Eva Mueller. Flowers & Chocolate

About

Art During the Occupation Gallery, Bushwick is pleased to welcome you to artist Eva Mueller's April solo photography exhibition, "Flowers & Chocolate," which features hand-constructed light boxes with meticulously crafted portraits of black erect penises, the ultimate symbols of masculinity, each posed with a different flower representing feminine beauty, in markedly different arrangements— showing the fine details of the skin and veins next to the delicate textures of the flower petals. These backlit images create alluring islands of light in the otherwise dark gallery space, creating an atmosphere of intimacy and secrecy.

ARTIST STATEMENT

"Flowers & Chocolate" displays an array of black penises, each posed with a different flower, in markedly different arrangements, imagining the black phallus as a thing of vertiginous beauty. 

“If you look at the flower you have to look at the penis, its close-up and it is in your face – how does it make you feel?” Mueller asks. “I was compelled by the sexual confidence and ease of my black male friends but appalled by their stories what they had to put up with on a daily base living in a racially divided culture that propagates intimidation and prejudice. Therefore I decided to create a seemingly absurd scheme by juxtaposing big black erect penises with flowers.” 

The flowers, universal symbols of beauty, give permission to take a closer look - the subject is removed from the constraints of identity and the power dynamics of pornography. Flowers & Chocolate invites the viewer to reflect on their own perspective of beauty, sexuality, taboo, race and desire but also encourage to look at the black penis without any judgement, as an object of pure beauty.