Fear of Castration cycle:
ID: C8
Date:
Since 2016
Introduction:
This is the second part of a queer trilogy confronting conservative patriarchal society in Belarus and Poland with the culture of the queer community. The cycle seeks to critique official Belarusian culture through a paradoxical confrontation with the gay sex subculture. The cycle creates total installations that reveal the fears of the official culture and ideology in relation to the "filth" of LGBT subcultures. The installation is filled with photographs depicting the interiors and details of darkroom spaces found in gay clubs and bars in Warsaw in 2016. In addition to the collected photo archive, the installation includes the slogan "White culture is afraid to look into a black hole." The installation's “black cube” is framed in the "white cube" of the gallery space as a dark room, a labyrinth, or a chamber of horrors. The installation is opposed by the specific aesthetic dialect of "black rooms" against the ruling "white" (here = official Belarusian and Polish) culture, which, according to the artist, should stop being afraid of marginal aesthetics and thus overcome the "fear of castration".
