Exhibitions

• Negotiating Desire

  HADLEY HOWES, MAXWELL STEPHENS
  February 6–March 20, 1999

  A collaboration is an effective space to explore the movement of desire. We are searching for an understanding of the flow, the stoppage and slippage of desire in an autopoetic system. This searching becomes our process and the work itself, a serious play of possibilities.

  We are exploring the boundaries of the contract between lovers (and between strangers) which designates the limitations of penetration and acceptance.

  “Now we turn on the lights, and lean over to see the work born. Then, surprise before what, passing through us, was drawn; and if it is I who drew this unknown child then who are I?” (Helene Cixous, “Without End”)

  —Hadley Howes and Maxwell Stephens, 1998

  
  
  Organs say touch me

  I will touch you

  rubber says fondle

  says skin

  layers those layers of every memory

  of fetish

  that play

  that I will do

  so you can be.

  —Sarah Wakefield, 1998