Lawndale Art Center presents new work by alumnus Ryan Hawk (MFA in Studio Art, 2017) in the exhibition Sweet Surrender on view from December 8, 2018 – March 3, 2019.
Sweet Surrender scrutinizes traditional representations of masculinity and power through narratives of horror, tragedy and humor. Combining moving image and sculptural installation with silicone-based FX prosthesis, Hawk confronts issues of corporeality, embodiment and representational objectification. This project expands Hawk’s ongoing artistic research into alterity and subjecthood in relation to the dominant cultural imagination.
The catalogue essay, "Strap-ons and Facism: Or to gain a limb and still feel the tingles / That is to say, this is about desire and dissolution / Or why we know the lyrics to the Sarah McLachlan song," is written by Arts + Culture Texas contributing editor Laura August. August peppers her essay with searching questions that touch upon Hawk's work:
Have you catastrophized about your extremities? Have you imagined your toe getting caught in a door or on a splinter, the nail being split or damaged, the appendage's smallness always making it vulnerable to being cut or scraped or mangled, pierced or torn apart? ... Why can't he sing this song of surrender? Has he never fallen to his knees? ... What would it be like to be convinced that all the things that have been cut out of us could be brought back, that we could be made whole again and not tingle with their absence? Or does that tingling mean we understand something important about surrender, have a constant reminder of it? Is that tingling the physical manifestation of empathy?
Further context is brought by the words of writer and activist Barbara Ehrenreich, theorist Franco "Bifo" Berardi, cultural critic Vivian Sobchack, sociologist Klaus Theweleit and neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran.
Public programming for Sweet Surrender will include an experimental film screening curated by Hawk and independent curator Max Fields followed by a discussion on February 2, 2019.