Fire Lips

mhm, mhm, research material, 2018, edited found footage, courtesy of the artist

In Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, Anne Carson transposes the Greek mythological figure Geryon into a contemporary coming-of-age story. Once a red, winged monster slain by Heracles’ arrow, Geryon is reimagined as a queer teenager navigating questions of identity and desire. In comparing Geryon’s turbulent inner life to volcanic activity, Carson traces the tension between repression and eruption:

Geryon sat on his bed in the hotel room pondering about the cracks and fissures
of his inner life. It may happen
that the exit of the volcanic vent is blocked by a plug of rock, forcing
molten matter sideways along
lateral fissures called fire lips by volcanologists. [1]

The group exhibition Fire Lips takes this dynamic image of blockage and eruption to explore instances of repression and the urgent expressions that circumvent them. Repression here is understood both psychologically and politically: as the mechanism that excludes distressing ideas, feelings, and impulses from consciousness, and as forms of oppression that constrain agency and participation in social and political life. The works gathered in the exhibition display how bodies, voices, and desires are regulated and suppressed within societal structures, while also evoking how the repressed forges new paths and surfaces like fissures and cracks in the dominant order of things. Johanna Thorell, curator

With contributions by, among others, Anne Carson, VALIE EXPORT, Johanna Gustafsson Fürst, Cole Lu, mhm, mhm, Evelyn Plaschg, Miriam Stoney, Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor
Curated by Johanna Thorell

[1] Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red. A Novel in Verse (London: Jonathan Cape, 1998), 105.

Opening hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 2:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.
Closed on public holidays

mhm, mhm, research material, 2018, edited found footage, courtesy of the artist