Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie
2010
Book, 13.1 x 19.5 cm, 127 p, language: English, publisher: Book Works, ISBN: 978 1 906012 23 6.
Materials: ink, paper
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2024/831).
Literary synopsis
Why does the art world hypocritically promote female creative talent but simultaneously fail to accord women artists the respect given to their male counterparts? When women aged 20 to 40 make up the bulk of the audience for art in London, why are they so under-represented in top curational posts and how exactly does this glass ceiling operate? Just what has happened to the feminist movement now that the likes of Madonna and Lady Gaga are being held up as role models for prepubescent and teenage girls? Can the background to these and related questions be illuminated by taking penis enlargement spam and replacing the generic 'she' and 'her' it invokes with the names of well-known artists and curators? Stewart Home believes the answer to this last question is "YES", and so he used endless extreme fantasies about famous art world women as the starting point of his outrageous cyber-novel Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie. Written in the second person and in part generated from spam emails, Blood Rites of the Bourgeoisie is a shot in the arm for prose fiction; and a kick up the backside for the male dominated London art world.
Authorship: Appropriation/Collage, Artist Author.
Creative Strategy: No Link to Artworks.
Genre: Erotic/Pornographic, Plain Fiction.
Publishing: Art Books Publishing House.
Theme: Art World, Feminism, Perverse Sexuality.