Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose - The Wedding of Everything
The LA Gallery, The Country Club, will be housing a show about the infamous couple who's unique, controversial, powerful, and to some, disturbing approach to their art and their relationship resonate to this day.
I remember meeting Flanagan in NY at the New Museum show where he was laid out in a makeshift hospital room inside the museum, suffering in the late stages of cystic fibrosis, but in character, sharing his physical inclinations and suffering as art. All visitors to the show were invited to go in and talk to him about anything they wished. I went into the room, and there he was with tubes coming out of him, a respirator, and all the medical accoutrements that accompanied his condition. I began chatting with him. He welcomed my naive questions and made me feel comfortable to talk about whatever came to mind. He told me of the first time he acted on his compulsion to be controlled/constricted. When he was a child he used to crawl into the washing machine wrapped in a blanket and stay there for inordinate periods of time. It calmed him. He found, much later in life, a mate in Sheree who was the perfect ying to his yang. He spoke of his relationship with such reverence but also with a clarity and intellect that made his, what were to me severe choices, illuminated.
Here is the press release to this show:
Country Club | Los Angeles is pleased to present The Wedding of Everything, an exhibition of sculpture, photographs, installation, and video by Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose. The exhibit highlights Flanagan’s groundbreaking resume of performance and visual art, as well as Flanagan and Rose’s collaboration as artists and as life partners. The Wedding of Everything offers a rare opportunity to view seminal work by one of the founding fathers of body and performance art, punctuated by landmark sculptures not seen since Flanagan and Rose’s museum survey Visiting Hours at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 1992, followed by the New Museum in 1994. Major works include Flanagan’s “Gurney of Nails”, “Waiting Room”, and “Child’s Playroom”, all created in 1992.
The title The Wedding of Everything comes from a book of poems Flanagan published by Sherwood Press in 1983, featuring the poem of the same name. This piece will be integrated with objects in the exhibition. The cover of the book is a photograph of Flanagan throwing a bouquet into the air just as the flowers are leaving his hand. As with other works by Flanagan and Rose, The Wedding of Everything acts as a metaphor for the mixtures of themes in their work and lives: beautiful poetry mixed with S&M imagery; the celebration of life touched with the reality of death; people loving and working together to celebrate existence.
An artist, poet, performer, writer, and musician, Bob Flanagan was born in New York City in 1952 and moved to Los Angeles in 1958. He graduated from Costa Mesa High School, and received his BA from Long Beach State University. In the 1980’s and early 1990’s he helped popularize a style of performance that is now known as endurance art. He suffered from cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that typically kills before adulthood. Bob was said by doctors to be one of the longest-living survivors, passing away at age 43. Flanagan attributed his ability to manage the pain and prolong his life by adhering to his credo “fight pain with pain.” Working with his partner and dominatrix, Sheree Rose, Flanagan explored ritualized pain as a means to absorb the punishment of the disease and to find a space that could bring a measure of peace.
Sheree Rose was born in Los Angeles, CA. She obtained her Master’s degree in psychology in the late 70’s, and was extremely involved in political activism and The Women’s Movement. She and Flanagan met at a Halloween party in 1980 and began collaborating in life and on artwork. She received a second Masters Degree in Studio Art from UCI. Since Flanagan’s death, she has exhibited new work “Bobaloon” in Tokyo, Japan, as well as other works at The Tate in London. She created a performance piece entitled “Nailed Again” at Arizona State University and Galapagos in New York. Rose continues to explore and collaborate with performance artists and recently performed in London with artist Martin O’Brien. A video of this piece will be screened as well.