Bettina Hubby, clam and lipstick, 2015, bronze with patina, 4-1/2 x 5-1/2 x 3-1/4 inches, Edition of 10
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Bettina Hubby: The Sexual Bronze Show November 19 - January 21, 2017 Opening reception: Saturday, November 19, 6-8 pm
Lora Reynolds is pleased to announce The Sexual Bronze Show, an exhibition of sculptures, photographs, and collages by Bettina Hubby--her first show at the gallery.
The sculptures are enigmatic pairs of items one might find at a grocery store--a fresh kiwi and a disposable BIC razor, a yam and a dispenser of dental floss. But each object has been cast in bronze and precisely patinated (permanently colored with chemicals and heat) to appear nearly identical to its referent.
Hubby also depicts each pair of objects in a pair of photographs. One picture shows the two objects as individuals, like lovers on opposite sides of a king-size bed. The second photograph shows the objects interacting with each other, revealing how they might behave behind closed doors. The razor shaves the fuzzy kiwi. The dental floss wraps tightly around a bulging, veiny yam. Hubby's objects suggest body parts, kinky fantasies, adventurous sex, and gentle lovemaking.
"I take my humor seriously," Hubby said about this body of work. "I plunged deeply and engrossed myself into the grocery store aisles to find these pairings and made monuments to my match-made couples' various proclivities. I honor their diversity and freedom of expression...they gleam with a confident, appreciative, post-coital sigh."
Only occasionally--the donut and the plantain, for example--do the pairings suggest coitus. And rightly so: the most conventional, heteronormative act is not on the menu for many people. Pleasure is infinitely variable; some people's practices might be unrecognizable as sex to some others. The imaginary relationships between Hubby's pairs are often rather mysterious. What intimacies might a gourd and a ravioli share?
Hanging on the gallery walls are authentic grocery coupon advertisements into which Hubby has snuck her own collaged images and text. An ad for fresh food and low prices at Ralphs Grocery presents a pork roast (50% off!) with a bubble caption that reads "Put the yum into the Extra Soft Trimmed Loin."
Clever, provocative, and often hilarious, The Sexual Bronze Show is a celebration of the diversity of bodies and their preferences. Sex can be many things, but it should be pleasurable and fun and inventive and plentiful, as it is here.
