136 MARCH 2016 IN THE STUDIO
HARRIS I really like your tell-it-like-it-is attitude. It
recalls that loud-mouthed bitch you mentioned earlier. Does
the art world stillind a dominant female threatening?
BURKHARTSociety in general inds dominant
women threatening, unless they’re assuming the role on
a contractual basis as a compliant service top, which is,
essentially, a masquerade.he real work to be done, on
the street, so to speak, and in the studio as well, has to do
with achieving economic parity for one’s work and cultural
contributions.
HARRISSpeaking of masquerade, earlier in our
conversation, you clariied your own sexual identity as a
dominant female by saying, “It’s not showtime, I don’t turn it
on andof like a performer.” It made me think of that phrase
“elegant pervert,” which you’ve used to describe yourself.
What exactly does the term mean to you?
BURKHARTWell, it’s just a joke, really, that I
certainly don’tdeine myself by. But it’s a way to express that
what has been called “diferent loving” doesn’t have to be
cheap or transactional or a creepy carnival. It can be digni-
ied and chosen and beautiful.
And when I said, “It’s not showtime...,”Imeant it’s
a lifestyle thing that is 24/7.he performativity is sort of
grounded in an awareness that it is a political act for me
to be able to live this way on my own terms. he notion of
masquerade is actually a much deeper one than that. You’re
taking me back to the days of teaching feminist theory,
speciically Joan Riviere’s “Womanliness as a Masquerade”
[1929] and the work of Michèle Montrelay. But then I’m not
interested in that kind of femininity, I ind it oppressive—
I’m interested in feminism. Social change.
HARRISHow do you see your practice in the context
of feminism and social change, especially with regard to your
use of language? I’m thinking of the expletives and confron-
tational slogans in the LTS, but also your sculptural haiku
made out of chocolate—such as “yes is the new no / no sex
is the new sex / men are the new women” and “yesterday
I plucked / a verystif and bristly / white hair from my
cunt”—which seem to reconigure the language of desire.
BURKHARThe haiku connect my poetry to visual
art by taking on sculptural form. I started writing a lot of
haiku after 9/11. hey serve as a bridge between the literary
and visual in my practice, but they lean more toward litera-
ture. hey have been made with wooden letters, chocolate
letters, foam letters and chalk on the sidewalk. In the LTS,
the curses are mobilized as rallying slogans,airmation in
the mode of negation, and theyofer a place where viewers
can begin to unpack the image. hat part depends on what
they bring to it. Sometimes I see people who don’t know me
looking at the work, and they’re either smiling and laugh-
ing and gaining some empowerment from the experience or
really disturbed and threatened. Of course I prefer the smile,
but the work is making change regardless of whether I see
horror or recognition. Either reaction is a strong one.- Cady Noland, “Artists Curate: Back at You,”Artforum, January 2002, p. 106.
think they’re artists. he notions of performativity and
self-relexiveness that were so important to artists have
entered daily life in a strange way.
HARRIShat reminds me of some fourth-wave
feminists—artists included—who often seek empowerment
in theselie and sexual exhibitionism these days, as if the
means of control were all that mattered. I think your LTS
scrambles that equation with its entanglement of self and
other, power and deviance, politics and play.
BURKHARTYes, I try to disrupt subliminal desires
by subverting the images I appropriate with curses: the
language of angry resistance, the iconography of the loud-
mouthed bitch. Liz Taylor as an actress was often gender
nonconforming, and unlike Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland
or other Hollywood victims, she survived.
Also, I don’t think sexual exhibitionism is particularly
empowering for women, unless it’s a personal fetish rather
than a cultural prescription. It’s usually a sad, desperate
grab for attention, with a limited shelf life, because no one
looks at women past 40. In most cases, it’s just an exten-
sion of porno culture. Be a webcam girl for 10 cents a
minute—very empowering!
HARRISAre there any exceptions?
BURKHARTWithin visual art, Lynda Benglis’s ad
inArtforum[1974], Carolee Schneemann’sInterior Scroll
[1975], [Dutch Fluxus artist] Phil Bloom’s appearance on
TV in the Netherlands [1967], certain works by Marina
Abramović and Yoko Ono, Francesca Woodman and Han-
nah Wilke, they all nailed it very early on, when it was still
radical to take your clothesof. But taking your clothes of
as an expression of freedom in the ’70s is diferent from
getting dressed up like a skank to compete for limited
cultural resources in 2016.Little Ricky (Straw
Wreath for Fallen
Maidens),1995,
acryliconblack
leather, framed
with engraved brass
plaque,40by 48
inches.
Opposite,Gash:
from the Liz
Taylor Series (Ash
Wednesday),2004,
acrylic and gauze
on canvas, 80 by 60
inches.