The Happy Pussy and Other Endings-Sandra Bermudez

Walking into the Kasia Kay Art Project Gallery in Chicago, for a moment I was confused where I was. Looking at the scattered images of a flower, cartoon character, peaches, a bow and a bright pink neon sign all over the wall convinced me that I was in a mock-up space of Sanrio, hello kitty shop. First glance, 'how cute' I thought, closer as I looked at these childish images and words which looked like cut outs from kid's sticker books, it wasn’t as cute and naïve as I thought.

The second solo show of Sandra Bermudez, "The Happy Pussy and Other Endings” as the title suggests, are separated into two parts, "The Happy Pussy" and "Other Endings.” Throughout her works she uses words, sculptures, photographs, installations to bring attention to how the society perceives and represents the female body.

For “The Happy Pussy” part of the exhibition, the words that are pasted on the wall are made with different fonts and mostly hot pink included velvet, yum-yum, cuntkin, tulip, eye, love box and the neon sign spelled out "pussy" which is a negative slang that is associated with the female genitalia. All these words have very sexual and negative connotations, suggesting parts of women’s body and sex. When the word “pussy” at first glance caught my attentions I thought it was another cliché pop art that was trying to shock the audience by using sexual/taboo words. However, she makes her work more subtle than that by using symbolic images and indirect words to complete the installation.

In "the Other Ending" of her exhibition she included Jonah's Daughter (2008) which is an enlarged picture of a male crowd surrounding a topless woman in public. Bermudez found this photograph at a college porn website and she cut out the silhouette of the female figure [1]. The clothes of the figure is left suggesting that she is wearing a bikini and she is topless. The men surrounding her are taking pictures with their cell phones and digital cameras. The absence of her body makes the viewer turn its attention on the mass, the male viewers exposing their reactions and behaviors towards the topless woman. I was disgusted by how openly they were staring at the naked female body and taking a picture of her as if she was an object. However, when I looked more closely at the image, it was not just about the male gaze and men objectifying woman. The posing of the empty silhouette figure confused me as to what the artist’s intentions were. Her way of sitting and presenting herself, slightly slanted having her leg extended, seemed as if she 'wanted' to be stared at and photographed. She looked confident in how she was presenting herself to the majority male audience. She was objectifying her own body. This work reminded me of Cindy Sherman, even though it was not a self-portrait (Bermudez used to also work with her own body in previous works) it questions the position of the over sexualized female figure and the person who is watching. Like Cindy Sherman's black and white self-portrait works, the figure in Bermudez is fully aware that she is being gazed at and she attracts the viewer by wearing a bikini where Cindy Sherman often wears only under garments.

The work is also interactive with the audience in that the empty silhouette allows the viewer to complete the narrative by themselves. This also happened in her third work, "Be Mine" which are two separate photographs "Be" and "Mine" of metallic silver balloons shaped in letters next to each other. This work asks the question of who is the voice of the work and who is it directed to. This work is not as sexual as the first two works and she focuses more on desire and love. Once again she is using words to present her ideas like the first work. Her use of silver balloons as the medium reminded me of Andy Warhol's silver clouds installations. She uses the human attraction to shiny materials and inflatable.

She is a feminist pop artists who uses materials that are considered to be low art such as neon signs and metallic balloons. She combined her critic of the male gaze with pop art creating a whimsical and playful space.

[1] http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/31309/sandra-bermudez-in-chicago/