Unicorn

Unicorn critically explores representations of sexuality and female desire through specific divergent cultures, including fetish and S and M communities. The sculptural assemblage plays upon the term ‘Unicorn’ and its subsequent adoption by specific subcultures as a name for the ideal but ever elusive female ‘third partner’. A piece of black steal protrudes from the wall. Resting on it is a blonde bob wig, jutting out from the forehead of the wig is a black glass, spiral horn. The blonde wig speaks to the camp aesthetic of Martin Kippenberger’s Disco Bomb and the horn (a glass pig tail butt-plug) is a salute to the sexual aids used by these groups, which alter and extend the performativity of the subject. Reconstructing these visual codes through the formal and theoretical language of sculptural practice, the work speaks to the problematic, humorous and often paradoxical relationship between fantasy, feminine depiction and the visual languages surrounding sexual deviancy.