If the term “darkly funny” were ever to describe anyone, I’d put my vote on Nayland Blake. Their two-room gallery show at Matthew Marks includes erotic forced milk-drinking; a bunch of get well cards (you will not get well — you were on the placebo, the text inside tells you); and the most toxic stuffed bunny you’ll ever meet. “You’re over-rationalizing this,” it tells you in a falsetto, fluffy ears jiggling emphatically. “In honor of the old days, you should just … let me.”
Blake has perfected this specific register across their work — laugh-out-loud funny or absurd, rigorously conceptual, erotic edged with simmering rage — and yet it’s somehow not repetitive. This, even though doubling and repetition are one of their most potent tools. The manipulative stuffed bunny ex-lover of the aptly named “Negative Bunny” (1994), for instance, implies (… hopefully?) the existence of another stuffed bunny who will hopefully not give into its “charms” — that’s you, watching.
Stuffed-animal-as-avatar reappears in the vitrine in front of it: “One Down” (1994) consists of a bright yellow rabbit beside a pile of matching pompoms. It looks like the aftermath of a violent crime; I detected (or projected) an “I’d do it again” smirk on its furry little face. Given the behavior of the bunny behind, I wasn’t sure whether to root for or against — who did this animal stand in for: the avenging victim or yet another perpetrator?
Other works also consider the ways we make ourselves up or tear each other apart. “Equipment for a Shameful Epic” (1993) contains duplicates of the same Halloweenish props: Two plastic nooses, multiple fake scythes, a pair of rubber heads with matching forehead wounds. They’re obviously fake, cheap toy-store wares. And yet their purposeful repetition and careful arrangement infuse them with a sense of uncanny, ritual, even agentive power — you could overpower a singular prop, but taken together, you feel you’re in their presence rather than the other way around.
In a similar vein, the nearby “Mirror Restraint” (1988–89) is composed of a BDSM collar suspended by a metal pole between a pair of floor-level mirrors that jut out from the wall. You can walk right up to them, but their tilt ensures you’ll never see yourself, not even your feet. Despite or because of that fact, I felt a weird sense of vicarious shame — as if it weren’t a trick mirror but my own worthlessness that rendered me invisible — that looped back into a quite uncomfortable eroticism. It’s just one of myriad ways that Blake’s rigorously conceptual work reroutes your expectations for both object and artwork, not merely implying but actively implicating your body.
Nayland Blake continues at both locations of Matthew Marks gallery through October 25. Nayland Blake: Sex in the 90s, consisting of works by the artist, is at 522 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan. Inside: curated by Nayland Blake, composed of works by other artists curated by Blake, is at the gallery’s 526 West 22nd Street location. Nayland Blake: Session, an installation of recent works by the artist, is also at the 526 West location.
