anyway I ask them to tip if it is good… and they do.
The curator will ask the art audience to buy books. Or the sculpture. The price of the sculpture increases by a book with every book sale. There are 3 versions of this reading but they are showing the least explicit one. Should the buyer of the sculpture want the other 2 they can have them” – Carly, 2022 – explaining her reading to her friend Lexi on Snapchat.
The books were indeed all sold.
[15] In Defiant Pose On The Ball (2023) Stewart Home attempts to balance on a Swiss ball while reciting a passage from his novel Defiant Pose and suffering intermittent tickle attacks with a feather. Given that reciting and maintaining balance of an unstable object are contraindicative Home’s stomach muscles get a serious work out and this can be seen because he isn’t wearing a shirt. He falls off the ball and is unable to get on standing again and so kneels on it to complete his recitation, which never stops. This is both endurance and memory act recorded on film. The work draws on historical references to the live art and film associated with movements such as Fluxus and individual artist like Bas Jan Ader but is very much a contemporary 2023 piece. Aside from the record performance on the screen, the work consists of shelf containing copies of Defiant Pose which are for sale at their usual retail price. Every time a book is sold the price of the work goes up because it becomes easier for a collector or institution to store.
[16] “Squeal Like A Pig!” – Ms Tytania relaxes in her studio with Stewart Home’s Art School Orgy (2023). There were no orgies at any of the three art schools that the artist, Itziar Bilbao Urrutia, attended. Or at least, she wasn’t invited to any, but both options make her equally sad about the state of higher education in several European countries in the late 90s to early 2000s. Itziar went to art college hoping to find a Warholian Factory, but too much Foucault, Deleuze and Debord were powerfully anaphrodisiac and her art tutors probably did that on purpose. Only after school did the good things happen and the artist chose to relocate her art studio to the SM dungeon. ‘”Squeal Like A Pig!” – Ms Tytania relaxes in her studio with Stewart Home’s Art School Orgy’ was recorded during a session with a paying client in her London Femdom studio. Far from being punished, she contributed to the education of her wealthy but philistine clients, by introducing them to the works of Stewart Home. Her human table was enlightened and humiliated at the service of his Mistress and hated the mention of piss, a fetish he isn’t into, but had to remain still while Ms Tytania read. ‘”Squeal Like A Pig!” – Ms Tytania relaxes in her studio with Stewart Home’s Art School Orgy’ is an example of how in Itziar’s practice, she deliberately mixes her real life as a Domme, with her art practice. There is a long tradition of women artists reclaiming women’s crafts and activities, to make art. Sex work and domination are mostly female activities that, like weaving or pottery, were considered of less cultural importance than sculpture or painting. Porn is also considered inferior to high art such as film, whilst using exactly the same technique. Through her alter ego Ms Tytania, Itziar reclaims Femdom for the pantheon of art practices.
[17] Black On Yellow Jumpsuit (2020) is the outfit used by Stewart Home in the video short Sweep Out Patriarchy With Kotadama (2020). It is a replica of the yellow jumpsuit worn by martial arts legend Bruce Lee in the iconic film Game of Death. Another item used by Home in his piece was Charged Witches Broom To Sweep Out Patriarchy, Colonialism & Repression (2020).
“The yellow jumpsuit worn by martial arts film star Bruce Lee in his final film has sold for $100,000 (£61,000) at an auction in Hong Kong.
The polyester black-striped garment still has a zip damaged in a fight scene, auction house Spink said.
Lee died in 1973, aged 32, before the final film Game of Death was completed.
The jumpsuit, which made three times its estimate, was part of a collection of Lee memorabilia which fetched $258,000 (£157,000).
Other items that were snapped up included the star’s nunchaku – a pair of wooden lacquered sticks connected by a length of cord – one of the prop weapons used by Lee in his final screen outing. They were designed to match his yellow jumpsuit.” – https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25259326
[18] An additional artwork is for sale but not on view. A VHS tape with the videos Porn The Theory, Bondage as Theme and Technique (2019) and UNICORN (2020).
Porn The Theory (2019) – 06’42’’ – is a re-enactment of the butter scene from Last Tango In Paris (1972). In it Stewart Home plays the part originally assigned to the actress Maria Schneider (1952-2011) while Itziar Bilbao Urrutia plays a composite of the male roles of Marlon Brando (1924-2006) and Bernardo Bertolucci (1941-2018). The scene was, in 1972, decided upon at last minute by the male director and by the also male actor without the actress’ previous knowledge of it. Maria learned about it as the shot was already taking course. In 2019, Hegelian reversal is employed by Home and Urrutia in order to explore sexism and sexual abuse in the movies. The film explores what happens to the scene and also to the story behind it with the genders reversed. In its dialogue it incorporates lines from the original film, from an interview given by Maria in 2007 and also from Bertolucci’s comment on it in 2013. The duo originally agreed on having two versions of Porn The Theory, a soft porn one aimed at the art world and another one aimed at Urrutia’s public as a fetish content producer. As it turned out the soft porn version was never finished and, for this reason, we are presenting the only existent one.
Set in a stark industrial workshop, Bondage As Theme & Technique (2019) – 42’49’’ – assembles and disassembles the moralistic noise that inevitably hounds the practice and representation of porn and spits it back at the viewer. Porn as a genre has been accused of being culturally void – what other film genres elicit more rivers of toxic green goo, than porn? Filming is the easy part. The narrative reveals itself during editing, as the footage is spliced and assembled to tell the story. In collaboration with Stewart Home, Itziar Bilbao Urrutia arranges this video like furniture in a room, giving or altering the meaning in the process of editing. The long and elaborate rope bondage suspension shown in it acts as a meditation on what constitutes a sex act and what is defined as pornographic. In Bondage As Theme & Technique, traditional porn tropes such as ‘the money shot’, genital close-ups and sweaty bodies rubbing against each other, are substituted by veiled figures, gymnastic feats of a non sexual nature and rope, miles of rope. Like the Hanged Man in Tarot cards, the Object is suspended in timeless animation; the officiating Subject (Urrutia), keeps the veil of the officiation throughout. To a spoken soundtrack that includes their own written texts, Linda Williams, Andrea Dworkin and R v Brown [1993] UKHL 19, aka the Spanner Case, Stewart Home and Itziar Bilbao Urrutia engage in a ritual of Japanese rope bondage and sado-masochism where they turn sexualised acts and fluids into a fragmented visual dialogue. The contradictory voices as soundtrack, critique, dismember and legislate sexual acts that challenge the hegemony of the genitals, are at the centre of pornographic content.
UNICORN is an anthology film comprised of four sections directed by Stewart Home, Misha Mayfair, Itziar Bilbao Urrutia and Nick Kilby. Its format a reference to arthouse classics such as RoGoPaG, The Witches, and Coffee and Cigarettes – a format used by, among others, Godard, Pasolini, Jim Jarmusch and Francis Ford Coppola. Titles, as well as the synopsis for the new sketches which have the unicorn as a common theme and protagonist were revealed at the private view of UNICORN vs MEDUSA (exhibition produced by Darling Pearls & Co at Cable Depot, London, 2020).
[19] Another additional artwork by Carly and Gang Stalker, a series of buy to see polaroids, is also for sale but not on view. But you have to ask about it.