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“Can I make a performance that doesn’t require a performer? Can an object do that kind of work? Can a surface do that kind of work? I think a lot of how we look at bodies has to do with surface. The skin is a very politicized and erotic surface. And paintings – for lack of anything else – are surfaces.” —Vincent Tiley
The work of artist and fashion designer Vincent Tiley engages the visual and material dimensions of queer culture, and the representation of skin and performance in abstract forms. In objects and performances, Tiley explores questions of control and representation.
In a unique online exhibition, Zeit Contemporary Art is featuring the Tiley exhibition How Bats Drink Water, curated by Evan Garza, exclusively on Artsy, through June 22, 2019. This is the first exhibition to focus on Tiley’s Rope Paintings, a group of works executed between 2016 and 2019 that “are firmly tied to ideas of the body, its absence, and the material elements of sexuality.” Says Ziet, “like queer culture and fetish scenes, much is implied here and much is left unsaid. While the body plays a significant role in its relationship to these materials, particularly in the origin of the sexuality so many of these works exude, representations of the body are entirely absent. There is a ghost-like quality in the explicit absence of the body in these works—yet it feels omnipresent. What remains is a body of work that underscores the material evidence of action and absence, performance and restraint.” In this video from Zeit, Tiley discusses the inspiration and process behind the work in a visit to the exhibition and his studio.
