Artist: Ser Serpas
Exhibition title: what we need is another body
Venue: Truth and Consequences, Geneva, Switzerland
Date: March 29 – May 11, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Truth and Consequences
In the fall of 2016 I started the senior thesis program at blank university in New York, I had been working on an urban studies degree up until that point but I had been blanking on campus for about two years and couldn’t deal with the public space of the library, the hallway, or the study group anymore. Each mandated face to face time with fellow students, time that destroyed me and students that I destroyed.
I was blank and blank, but at least the program was too small for me to really feel overrun by the blank and blanks. It was nice, I mean I was pissed.
So thesis starts and I have a room to work for the first time. I loved that room. I had some space at home too, but I mean now I had a private room to feel alone in the blankness of it all to think about all the blanks that were breaking my blank or at least trying to.
I tried things as well as other things. I tried the things to make the blank more clear, but in the blank I remained determined to blank myself into oblivion. I bought 4 Loko and worked. I found the blank in me. I presented this blank to other students and to the thesis advisors, who were artists themselves working at a school at my school. They wanted to see the blank. Asking politely, they prefaced the question by telling me my work was full of action and that they could see the violence.
I was blanked, I was sure they wanted me to make blank work, or rather to just identify my work as blank work which they sometimes think is equally as good, and I was not having any of that. Enough blank artists were doing blank work.
If they wanted the action from me they could get it, but I inverted the thing a little. I developed a performance for blank at blank that I was scheduled to perform in February of 2017 during my last semester of blank.
nine poems were assembled once at my home studio in brooklyn and disassembled once at my home studio in brooklyn and reassembled once at moma ps1 in long island city and disassembled once more at moma ps1 in long island city and reassembled once more at my school studio in morningside heights between the winter and spring of twenty seventeen during my final semester at columbia university in new york nine sculptures were assembled once at my home studio in brooklyn and disassembled once at my home studio in brooklyn and reassembled once at moma ps1 in long island city and disassembled once more at moma ps1 in long island city and reassembled once more at my school studio in morningside heights between the winter and spring of twenty seventeen during my final semester at columbia university in new york
-Ser Serpas
Ser Serpas (b. 1995, Los Angeles) received her B.A. in visual arts at Columbia University (2017). Solo and two person exhibitions include Stars are Blind, LC Queissier, (with Sitara Abuzar Ghaznawi), Tbilisi (2019), you were created to be so young (self-harm and exercise), LUMA Westbau, Zurich, Bare Teeth, Queer Thoughts, (with Bri Williams), New York (both 2018), and Dust Patterns, Current Projects, Miami (2017). Recent group exhibitions include Company Gallery, New York (2019); Swiss Institute, New York, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, Performance Space New York (all 2018); and Karma International, Los Angeles (2017). Serpas’ work is in public collections at the LUMA Foundation, Zurich and the Rubell Family Foundation, Miami, FL. She lives and works between New York and Zurich.
Ser Serpas, what we need is another body, 2019, exhibition view, Truth and Consequences, Geneva
Ser Serpas, what we need is another body, 2019, exhibition view, Truth and Consequences, Geneva
Ser Serpas, what we need is another body, 2019, exhibition view, Truth and Consequences, Geneva
Ser Serpas, what we need is another body, 2019, exhibition view, Truth and Consequences, Geneva
Ser Serpas, con razon cito, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 18 × 33 × 23 cm (7 1/8 × 13 × 9 inches)
Ser Serpas, upstream, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 27 × 25 × 40 cm (10 5/8 × 9 7/8 × 15 3/4 inches)
Ser Serpas, skunk, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 19 × 16 × 30 cm (7 1/2 × 6 1/4 × 11 3/4 inches)
Ser Serpas, babushka, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 18 × 15 × 18 cm (7 1/8 × 5 7/8 × 7 1/8 inches)
Ser Serpas, since the day i met you, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 30 × 35 × 28 cm (11 3/4 × 13 3/4 × 11 inches)
Ser Serpas, tree of life, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 55 × 60 × 50 cm (21 5/8 × 23 5/8 × 19 5/8 inches)
Ser Serpas, stones throw, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 14 × 38 × 27 cm (5 1/2 × 15 × 10 5/8 inches)
Ser Serpas, migration, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 23 × 30 × 27 cm (9 × 11 3/4 × 10 5/8 inches)
Ser Serpas, straight up dick, 2017, Mixed media in plastic bag, 17 × 30 × 27 cm (6 3/4 × 11 3/4 × 10 5/8 inches)
