Maddie Lycheck

 

A few holiday cards

 

Holiday Mail

 

As one of the Christmas Cards that arrived today noted, an upshot of the lengthy Canada Post strike in November and December of last year is that the holidays are now somewhat extended. I was going to save some of these until December of next year, but I think I’ll post them this week, like the overly enthusiastic friend who wishes everyone Happy New Year well into March. 

Bless | Hair Visor

Designers Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag began collaborating as Bless, over twenty years ago. Based out of Paris and Berlin, they move effortlessly between the worlds of design, fashion, art and interior decoration. The pair are smart, funny and inventive. 

We hosted an exhibition of their work years ago and the above hair visor is one of many great works they gifted us at the time. I assumed it was an editioned piece but I can't find it anywhere in their comprehensive monograph (available here for a whopping $500), or on their website, or elsewhere online. I'm wondering now if it's a prototype for an unrealized edition. 

A couple of weeks ago our friend Maddie visited and posed for a snapshot wearing it, which I can't resist posting here, despite having no other information about the work. 

Emily Reimer

Maddie Lychek | You Spent Thousand of Dollars to Draw Vaginas and Make Soft-Core Porn

Maddie Lychek
You Spent Thousand of Dollars to Draw Vaginas and Make Soft-Core Porn
Guelph, Canada: Self-published, 2018
40 pp., 14 x 21.5 cm., staple-bound
Edition size unknown

An effective bookwork comprised of a series of text messages and drawings of dick pics. The hand-scrawled texts document a recent break-up precipitated by the artist's practice, which the author deems pornographic.

His passive-aggressive missives drip with narcissism, dismissing Lychek as "just a product of the times", but himself as "a jewel of the past" who is seeking a more "old-fashioned, modest girl". Whilst obnoxiously trying to signal his virtue, he announces that he is looking for more than a "boner garage". "Laugh with your feminist friends all you want," he says, "it's something I value."

If the inconsiderable penises in the drawings belong to him, the notion of 'revenge porn' feels somewhat justified, not only for their ability to form a portrait of the sanctimonious little prick.

You Spent Thousand of Dollars to Draw Vaginas and Make Soft-Core Porn is part of the exhibition Feelings, curated by Samantha Jessica Jones and Leonard Jessica Walsh at the Vs Studio (25 Polson Street, Toronto), which closes today at 5pm. The publication is accompanied by one of the video works the ex took offence to, and an audio reading of his texts.