The Mitosis series (1989–1990) uses the process of cellular division as a metaphor to describe “the process of individuation,” piecing together a wry portrait of growing up in a family steeped in secrets and denial. The image of the chromosome and references to mitosis are woven throughout these three installations, which used shaped canvases stapled directly to the walls of my studio, incorporating objects and original text. The typed or handwritten texts—scrawled on a wall or embedded in found objects and collages—describe, in a coded, pseudo-scientific way, a history of sexual abuse.
Mitosis, Stage One
The handwritten text on the wall reads:
“especially at dinner. First the mitochondria: Black smudges of ineffable desire. Then the nucleus … ineffable desire. Nucleus after nucleus. cell after cell. night after night. A sullen mitosis at the table. Mitosis. Imperceptively I was splitting in two. Imperceptively I was splitting …“
Mitosis, Stage Two
In the rolodex to the right of the painting of the family at the empty table, the text begins:
“One night it occurred to me that everyone
seated at the table were actually just replicas
of themselves. And that I too was just that.
This mockery was taking place without
the slightest violation of table manners. …”
Mitosis: Stage Three
Imbedded in the collage to the right of the large triangular painting: “The chromosome is a kind of map of the cell’s invisible geography, a mythical ancestry, the Dreamtime of the Zygote. If an error occurs during the first mitotic splitting of the zygote—that is, if “an accident of non-dysjunction” occurs while the chromosomes attempt to divide for the first time—then a sexual ambivalence becomes imbedded on the cellular level. No memory of this leaden moment remains in the mature organism.”
The second text is written by hand below a photo negative of a bird’s-eye view of Manhattan:
“The movement of transvestites and butchers is often visible at the outermost edges of the macrocosm.”
Limited edition of collages
