The bed, site of some of our most psychologically charged experiences, is also a quintessential symbol of intimacy and sexuality. In Embedded Metaphor, artists explore both the poetry and anxiety inherent in this emblematic object. Here the bed has proven to be a protean metaphor that resonates in our era of AIDS, homelessness, abortion rights, sexual abuse and the politics of gender. Removed from its usual domestic setting, the bed provides a forum for examining such issues which have gained prominence in both the "real world" and the art world in the past fifteen years.
The bed, site of some of our most psychologically charged experiences, is also a quintessential symbol of intimacy and sexuality. In Embedded Metaphor, artists explore both the poetry and anxiety inherent within this emblematic object. Here the bed has proven to be protean metaphor that resonates with our era of AIDS, homelessness, abortion rights, sexual abuse, and the politics of gender. Removed from its usual domestic setting, the bed provides a forum for examining issues which have gained prominence in both the ‘real world’ and the art world in the past fifteen years.
Many of the works in Embedded Metaphor speak to issues of mortality and vulnerability, recalling writer Anthony Burgess’ observation: “The study of sleep is wonder; the study of beds is fear.” Others comment on marriage and intimacy, or stand for battlefields where government action intrudes upon private leves. Some are presented as playpens for the unconscious, dream vehicles to encourage remembering and enable forgetting, or boats upon which childhood imagination sets sail; still others are offered as temples of devotion and suffering.
All of the beds in the exhibition are empty. Few are intended for repose; either impossibly small, oddly proportioned, exceedingly fragile or even painful, they offer telltale clues to the social class, age, and values of the bodies that would inhabit them. The vacant bed serves as a surrogate for the human body, while at the same time evoking absence, loneliness, and death. Rather than alluding to a specific physical presence, the empty bed ultimately raises ideas about an individual’s social and psychological construction.
Accompanying this exhibition is the catalogue, "Embedded Metaphor" edited by Nina Felshin. Please click here or visit our shop for more information.
