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Jason Rhoades’ untimely death in 2006 at age 41 cut short a career which, through the sheer
audacity, scope, and ambition of his prolific artistic output since 1993, promised to make him
one of the defining artists of his generation. While often perceived as a maverick - constantly
changing styles, materials, and intellectual approaches for each project, it is the very continuity
and reoccurrence of Rhoades’ most important concepts and concerns throughout his career
that is the hallmark of his final exhibition, Black Pussy, conceived by the artist in 2005 and 2006
and completed in Rhoades’ studio shortly before his death.
The last installment in a trilogy of work that includes Meccatuna (2003) and My Madinah: in
pursuit of my ermitage…(2004), Black Pussy remains one of Rhoades’ most mysterious works,
and his most ambitious. Sprawling roughly 3,000 square feet, the work presents itself as a large
installation, dominated by an empty stage bearing a neon sign which reads “Live in the Black
Pussy.” The work also features 185 neon pussy word signs, as part of the artist’s ongoing project
of creating a cross-cultural compendium of synonyms for female genitalia. Large storage racks
are covered with myriad objects, including hundreds of Egyptian Hookah pipes from a seized
shipping container, over 350 unique Dream Catchers (a traditional Native American fetish
object used to filter dreams), 89 beaver-felt cowboy hats, 72 Chinese Scholar stones, Venetian
glass vegetables (and Chinese knock-offs), colorful cloth rugs, a homemade aluminum replica
of Jeff Koons’ famous stainless steel Rabbit (1986), and more. To one side, a large macramé
textile object covers the wall. Beyond the formal juxtapositions created, the individual elements
in the massive installation interact symbolically, communicating dichotomous relationships of
masculine versus feminine, Eastern versus Western traditions, the handmade versus the massproduced,
and the authentic versus the fake.
Black Pussy is foremost a sculpture; however it is not merely the result of material objects chosen
by the artist, but also the activities of participants in the ten Black Pussy soirées held in his
Los Angeles studio. For a period of six months, the artist invited a small group of selected
guests to attend a series of events officially known as Black Pussy Soirée Cabaret Macramé.
Though seemingly improvised, these evenings were highly structured hybrids of performance,
Happening, dinner party, and art opening. Rhoades hired performers, but also expected a
high level of guest participation with the intention that these soirées would add to the constantly
evolving Black Pussy installation. Each guest not only contributed a new personal pussy word
Photo courtesy Douglas M. Parker Studio
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to his encyclopedic list, but also a bit of themselves in the form of charisma—their intangible
and individual spiritual power. The events were heavily documented in the form of photographs,
which were both physically incorporated into the installation and used to compile a coffee
table book, and also in the form of a soundtrack, which became a part of the work itself. Only
after the addition of sound - the auditory remains of the cycle of soirées – did Rhoades consider
the sculpture complete.
It is important to note that Rhoades did not intend to continue the soirées once the work was
shown in a different context. These events were clear extensions of the artist’s studio practice,
creating not only an aura for the work, but also turning the ephemeral quality of the participatory
evenings into concrete material for his sculpture. The varied materials found in Black Pussy,
the formal density, and the strange soundtrack (especially powerful today, as we mostly hear
the artist’s voice) create a narrative of utmost complexity, or conversely, multiple narratives. An
undoubtedly provocative title, Black Pussy refers most directly to the darkness of the cavernous
installation within Rhoades’ studio and the ultraviolet lights which are the sole sources of
illumination in the space. The notion of absence, so powerfully illustrated by the empty stage
and the disembodied voices on the soundtrack, is especially poignant when we contemplate
Rhoades’ favorite white suit, which the artist placed in the middle of the piece, in lieu of a
signature, just days before he died.
While Rhoades could be the most dazzling colorist and materialist (as is abundantly evident in
Black Pussy), it is really his conceptual vigor that frames and connects his oeuvre, and makes
him the ultimate artists’ artist, not only as someone who commands the respect of his peers,
but as an artist who redefined the arena in which art is possible, and tried to expand the
boundaries of this arena. The conditions under which art is made, shown, and consumed were
sources of enormous interest for Rhoades, and it is his continuous assault on these conditions
and rules that made his work so challenging and fascinating. For Rhoades, the creative process
demanded ultimate freedom. His work could be dangerous, overwhelming, politically incorrect,
obnoxious, or utterly sublime. Rules and conventions were materials for Rhoades, and he
subverted them not out of bratty adolescent impulses, but because he understood them to
be safety nets in the art-making process, and knew that, once these were removed, there lay a
whole new set of challenges for the artist and his audience.
Rhoades’ work can be both physically and visually demanding, yet it is its intellectual challenges
which often prove most daunting. It takes a long time to see a Jason Rhoades’ work, as the
physical viewing and the production of meaning can be similarly arduous. For Rhoades, the
ideal audience would pick up bits and pieces of literal meaning from the multitude of real
world objects in his work, and enter into an investigative dialogue with the work in order to
unearth the sculpture’s metaphorical potential. His work exists on numerous levels, and only
through continuous engagement with the work do new levels reveal themselves. Whereas
traditional visual media can often be seen and judged instantaneously, Rhoades’ work functions
in time, much like a film, or the reading of a book. Time needs to be invested. Once this investment
is made, the returns can be enormously gratifying.
On a formal level, the work reveals great precision and beauty, and attests to the artist’s singular
aesthetic. Intellectually, a thorough investigation leads to themes that Rhoades investigated
again and again in his career: the conditions under which art is possible, the role of the artist, the
sources for creativity, the notion of abstraction, and our ultimate inability to fully understand
that abstraction. Control was of great importance to Rhoades. He not only tried to control the
actual space of the work, but also the imaginary space in his installations. Further, Rhoades’
work was extremely personal. He touched on ideas of consciousness, communication, power,
love, the creation of life, culture, religion, and thought itself, as filtered through his own
experiences, using the banal vocabulary of post-industrial consumer culture to open spaces
of dialogue with these enduring themes.
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