2001
Installation, Performance
Each viewer enters this piece alone through a narrow dark hallway provided with only a candle for illumination. The hallway curves and opens to a dark, humid water-filled chamber. Obscuring the viewer from immediate revelation, the dim, dense atmosphere creates a curious period of sense adjustment, eventually yielding several fleshy female body parts (made from direct molds of Amy Karle’s body) disintegrating into silt in a pool of steaming hot water. Upon further exploration with the candle, the viewer can catch glimpses of Amy Karle’s real body mingled within the pile of fragmented torsos. Throughout this piece the viewer is continually questioning: What is real? What is not real? What is being concealed? What is being revealed? What is in composition and what is decomposing? No resolve could be found until all the bodies of unfired clay had disintegrated over a period of 4.5 hours and only one remained: the Artists body.
