by Alice Connolly O’Brien // Dec. 19, 2023
‘— USSYPHILIA’ is Juliana Huxtable’s largest solo exhibition in Europe to date and dissects her usual wheelhouse of themes, from queerness and sexualised bodies to psychedelics and plastic surgery. Presented as one of Fotografiska Berlin’s three inaugural exhibitions, the show uses a playful, distorted and multifaceted lens to look at the body and its mutability.
Juliana Huxtable: ‘— USSYPHILIA,’ 2023, installation view // © Fotografiska Berlin
The show’s title, ‘—USSYPHILIA,’ is a nod to the 2022 American Dialect Society’s word of the year, ‘—ussy.’ The suffix, popularised by the queer community and TikTok, posits the existence of a sexual cavity of whatever you happen to be talking about. As a queer poet and online figure, Huxtable’s platforming of this word is on brand. It infers that anything can become a cavity and comments on the sexualisation of bodies, particularly queer or surgically-enhanced ones, but it is often used colloquially as slang. Throughout most of the show, she uses her own body as the protagonist. While this isn’t an uncommon move of Huxtable, here it carries extra weight, a layered statement on how she feels her own body is viewed as something that can be augmented, disrupted and, of course, -ussyfied.
Juliana Huxtable: ‘— USSYPHILIA,’ 2023, installation view // © Fotografiska Berlin
‘— USSYPHILIA’ is essayistic in its presentation. Practically, the exhibition is a stratified experience of different artistic mediums, many of which have been through a layered creative process. Starting with a video installation, the showcase leads into a selection of Huxtable’s acrylic self-portraits that have been overpainted to distort and mythicise her body into something jurassic. It concludes with a site-specific installation where other people have been similarly interfered with. Her poetry is painted on the walls and her voice carries from the video throughout the exhibition, like a rhyming, psychedelic dart, making the experience not formulaic but rather amorphic, and folding visitors into Huxtable’s busy mind.
Theoretically, the works are essayistic in that they all stem from different times, projects and collaborations. The paintings build on works from Huxtable’s preexisting series, ‘AKIMBO SPITTLE-,’ the video installation is a brand new music video from Huxtable’s band, Tongue in the Mind, and the site-specific installation is a fresh build for the ‘—USSYPHILIA’ show.
Juliana Huxtable: ‘— USSYPHILIA,’ 2023, installation view // © Fotografiska Berlin
The decision to present this multiverse demonstrates the far-reaching skillset and career of Huxtable, but also speaks to the public and private discourse on the themes at hand as layered, longstanding and unfinished. ‘—USSYPHILIA’ demonstrates society’s winding and evolutionary commentary on bodies and Huxtable’s response to it.
The ‘Pretty Canary’ music video casts Huxtable as the main character in a vibrant, punk rock, kooky world. The video mixes live-action recording with animation and sees her roll around a grassy, green room while playfully consuming a brightly colored pill. This has strong ties to the story of Alice in Wonderland. Similar to Alice, Huxtable’s pill sends her down a rabbit hole where things are familiar but warped. The video’s placement at the beginning of the show catapults visitors into a similar psychedelic tunnel.
Juliana Huxtable: ‘— USSYPHILIA,’ 2023, installation view // © Fotografiska Berlin
In the paintings on view, Huxtable is shown to be a mythical, hybrid, gutter demigod with horns, tails and scaly skin. It is impossible to classify her species, gender or age and this feels intentional, a nod to her own binary-defiant queer and trans experience and how it’s viewed and consumed. While Huxtable’s appearance matches many beauty standards superficially, her experience and story aren’t skin-deep. She isn’t afraid to let us in behind the curtain and show her scales, dirtiness or darkness. Her experience is more layered than what meets the eye, just like her paintings. You can’t place her in a categorized box, nor can you control her parts, pleasure or self-realisation. All you can do is watch as she weaves beautifully through each painting.
Juliana Huxtable: ‘— USSYPHILIA,’ 2023, installation view // © Fotografiska Berlin
The site-specific installation is a triad of booths with a screen revealing naked characters whose bodies have been interfered with or yaasified through the lens of Huxtable. A renowned DJ with roots in the clubbing scene, it feels like Huxtable created these booths to pay homage to dark rooms at underground events. They feel forbidden and private. While the bodies of these creatures have been warped, their eyes are still recognizably human. This feels like a confrontation or a powerful reminder that while individuals can choose to augment their bodies, opt to be sexualised and enjoy pleasure in the shadows, their humanity isn’t up for discussion or debate.
‘—USSYPHILIA’ can be read as a layered statement on Huxtable’s own experience. It demonstrates her defiance in navigating her identity, queerness and pleasure, and her refusal to have that journey restricted. Like the works presented in the show, her journey is unconventional, vivid and evolving. While her past and present inspire her being and aesthetic, she is more concerned with self-realisation than -ussyfication and is driven to enhance her body and art in a way that feels authentic and pleasurable to her.
Exhibition Info
Fotografiska Berlin
Juliana Huxtable: ‘–USSYPHILIA’
Exhibition: Sept. 14, 2023–Jan. 14, 2024
Admission: € 16 (reduced € 8)
fotografiska.com
Oranienburger Straße 54, 10117 Berlin, click here for map
