The Grotesque BOD 

The Conception

What is a Body? A shape or an ideal? Flesh covering fat,

covering muscle, covering bone? A figure in the distance?

 Standing here like this? Naked, alone? 

It could not be deemed a loud conception, one of grandeur or prophecy; but something burrowed deep into your flesh, without your knowledge, as you slept that lonesome night.

It found the weak spot; fresh tissue near your neck; submerged its hooked fangs into a tendon covering your throat.

It slithered into your veins, your blood, your chemistry.

All was still, no beckon of change, but the skin around your bicep began to stretch, slowly engorging your forearm followed by the hands.

Your fingernails were next to go, a habit of biting them suddenly at bay, nothing left to gnaw on.  

Your voice came out quiet, something kept hushing you. Your tongue barely reaching the back of your teeth. Jaw clenching uncontrollably. You couldn’t speak after that, didn’t dare try.

You slept, naked, unable to control the sweat that would secrete through every pore. It seeped into the mattress that stood in the corner of your room, an off-white stain in the shape of your body’s imprint becoming larger every night.

One morning you woke, unable to move, like a beetle on its back you wriggled and wiggled, tossing your limbs in a sea of white cotton.

One by one, your arms and legs began to lock into place, one tossed over your face. Your feet, they swelled with angst, a rush of numbness ran rampant, through every vein, every nerve, and every cell.

You could no longer see, your arm fused to your cheeks, as this ‘thing’ stewed and gurgled within your limbs. You could no longer sleep too enthralled in questioning why this was happening to you. What made you so attractive to it?  What made you weak? vulnerable.

Every bulge was a release, a suppression bared. You daydreamed of a set of hands smoothing and moulding them one by one. Hands attached to a body you could no longer see, no longer interact with.

And yet, you could not desire to interact with anyone; you were urged masked as a craving to be alone in this room as you sluggishly transformed.

But your wishes were not granted, as the doors opened and all you heard was the squeaks and clattering of shoes; the sighs; the slight gusts of wind you felt on your bare skin as people passed by.

At least you could not see their faces, their brows furrowed, wondering what happened to you, what you had done to deserve this, something they could then avoid.

You were a warning sign, plastered on prescription boxes, before gambling ads, around crime scenes.

The Interaction

“The grotesque body… is a body in the act of becoming. It is never finished, never completed; it is continually built, created, and builds and creates another body. More- over, the body swallows the world and is itself swallowed by the world… It outgrows its own self, transgressing its own body” – Mikhail Bakhtin

The pink hue of the room cascaded out into the others, I noticed you before I could see you. You stood there, facing away from me, tall, your back drooping. I noticed your ear, before it began to engulf your face. 

What is this thing that holds you? Is it a thing?  A being? Is it a part of you? Does it have a name? Are you, its host? Without you, would it simply cease to exist? Do you hold it in your arms at night, swaying to an old country song?

 I wonder if I would feel more comfortable if you were clothed?

Your body billows and bulges, creases and bends. You serve this being, it tightens its grip around your chest, you let it.

✴ ✴ ✴

There were two entrances to the exhibition, Borland’s BOD leaked from the far room, I made a conscious decision to avoid it. I walked through the space, looking and inspecting the other works in the exhibitions, their bright strokes of colour, curations of objects, blending into the speckled cement floor.

When I eventually reached that last room, I wasn’t immediately stirred with emotion, I felt nothing. Looking back, I know it was an attempt to avoid the feeling that evoked in me, one that is to many habitually suppressed. It wasn’t until my second visit that I spent more time walking around the work; I traced each crevice with my eyes looking for a beginning and an end. I was shocked to find out that the main material was aluminum. How could something that looks so soft and plush be made from metal? 

The psychological becomes a physical and becomes a psychological once more; the cycle could go on and on. BOD is not a work that needs words to understand. One feels it in the space, it radiates heat in the open room, my eyes could not help but fall onto it, even if it weren’t with lust to know more, but distaste.

BOD does not stand alone in the space, it’s smaller ‘BLOB’ siblings are displayed in the corner, differing in textures and perspective. At 7 feet tall, BOD stands in its own relational site; fixed between colossal and realistic proportions, it cannot be understood without human comparisons. However, it also extends and removes what we may expect to see; body hair; freckles, pores.

What separates BOD from its siblings relates to what it can exhibit. Every crease is accentuated when blown to a larger scale, it becomes much like a spectacle positioned towards the middle of the room. Unlike the BLOBS, we are still able to stand next to this ‘creature’ and not feel unrealistically small in comparison, we can still easily relate our own bodies to BOD.

Although I do think BOD is explicitly gendered, the notable yonic display front and centre gathers and folds, to reveal a vulnerable display of a sexuality yet in a nonsexual manner. Borland says that BOD acts and stays in a --whom like state; pre-personhood; pre-sexuality; pre-conscious.

I couldn’t help but feel urged to diagnose BOD, like a biologist or a physician writing a report, I needed a name for it, a way to understand. But that is the beauty of the BOD, one interaction might find humour within the slumped posture, and for another might bring tears to someone’s eyes.

Borland’s own comments surrounding her relationship with the ‘body’ allude to this piece being one of cathartic quality. Much like Louise Bourgeois, art is an act of doing, that words can never constitute. A state of exploration within one’s own psyche can only begin with the uncomfortable; for many including myself, the topic of the ‘body’ remains tender, following us through many stages of life. 

On initial glance I could barely look. But when I left BOD in that room, I felt something.

The Metamorphosis

They'll find our bones,
And yet, they won't- Caroline Polachek

 ✴ ✴ ✴

What is your final form? Will you remain this way forever, or is this only a foretaste? You still stand so tall, but when the lights turn off, and the doors close, do you slump into a heap on the floor like a magician’s cloak? Or do you crawl to that bed in the corner like a small child, craving touch only a mother holds, singing yourself a song to finally rest?

You could leave this room, find a way to get out and yet you stay.

 Do you like it here? A taunting act has become routine. Those faces you once hated that morph from disgust into sympathy have become what you crave. At least someone or something see’s you. This isn’t the real you, they don’t know that, but you do. You assure yourself this every morning, as they dust and mop the floors around you, a phrase that is losing actuality.