Life and Limbs

The body as flexible habitat, from Arakawa and Gins to Lyle Ashton Harris

Austrian artist and curator Anna-Sophie Berger here assembles a group of works that register the body as a habitat that can be imaginatively stretched, altered, modified, adorned, replicated or destroyed. The starting point for Berger were two designs for necklaces by the Surrealist Meret Oppenheim--one resembling a baby's legs wrapped around a neck, and the other featuring a pendant with a grinning toothy mouth smoking a cigarette, designed to hang at the softest part of the throat. In a similar spirit, each work in Life and Limbs was chosen for its ability to trouble the limits of what a body can become: from the metamorphosis that comes from wearing a garment to complete transfigurations into surreal, new beings. This volume includes works by Arakawa and Madeline Gins, Moyra Davey, CoBrA, Sarah Charlesworth, Lyle Ashton Harris, Rosemarie Trockel and more.