Théorie trou du cul

Théorie Trou du cul is a solo exhibition of Anouchka Oler Nussbaum held at the art space La Tôlerie in Clermont-Ferrand from February 3rd to April 15th 2022. The asshole is a way of exploring the body. You look for things, you put things in, you take things out. It is connected to the mouth by the digestive tract. My mouth and my ass. The anus evacuates the residues of digestion, of transformed matter. To contain stories and things, I made a sculpture that absorbs and rejects. A bit of a carrier bag but as an asshole. An Existenz hole that connects to other things - a dark, final, obscure and obscene, abject hole. I keep treasures in my ass. Rough and strong translation of 'queer theory' by Sam Bourcier and Paul Preciado. Osculum Infame. Shirime is a yōkai -a spirit- who has an eye instead of an anus. Look at my soul through my ass. The exhibition is articulated around a moving sculpture. Conceived as an organism, the sculpture has a front, a back and sides. You can also go inside. One of its sides exhibits a wax anus that communicates with the interior of the sculpture suggesting a path of exploration and a peep hole. There was a story that was lingering in a corner of my head. An anecdote I had heard several times coming from Sam Bourcier who proposed with Paul B. Preciado to translate "queer theory" in French as "théorie trou cul" (asshole theory). Sam Bourcier speaks of an act of language. To say, we remain in the abject and we don't want to be digested by capitalism and heteronormativity. The anecdote came back to me when I was thinking about the main sculpture, when I had decided to craft an asshole for it. I wanted to use this asshole as a narrative articulator, an organ that absorbs and rejects. It was a way of continuing this act of language, but also of underlining the way I have of thinking, of producing stories - which is to absorb and reject - something that goes through digestion. The asshole side is designed to welcome and announce the performance Des Fins, Des Mondes where I will be joined by the artists, poets and musicians etaïnn zwer, gladys, Benjamin Seror and Simon Asencio in a cabaret that seeks to respond to the eurocentric vision of the apocalypse concept and to invest ways of staying with the trouble. On its other side, the sculpture displays the video Le Drama More Show (Pilote), a pilot of a game show. Drama More hosts a bingo show in which each number she draws announces a guest and their number which she receives on her set. Dressed as a parrot, she carries their voices in her beak. These numbers arranged in the random order of the bingo participate in the disruption of the great narratives of success and happiness through heuristic quests that are both playful and incarnated through bodies, materials and stories. They delicately pull intertwined strings of narratives and ways of being in the world, of being to oneself that are reparative and emancipatory : a bandage presents its thesis on reparative practices among groups of political lesbians, a sculpture is interviewed about its history, a make-up tutorial teaches us to see better. The numbers carefully strive the idea of refusing a good life that is impossible, vampiric, abusive, heteronormative and yet presented as so desirable.