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The Hidden Phallus (2000)

While in Paris for almost a year in 1999, I fell in love with the city's public art collection of classical statues. While time, war and revolution had ravaged many of the limbs and heads, I was intrigued by the fact that so many of the male statues had been deliberately emasculated. After photo-documenting several sculptures, in "guerrilla" fashion, I quickly took casts of what was left of their genitals, which I later cast in bronze.

In this exhibition, held in 2000 at Art System Gallery in Toronto, five genital bronzes were wall-mounted and lit solely by the projected slide image of the original corresponding sculptures. While the images lined up exactly with their bronze counterparts, the projectors were suspended with cable, allowing them to vibrate and sway slightly in response to viewer activity. Alone, the genital bronze pieces seemed almost gender neutral. Yet, when accompanied by their projected photographic counterparts, the male stance/pose became suddenly vulnerable.

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