CUNNING STUNTS
Cunning Stunts is a photography series that celebrates the body and reclaims negative language and imagery historically aimed at women and our female-identifying sisters. The series began in 2018 as humorous,queer, feminist commentary to counter to the patriarchal paradigm. My alias AKA CuntemporaryArtist takes a jab at negative critique I’ve endured from a patriarchal art world about my art, my appearance and my life choices. I fully embraced this alias while going through menopause, witnessing the liberating #METOO movement, and the Trump era. I see the socio-political pendulum moving towards an intersectional, empowered “Feminist Yoniverse”. Until that world is a reality I will continue to prank the patriarchy with feminist, queer, ecosexual humor.
’Goddess’, Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper, 2020, 11x 14 inches, edition of 10, and 16 x 20 inches, edition of 5.
The Goddess series was shot on Maui, Hawai'i, a place thought to be aligned with the heart chakra of the earth in new age mysticism. The conch shell at her feet references representations of female genitalia throughout art history and the spiral formations inside the conch shell is symbolic of infinity, and its aquatic origins represents the feminine. Emerging Goddess is birthed from a primordial sea to live on land. The vagina/shell like mask pokes fun at a patriarchal view of women as “walking vaginas”. The Conch shell in the Hawai’ian language is Pū, meaning to blow, and is a call to the divine. Fertile Conch uses the shell as a way to call forth the divine feminine, fertility and maternal life force.
'Emerging Goddess’ , Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper , 2020, 11 x 14 inches, edition of 10, 16 x 20 inches, edition of 5.
’Fertile Conch’, Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper , 2020, 11 x 14 inches, edition of 10, and 16 x 20 inches, edition of 5. As part of 'Don't Say Gay' curated by David Gorman, Jason Clay Lewis & Tianlan Deng at The Royal @ RSOAA (2022).
’Goddess 2’ , Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper , 2020, 11 x 14 inches, edition of 10, and 16 x 20 inches, edition of 5.
Public art billboard 'MLSP Love, Duo', Marne Lucas, 2018. As part of Save Art Space “Looking Forward // Queer Futures” curated by Mich Miller, Sky Cubacub, & Rebecca Shippee. Photo: Tyler Hubby.
'MLSP Love, Duo', Marne Lucas, 2018, archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle photo rag, 22 x 28 inches, edition 2/5. As part of “Looking Forward // Queer Futures” a public art exhibition curated by Mich Miller, Sky Cubacub, & Rebecca Shippee.
'MLSP Fertile', Marne Lucas, 2018, archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle photo rag, 22 x 28 inches, edition of 5.
'Cunt, Ferns', Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper, 2018, 24 x 36 inches, edtion of 5. References a derogatory word used to degrade women, nestled among fake plants at a large-chain craft store, a haven for domestic creativity. As part of the Everywoman Biennial 2019.
Soy Feminista’, Archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper, 16 x 20 inches, edition 1/5. A response to the reality that women are at risk of a lack of access to reproductive health, contraception and abortion services due to policies altered by the Trump administration.
©2020 Marne Lucas aka CuntemporaryArtist
'MLSP IRL FMNST', Marne Lucas, 2020, color video, trt 00:1:30 minutes.
Abstract fleshscapes and reflections of a post-menopause female body, with soft rain sounds, shot on Maui, Hawai'i. ‘MLSP’ is an ongoing self-portrait series since 1995.
This short film is part of a larger collaborative project “SOS.Siren” between artists Sharon Kagan and Snezana Saraswati Petrovic created for the online exhibition ‘Call and Response’ May 2020, Los Angeles, CA. The artists asked female identifying artists to submit videos that spoke to their experiences during the pandemic lockdown. “Experiencing the life changes of Covid 19 and watching/participating in the protest, we are challenged with our perceptions and ideas of normalcy. We asked the question: What is Your Version of Reality? -Kagan and Petrovic. ‘SOS.Siren’ was virtually performed and presented in 'Maiden L.A.', the city wide online exhibition in Los Angeles during September 2020.
The full length video mosaic of all the responses to their question, What is Your Version of Reality? can be viewed at www.SOS-Siren.com
'Accept / Messenger in a Mouth' Marne Lucas / Joanne Leah, 2018, 13 x 40", archival pigment print edition 1/5.
'Wet Bag / MLSP Float' Joanne Leah / Marne Lucas, 2018, 13 x 40", archival pigment print, edition 1/5.
'Kiss / This One Is About Distortion' Marne Lucas/Joanne Leah, 2018, 13 x 40", archival pigment print, edition 1/5.
'Gemini Fish / Scorpio Fish', Marne Lucas / Joanne Leah, 2018, 13 x 40", archival pigment print, edition 1/5.
