Flavia D’Urso: Slippage of a Strand

Solo Exhibition, Grand Central Art Center, 2020

Slippage of a Strand, a collection of new and recent works by Flavia D’Urso, is grounded in the intersection of physical, emotional, and cultural experiences of the queer female body. With sculpture, mixed media on paper, and video, the exhibition presents interpretations of the body that destabilize expectations of sameness and insist on their own existence.

D’Urso positions the human as a hybrid by abstracting its physical forms and using the animal body and objects as surrogates for the human. The artist’s work repurposes materials such as salt, iodine, horse hair, and blood meal to draw on their inherent bodily associations while pushing them beyond their conventional function. These materials are combined with terra cotta and paper, as well as packing foam and latex, to present ghostly, abject forms that simultaneously invoke seduction and repulsion.

Repetition and replication feature prominently in the artist’s practice. These gestures suggest systems intended to effect sameness and the production of the ideal. D’Urso’s works, however, rupture such expectations with their failure to replicate recognizable objects with perfection. Actions such as licking and sprouting of hair—here seemingly aimless—further confuse assumptions about the body’s function. As the bodies in Slippage of a Strand assert their presence and the value of sameness falls apart, D’Urso deftly dissects, digests, and re-presents expectations of female and queer identities.