by Laura Feinstein // Jan. 2, 2024
Narcissister is an anonymous, Brooklyn-based, feminist multimedia and performance artist of mixed Moroccan-Jewish and African-American descent. Known for her use of masks and embrace of burlesque and the female form as a tool of radical expression, her work deals with the interplay of gender identity, race, sexuality and self-identity. Her moniker—a combination of “narcissist” and “sister”—nods to an ongoing exploration of the self, an excavation of the real vs. artificial, and to her Black identity, which she has explored through the study of movement at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and an academic background in Black feminist arts. Known for her highly-sexualized work, which often includes the removal of garments and objects from bodily orifices, she is also inspired by her mother, a poet and Proust scholar born in Tangier, Morocco, who emigrated to the United States in 1960 and passed away in 2012. Her mother’s identity as an immigrant and nurturer, an artist and an intellectual, and the many “masks” this often required her to wear within the world, inspired much of the identity and fluidity-of-self explored in Narcisster’s pieces, which have included shorter performance art videos ‘Every Woman’ and ‘Burka Barbie,’ as well as the hybrid performance-documentary film ‘Narcissister Organ Player’ (2018), an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival.
Narcisster is presenting a newly commissioned installation in the current exhibition ‘The Cult of Beauty’ at London’s Wellcome Collection, which explores the universal myths and constant changing nature of beauty and beauty ideals. We spoke with Narcissister about her contribution to the show and its relationship to her practice as a whole.
Narcissister, 2022
Laura Feinstein: ‘The Cult of Beauty’ exhibition deals with the masked and often distorted reality of beauty as well as the role it plays in gender and power dynamics. Given that your work encompasses many of these themes, it seems an ideal complement to your practice. Were you invited or did you pitch your work to Wellcome?
Narcissister: The curator, Janice Li, discovered my work through the ‘Role Play’ exhibition at Fondazione Prada in 2022. Janice had sent an email to discuss my inclusion in the not-yet-named Cult of Beauty show. By great coincidence I was in London performing at the time she reached out. Within days we were able to meet in person and begin the conversation about my inclusion in the exhibition.
‘The Cult of Beauty,’ 2023, installation view at Wellcome Collection // Photo by Benjamin Gilbert
Narcissister, installation view at Wellcome Collection, 2023 // Photo by Benjamin Gilbert
LF: How did you go about creating this new commission and what are some of the preconceived ideals you wanted to challenge in this piece?
N: Included in the additional Narcissister work samples I sent Janice to consider was a link to my film ‘Narcissister Organ Player’ (2018), a hybrid performance-documentary film that explores how ancestral data is stored in our bodies, impacting the lives we lead. On a personal level, the film investigates how my complex family history compelled me to create the masked, erotic performance character Narcissister. I think after watching the film, Janice realized that she wanted my commission to address the angle of intergenerational beauty ideals. I knew instantly that the most direct and poignant way to convey what I learned about beauty from my mother was by showing her belongings and thereby showing her unique aesthetic sense and the ways in which she adorned herself and her world. And I suppose that presenting her belongings in the way that I did is a challenge to preconceived ideas of what constitutes “beauty” and how “beautiful things” should be displayed.
LF: How has the way you look at inheritance, appearances and identity changed since the passing of your mother in 2012?
N: With the passing of time, I feel the wealth that I inherited ancestrally more and more and I understand more clearly the complexity of my own identity. Especially in these recent years when we have all been looking more deeply at questions of identity and representation in ourselves and others, I feel grateful that I have such a rich well to draw from.
LF: So much of your work is about female identity, presentation, myth-making and gender identity. How has the rise of social media over the last decade—for example Instagram and Face Tuning apps—in tandem with the boom in plastic surgery and “tweakments” among younger generations, given a new aspect to your work?
N: I created Narcissister in the early 2000s with the rise of social media. It was clear to me that an antidote to the problematic fixation on the self that these platforms encouraged was necessary, if only for my own feeling of relief! The Narcissister mask functions as a mirror that reflects back anything and everything that is projected onto it and onto her. It’s a strategy for commenting on and critiquing certain aspects of the social media value system and, best of all, a strategy for excusing myself from being directly involved in that value system.
Narcisisster, 2022
LF: Can you talk about your masks, without which you never appear in public?
N: It was Janice’s vision to include my masks in the ‘Cult of Beauty’ exhibition. Narcissister’s identity is defined by this plastic mask, a repurposed wig display form that I discovered in display rooms when I was working as a window display designer. The wig forms were old, the plastic front was popping off the Styrofoam back and the artist in me knew that by cutting holes to see and breathe, this object could easily be transformed into a mask. As with the Narcissister name, the mask also reflects the double dynamic I aim to create with the work. The mask, with its wide, spread eyes, pointy nose and prim mouth, falls within the narrow conception of femininity and beauty still predominant in our culture. The mask draws in the viewer; simultaneously, the mask—a tool for acquiring and establishing superiority and separation—pushes the viewer away.
Artist Info
Exhibition Info
Wellcome Collection
Group Show: ‘The Cult of Beauty’
Exhibition: Oct. 26, 2023–Apr. 28, 2024
wellcomecollection.org
183 Euston Rd., London NW1 2BE, UK, click here for map
