Visual Art
Care: An Exercise in Commodification
This body of work is comprised of photography, installation art, and performance, and explores the idea of the public vs. the private in terms of sexual identity, sexual expression, and the commodification of the body.
Moment$ of Care: Installation
Who decides the difference between the body as public vs. private property? Does a woman’s body ever really belong to herself, or does it just go from being owned by her parents, to being owned by the world while between relationships, and then, ultimately, to being owned by a partner?
What if that woman assigns monetary value to her physical body – to the things it gives and receives, to visual reproductions of it, to the sounds it makes and the words it speaks – and sells those pieces and parts, over and over again, to paying customers? Does the body then belong to her, the seller, or them, the buyers, or all or none all at the same time?
Moment$ of Care is an installation representing numbers of minutes the artist spent selling herself over the past year and a half. This installation represents a very small percentage of time sold, and she plans to continue adding to this installation until it is complete. She is tends of thousands hash marks away from completion.
Materials: Archival paper, vellum, charcoal
Goodie$: Photography
Who decides the difference between the body as public vs. private property? Does a woman’s body ever really belong to herself, or does it just go from being owned by her parents, to being owned by the world while between relationships, and then, ultimately, to being owned by a partner?
What if that woman assigns monetary value to her physical body – to the things it gives and receives, to visual reproductions of it, to the sounds it makes and the words it speaks – and sells those pieces and parts, over and over again, to paying customers? Does the body then belong to her, the seller, or them, the buyers, or all or none all at the same time?
Goodie$ consists of a small sampling of self-‘portraits” taken by the artist for the purpose of selling via a digital ‘phone sex’ platform. Like the hash marks in Moment$ of Care, the photographs are intentionally obscured by translucent tracing paper to contrive a boundary between the public and private consumption of another person’s body. The artist has sent hundreds of photos like these to paying customers over the past year and a half.
Materials: Archival photo paper, vellum
P$O: Performance
How does one deal with the constant objectification of one’s body, in a world where “object” = access/ownership/commodification? After 15 years working in corporate America where hierarchical relationships were maintained through gaslighting, and her body, time, and skills were exploited in insidious ways, Anderson asked herself these questions:
If I’m treated like an object every time I’m in public, and also every time I’m in the workplace, then is home/private the only place I’m safe?
If I gain agency over and directly profit from this objectification and exploitation, could I feel more free?
Why not just cut the shit, call this what it is, and profit from the misogyny enacted against me in these other public places?
So she became a phone sex operator and cam girl. This comedic one-woman-show provides a hilarious behind-the-scenes look at the work–work which often involves doing things like knitting, folding laundry, and even lifting weights, while fielding calls about cuckolding fantasies and sexual confessions.
Anderson is currently workshopping this performance. If you are interested in previewing the show via a very DIY iPhone recording, interviewing her, or showing work in her gallery, please email to inquire.