HISTORYOFASEXUALITY
Iskra Dimitrova
As part of the Lectures, Presentations and Exhibitions programme of the press to exit project space, we are pleased to present HISTORYOFASEXUALITY, a new installation by the Macedonian artist Iskra Dimitrova. The sound arrangement is by Damjan Cvetkov-Dimitrov. The project is a contemporary transcription of the barbershop as a place of communication.
The press to exit project space is located next to the old site of the well-known Cafure barbershop. The aspects of site specificity are further emphasized by borrowing authentic objects, odors and sounds from still-existing and historically relevant barbershops, such as Esthetics where the barber Ruzdi first offered the famous John Travolta haircut in the 70’s.
The barbershop was exclusively masculine place with a distinct intimate atmosphere, and was considered an important information center where the barber used to have important social status.
Similarly, In Iskra Dimitrova’s “barbershop”, there are photographs on the walls that mirror someone’s affinities. By the “whisper” of the female speech of the four strands of hair, a replacement of the missing male voices is made. The hairs in the photographs suggest narrations of the owners absent bodies. The relationship we usually have to a specific hair is identical to the relationship towards his/her former owner, to his/her identity and eroticism. Adequately our relationship to a certain hair varies from abjection to attraction.
These four hair stories are rehearsals of personal situations that could happen or happened to each one of us, precious moments narrated through a whisper, which the visitor reaches by the personal engagement of archeology on the photographs. The stories of this “barbershop” are transformed from intimate to shared and public, as at any ordinary barbershop.
and public, as at any ordinary barbershop.
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