BARE YOUR TEETH :: Desireé Moore

11.18.17

CUNSTHAUS

Continuing its mission to bring engaging exhibitions to the Tampa Bay Area through a collaborative and feminist curatorial perspective, CUNSTHAUS is proud to present Bare Your Teeth, a site-specific installation by multidisciplinary artist Desireé Moore. Working primarily in film and video, Moore (b. 1986, Indianapolis; lives in St. Petersburg, FL) explores the social complexities of gender, and specifically the cultural norms assigned to women and girls. She states, “Bare Your Teeth isolates moments of gesture to consider the feminine experience within culturally accepted sexism and harassment. In some ways, these tactics have been perpetuated into normalcy, a convenient disguise protected by civility. Benevolence is not a shield, and ignorance is not acceptable.” These issues are timely, as women continue to step forward publicly with stories of sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood and the art world. The harassment is not new, but the widespread public acknowledgment of it is.

Renowned author Margaret Atwood has stated, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” Through video and sculpture, Bare Your Teeth examines the power dynamics at work in women’s laughter and smiles, and the ways that the smallest gestures by a woman become sexualized.