Penises, penises everywhere — behind a curtain of enforced prudishness at The New Gallery

DETAILS

The Phallus Series by Kristin Ivey
New Gallery
Friday, April 3 - Saturday, May 9

More in: Visual Arts

Salvaged prom dresses are transformed by artist Kristin Ivey into a series of sculptures in the shape of phalluses. Approximately three feet high, these colourful soft figures stand on the floor of The New Gallery, creating a plush garden of chiffon, velvet, shiny silk and polyester evocative of Alice in Wonderland.

Once considered dreamy by their adolescent wearers, the dresses Ivey use now have an abject, sad quality. The styles and colours are evidently outdated, even tacky, in turquoise, red and an abundance of peach tones. The prom dress, an object of such desire at one time, is probably worn only once — a handful of times at most — before it is relegated to the back of a closet, left at the dry cleaner and forgotten, or dropped at the thrift store. Prom dresses have a fierce but fleeting importance.

How Ivey manipulates the details of the dresses to create a unique character for each phallus is the strongest quality of the work. Each sculpture varies in shape and height, with some leaning slightly to one side. Seams, darts, pleating, ruffles from a neckline, or a cap sleeve are arranged in various ways to call up the qualities of the real body. Tags from the dresses naming the maker and size, “Specially fashioned by Karen,” “Precious Moments size 9,” are sewn into the head of each form.

Those of us, and particularly women, who experienced the prom, can relate to the excitement and stress these dresses, supported by the perfect hairstyle, makeup, accessories and shoes, embody. Those who didn’t attend a prom are likely still familiar with the drama around this decidedly heterosexual end-of-high school ritual, popularized by magazines, television and movies, which are largely responsible for perpetuating and reinforcing (often unrealistic) fantasies.

The prom is an occasion of incredible anxiety. It’s almost as though all of the pressures of being a teenager — issues around body image, fitting in, drugs and alcohol, sex and sexual identity — are compounded into one over-hyped evening. And whether or not there’s truth to it, the prom has long been associated with losing one’s virginity. Among my girlfriends, we still use the joke “off like a prom dress,” meaning to leave a place with swiftness similar to the removal of the dress after the big event. It cracks us up.

Part of Ivey’s stated intent is to question gender stereotypes, standardizing roles the sexes play within the context of cultural rites like the prom. Textiles, craft traditions and the re-use of materials are strategies that have been employed extensively by artists to explore issues of identity, sexuality and gender roles. Beginning in the late 1960s, artists Judy Chicago and Joyce Wieland mined this territory, and contemporary artist Tracey Emin and Allyson Mitchell have used similar strategies to powerful ends.

Shortly before the exhibition’s opening reception, the management of Eau Claire Market, where The New Gallery is based, reported that they’d received several complaints about the show. The market insisted that a curtain be installed to block the view from the mall corridor into the gallery, and staff complied. It seems that someone felt that the work threatened the family-friendly atmosphere of the shopping centre.

Calgarians, are we really so uptight, so prudish?

There is nothing graphic or insensitive about Ivey’s work. The curtain has an unfortunate impact on the exhibition. It implies that there’s something illicit on the other side, and imposes a sense of seriousness that the work doesn’t warrant. People have been scared off — gallery staff report that walk-in traffic has been down since the curtain went up.

There are so many things that are truly offensive and dangerous for our children — the realities of war, the plight of homelessness in a wealthy nation, violence against women, not to mention the explicit content of advertising, TV and video games. In a world where there are so many things to complain about, there’s no need to take a soft phallus so hard.