‘WET PASSENGER: Amniotic Utopia’, Joanne Leah and Marne Lucas (Cuntemporary Artists Presents)
‘Wet Passenger’ celebrates the aesthetic of the human body within watery landscapes in response to society’s emotional reactions to bodily functions, feminine sexuality, and cultural re-interpretations of the body. Our individual photo and video work often receives critique as being too eerie, sexual, visceral or grotesque. We find the body to be arresting, including its biology and histories, and we share a fascination with the visual qualities that water possesses for its transparency, depth and reflections, and simultaneously attracted to the visceral wetness, slippery, life-giving or destructive properties of H2O in connection to the human body. For our first collaborative series, we aesthetically married two images, one from each of our solo work, as a dialog between the images that have elicited negative responses and emotional reactions from the public. The merged images express birth, duality, intimacy, experimentation and wonder.
Joanne Leah suggests that the images themselves become proof of a vulnerable act, between skin and viscera, exhibitionist and voyeur, public and private; while Marne Lucas posits that our fear of the unknown is the creature lurking below the surface, as recent cultural shifts bring attention to our clumsy grappling with a dying patriarchy and the emergence of a newly inclusive intersectional feminism.
Marne Lucas’s Wet Passenger series is an ongoing photography and moving image project in line with her ethos about water resources and being a lifelong hydrophile. “I work in conceptual overlaps: life’s energy, environment, water, reflections, and mankind’s relationship to these elements. Hailing from Oregon, I’m passionate about environmental conservation; my social justice projects combine art and activism to present eco-based philosophies on environment, natural resources, and the value of beauty in nature. ‘Malama o ke kai’ is a new project about water conservation of the Hawaiian Islands, addressing aesthetic and spiritual qualities of Water as well as social justice issues surrounding our oceans. The Pacific Ocean is in my blood, I was born in Honolulu, Hawai’i, am an avid open water swimmer and conduct annual self-directed residencies on Maui.” -M.L.
LEAH and LUCAS EXHIBITIONS
2020 - Palimpsesto, curated by Maria Manuela Lopez, Municipal Museum of Penafiel, Portugal. Wet Passenger: An Amniotic Utopia' Photography and 2-channel video.
2019 - #18 ART, ‘OF THE ADMIRABLE ORDER OF THINGS: art, emotion and technology’, International Meeting on Art and Technology #ART, exhibition, Lisbon, Portugal. Photography and 2-channel video.
2018 – Synthetic Zero, Curated by Mitsu Hadeishi, BronxArtSpace, New York. Color photography.
'Wet Passenger', Two Channel color video, Cuntemporary Artists Presents, 2019.
-Channel 1 is an underwater video by Marne Lucas. -Channel 2 is animated color photography as video by Joanne Leah.
Created for #18 ART, ‘OF THE ADMIRABLE ORDER OF THINGS: art, emotion and technology’, Lisbon, Portugal (2019). ‘Arte de Ver: Portas da Perceção / Art of Seeing: Doors of Perception’.
TAMPONTIFICATE
A ritual to welcome official Menopause. Menopause occurs when cis female bodies ovaries stop producing the hormones estrogen and progesterone and has reached Menopause when they have not had a period for one year. November 17, 2017 was that day for me. I waited all year long, collecting tampons from purses, makeup bags, bathroom cabinet and drawers so I could have a small ritual bonfire! It felt incredible to move on from the expense and hassle of purchasing feminine hygiene products!
©2017 Marne Lucas aka CuntemporaryArtist
'Sodom and Gomorrah, Milk and Salt' (NSFW)
©2015 Marne Lucas, HD 1080p video, trt: 5:12, no dialog.
Featuring Jeremy Gray and Paul Henry, Composer: Gavin Wilson.
This short film was shot during an invitational artist residency at CentralTRAK (UT Dallas, Texas) curated by Heyd Fontenot. The projects were experimental films based on the Old Testament. ‘Sodom and Gomorrah, Milk and Salt’ is a short film depicting a languid and sensual interlude with two men cavorting in a milky white pool. The hallucinatory slow-motion scenes reference the biblical story of Lot and his Wife who turns into a pillar of salt upon looking over her shoulder as they leave the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; and aims to reclaim the Old Testament references of bodily sin or lust as one of an intimate, healing, and life affirming ritual.
The landscape video and photography were shot near the Spiral Jetty land art by artist Robert Smithson (1971) at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Salt-encrusted beaches, rocks and milky saline water, were used as landscapes in the green-screen backgrounds. Sodom and Gomorrah (Old Testament) were wealthy cities for their salt mines. These cities have also been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality, viewed as a sinful deviation. (The English word "sodomy” used in so-called sodomy laws to describe a sexual "crime against nature" ie; oral or anal sex, whether homo/heterosexual.)
Salt has healing properties and is revered by many cultures as an important element of apotropaic ability- spiritual healing, warding off evil spirits, clearing psychic energies and healing wounds. White symbolizes purity, virginity, angels, neutrality, or the complete energy of light. In many cultures white represents openness and truth. Both salt and milk are white. Milk can be referenced as food, sustenance, compassion, breast milk or seminal fluid. 'Sodom and Gomorrah, Milk and Salt' premiered at the first OUTsider Festival, a multi-arts queer festival (Austin, Texas, February 2015) where I showed the film for a panel ‘Sex and Storytelling’.