Miss Havisham's world - Chicago Reader

By Micco Caporale

Miss Havisham's world - Chicago Reader

Matt Morris's solo show at Ruschman is a deeply referential love letter to decaying glamor.

Matt Morris's "violet sissy fleur pinkie" at Ruschman is a southern gothic love letter to quietly decaying glamor. The room is outfitted in blush tones, lace, pearls, velvet, and rhinestones, and the air is breathy with sweet perfume and that "cosmetic" smell unique to powder blushes. Two sculptures made from windows are separated by gathered pink tulle delicately frothing from the ceiling to the floor, creating an interior and an exterior world.

"violet sissy fleur pinkie"

Through 1/11: Wed-Sat noon-4 PM, check website for holiday hours, Ruschman, 4148 N. Elston, ruschman.blue/Current.html

The "outside" work is a pair of white French windows atop a waist-high stack of McDonald's drink carriers while the "inside" work uses French windows as the mirror of a vanity. The counter is littered with remnants of feminine ritual, like melted candles and stolen nail polish, and objects of feminine imagination, like modded Barbie furniture and freewheeling ceramics. At the helm of the vanity is a pinkish-lavender chair with the seat partially gutted to accommodate a recreation of Judy Chicago's ruffled and deeply vaginal dinner plate for Emily Dickinson. It's one of the show's dozens and dozens of references to Morris's rich arsenal of feminist and queer art inspiration.

The show's limp-wristed art deco ambience is bolstered by an assortment of paintings and small ceramic pieces, but the pink plastic doll counters jammed with objects really sum everything up. Garage to the Romantic McDonald's Girl Toy Grotto and Homage to the Romantic Hellfire Club Grotto both contain figurines like corpses in a tomb, only each is buried by things like satin, pearls, perfume bottles, and stuffing. Another, called Grotto to the Romantic Avon Calling Grotto, frankensteins a plastic doll's vanity to a similar makeup counter full of perfume bottles and things. Each one is like a mausoleum to desire and femininity -- equal parts tender and mournful, exactly how one might expect a Louisiana-born genderqueer kid's relationship to those things might be as a self-actualized adult. It's a beautifully intimate and eye-catching show. Every detail is packed with so much meaning and purpose it might be worth more than one visit.

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