{"id":3670,"date":"2014-03-30T23:58:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T03:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/?p=3670"},"modified":"2015-10-15T19:03:52","modified_gmt":"2015-10-15T23:03:52","slug":"introducing-the-interdisciplinary-artist-dominika-ksel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/introducing-the-interdisciplinary-artist-dominika-ksel\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the interdisciplinary artist Dominika Ksel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author | Annie Malamet | Visual Arts Editor<\/p>\n

Featured image:\u00a0VHS Pyramid “Valley of Sacred Analogs”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“[Dominika Ksel] is so interdisciplinary it hurts.” – Christine Finley, curator of the Whitney Houston Biennial<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I first learned of artist Dominika Ksel<\/a> at The Whitney Houston Biennial where she showed her sculpture called Nature vs. Nurture. It was a seesaw structure with one seat weighed down by a large tree branch covered in blonde hair, the other suspended with large nails jutting out of it. Ksel told me she was inspired by the American theme of fragile womanhood; the piece demonstrates the impossibility of fitting into a perfect ideal mold. Along with this were underlying implications of sexual violence and kink. After pointing out Ksel\u2019s sculpture as one of my favorite pieces, curator Christine Finley told me that this artist is \u201cso interdisciplinary it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

After looking Ksel up at home, I saw that she is truly the definition of an interdisciplinary artist; she uses every medium from video to painting in an almost obsessive manner. She has produced work in an almost prolific manner and is part of three separate groups: HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN (whose work is featured in The Whitney Biennial), Hi V, and a music group called Holotropic. I admire anyone with such a focused work ethic, so basically I think it\u2019s a crime that I haven\u2019t heard of Ksel before.<\/p>\n

\"Sound<\/a>
Sound Painting – Uno: Ponderings on the formations of the Universe, 2013, Acrylic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I met with Ksel in Williamsburg over drinks to talk about her work. I told her that her videos reminded me of a kinky, lesbian, Harmony Korrine. \u201cAll the work I do could be compared to taking a hallucinogenic drug, but without the drug and just using our physical selves.\u201d Says Ksel. For example, one of Ksel\u2019s videos called Circus Act<\/em> is a completely bizarre hallucinatory representation of someone in an old man mask receiving a full body massage complete with a kind of grotesque \u201chappy ending.\u201d Another called The Normals<\/em> shows two individuals (again in masks) acting weird tableaus outdoors (think Trash Humpers).<\/p>\n

\"Altered<\/a>
Altered state hood with bio-feedback,
biaural tones and hypno-narrative audio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But Ksel\u2019s work is far from falling into the trap of being just weird. She processes and analyzes her practice every step of the way. \u201cI don\u2019t just read a book. If I\u2019m going to write about something, I\u2019ll go to that country and explore it myself.\u201d Ksel told me. \u201cFor example in Peru, I met a woman who was a director of a museum and she took my friend and I in a back room and showed us art that the government forbid to be exhibited. It depicted homosexuality and a lot of other taboo acts. I\u2019m interested in these hidden histories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Performance<\/a>
Performance still from “A Lesbian Named Jesus”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Things that are hidden, things that need mediation to have access to: this is the main thread tying Ksel\u2019s various bodies of work together. What are alternative states of human consciousness, and how do we use art to access these altered realities? Ksel creates highly sensory, participatory pieces designed to bring aid the viewer in reaching another mental plane. For one of her pieces, Ksel created a coffin where participants were locked inside and shown a video projection. \u201cSome people stayed for 15 minutes. I\u2019ve had other people in there for hours.\u201d Ksel is more interested in a participant\u2019s reaction to her work than the art object itself. \u201cWhat happens between you and a piece I make, it doesn\u2019t matter that it doesn\u2019t have a physical form\u2026I live a pretty minimalistic life, so I never really had that notion of art as a precious object.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a>
Still from “Psyche’s Passages: Triumph and Torment”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ksel tries to access altered states of reality through the use of sensory deprivation, hallucinatory sounds, and kink imagery. \u201cI\u2019m interested in the rituals we use to bring us together as a community and to access other states of reality,\u201d says Ksel \u201c[Kink] is just another modality to access these states. If you\u2019re being flogged for any amount of time, you transcend the physical and go into another realm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a>
Still from “Circus Act”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These are some heavy topics Ksel is dealing with, so I\u2019m glad that her work doesn\u2019t take itself too seriously; many of Ksel\u2019s video pieces are actually pretty humorous. For example, the Circus Acts video is based on hilarious descriptions of various clients Ksel found at an erotic massage parlor. She also plans to integrate this video into an installation called Pussy Palace<\/em>. Again, I\u2019m not sure how this will manifest but with a name like that, it has to be deliberately facetious. \u201cMy intention is to make people a little uncomfortable, but not to make you leave a space. I want people who wouldn\u2019t normally think about these things to have access to them,\u201d Ksel said about her use of humor. \u201cHumor is such a powerful tool. It\u2019s this one space where you can break rules and taboos and it also breaks your own resistance to try something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a>
Still from “The Normals”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author | Annie Malamet | Visual Arts Editor Featured image:\u00a0VHS Pyramid “Valley of Sacred Analogs”\u00a0 “[Dominika Ksel] is so interdisciplinary it hurts.” – Christine Finley, curator of the Whitney Houston Biennial I first learned of artist Dominika Ksel at The Whitney Houston Biennial where she showed her sculpture called Nature vs. Nurture. It was a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,379,77,61,710,720,113,39,716,712,719,174,718,715,714,76,81,713,79,44,509,38,444,678,175,352,717,307,711],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-3670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-art","tag-annie-malamet","tag-bisexual","tag-brooklyn","tag-dominika-ksel","tag-ethics","tag-feminist","tag-gay","tag-hallucinatory","tag-history","tag-holotropic","tag-identity","tag-interdisciplinary","tag-kink","tag-kink-imagery","tag-lesbian","tag-lgbtq","tag-nature-vs-nurture","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-queer","tag-queer-theory","tag-sex","tag-sexuality","tag-transgender","tag-video","tag-visual-art-2","tag-whitney-houston-biennial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/vhs.jpg?fit=542%2C347","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6QBV8-Xc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3670"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3684,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3670\/revisions\/3684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3670"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}