At a Lithuanian independence day rally last week at Daley Plaza one sign read, “Lithuania–Raped by Gorbachev.” A regular at the gulf war demos brings a caricature of our commander in chief with a grotesque erection in the form of a gushing oil derrick. One sign maker at another protest urged, “Let Barbara Face Bush’s Naked Aggression.”
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This exhibit, their fifth, has upset its share of art lovers and dickheads alike. Their first Chicago show triggered lobbying reprisals by the American Family Association and the Heritage Foundation. Since then, every SisterSerpents show–in Hamburg and New York City as well as Chicago–has elicited strong reactions. SisterSerpents has been faulted by squeamish feminists for playing into Jesse Helms’s worst nightmare of feminism. (“And proud of it!” would no doubt be their rejoinder.) Painter and SisterSerpent Jeramy Turner concludes: “The fact that we got such strong responses to our art, negative as well as positive, shows us that what we are doing is absolutely necessary in 1991.”
The show also includes a pair of testicles preserved in a jar–a Ball jar–of amber-hued formaldehyde. It is labeled: No. 1705366. This man yelled sexual comments at a woman. There is also a sculpture of an unnaturally tall penis with the words “Not God” painted next to where a razor blade has been embedded. It is called Get It Straight: Violence Hurts.
Both exhibits inspire debate: Can pornography, long the bane of women, be turned against men in women’s hands? Does “Art Against Dickheads” risk a citation in Mayor Daley’s index of hate crimes? Are bimbos in billboards handmaidens to sexual harassment?
