Tender rip

About

“Spilling, spitting is a recurrent concept in our thought. Images ripple our minds such as a bathtub in an earthquake; a swathe of fabrics off a balcony, strewn upon the translucent lower canopy of a new building; some titanic sequence that “everyone” is party to. The darker mark seeps as bed wetting, one side of the springy mattress, discharge. Spilling and spitting are forms of expulsion that are both incidental and violent. Sneezing is like spitting, to find the goob on the wall a few days later, caked over. Not a stain exactly, not like old blu-tack. Tender rip. Rear guard. Glass must be hot to stain, it is not water. And then the question of sediment. And then the question of whales. A shooting vertical breath. This ejaculation which is not one. Skin moves up and then down again, as if by design.” *

Tender rip is a collaborative project developed by Anna McMahon and Spence Messih which explores transformations of bodies by and with language, and the slippery processes of coding and classifying both. Taking the form of a site-specific installation, McMahon and Messih’s new bodies of sculpture additionally function as tools for containing readings from others, with works and words from Jos Charles, Brian Fuata, Real Madrid, Vincent Silk and Ainslie Templeton.

* Text by Vincent Silk and Ainslie Templeton