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REVIEWS
CLUSTERFUCK 5: Woman as Garbage Disposal (Film Review)
We put those objects considered mirrors of our culture on display. In museum, in bookstores, we find those artifacts
which can and do speak to who we were or would become. But there is more. Hidden in the "hells" of museums
(those pieces only accessible with declared intent, see the Louvre) are those objects which speak to our fears and
basest level, base being the level beyond pretentious platitudes where what we want is reduced (or exaulted) to its
richest(?) level.
Skeeter Kerkove (born Arland Dale Kerkove, 1964) is an white American pornographic director responsible for
numerous titles for the Mayhem porn studio. As a porn director, his work is noted for its aggressiveness,
abrasiveness, and cinema verite style. As the director of CLUSTERFUCK 5, a gangbang title, his is one of the first
(and only) extended male voices we hear. The film begins with Kerkove introducting the wraith-like Kelly Wells, an
actress of badgered eyes and blonde hair who stands next to the director (who leads her on-set by a chain around her
neck) as he describes how if you (the viewer) were wondering about his IQ, it's best not to since it's "comparable to a
stack of rocks." Kelly laughs, not disagreeing, and they engage in brief small talk before we are introduced to the "five
anonymous cocks", men who will during the duration of this film remain silent, faceless, and beer-guzzling throughout
the scene. All five men are white, middle-aged, and in moderate to bad shape. The men swiftly proceed to stuff
Kelly's mouth with their penises, suggestive an interpretive oral dispersion more than oral sex. Over the next hour, the
men will engage Kelly in numerous sexual positions notable for the fact that no one on the screen seems to be
enjoying it in the least bit.
What disturbs or rather disrupts the flow of pleasure to be experiences as a viewer (or enhances, depending on your
tastes) watching this rape fantasia (itself comparable to a performative animality as filtered through the channel of
patriarchical violence and homo-phobia/erotica) is the absolute baseness of it all. Leaving aside aesthetics, the
proceedings are crude to the boarder of being almost punk. Over the course of nearly an hour, the actress has her
vagina not only stuffed with multiple penises, a one point being triple-penetrated, but she even has produce shoved
up her anus which she then at the climax of the scene, shits out. All of this is meant to be sexy(?) or edgy(?) but what
results is a view of woman as a garbage disposal.
(2009, JD)
We put those objects considered mirrors of our culture on display. In museum, in bookstores, we find those artifacts
which can and do speak to who we were or would become. But there is more. Hidden in the "hells" of museums
(those pieces only accessible with declared intent, see the Louvre) are those objects which speak to our fears and
basest level, base being the level beyond pretentious platitudes where what we want is reduced (or exaulted) to its
richest(?) level.
Skeeter Kerkove (born Arland Dale Kerkove, 1964) is an white American pornographic director responsible for
numerous titles for the Mayhem porn studio. As a porn director, his work is noted for its aggressiveness,
abrasiveness, and cinema verite style. As the director of CLUSTERFUCK 5, a gangbang title, his is one of the first
(and only) extended male voices we hear. The film begins with Kerkove introducting the wraith-like Kelly Wells, an
actress of badgered eyes and blonde hair who stands next to the director (who leads her on-set by a chain around her
neck) as he describes how if you (the viewer) were wondering about his IQ, it's best not to since it's "comparable to a
stack of rocks." Kelly laughs, not disagreeing, and they engage in brief small talk before we are introduced to the "five
anonymous cocks", men who will during the duration of this film remain silent, faceless, and beer-guzzling throughout
the scene. All five men are white, middle-aged, and in moderate to bad shape. The men swiftly proceed to stuff
Kelly's mouth with their penises, suggestive an interpretive oral dispersion more than oral sex. Over the next hour, the
men will engage Kelly in numerous sexual positions notable for the fact that no one on the screen seems to be
enjoying it in the least bit.
What disturbs or rather disrupts the flow of pleasure to be experiences as a viewer (or enhances, depending on your
tastes) watching this rape fantasia (itself comparable to a performative animality as filtered through the channel of
patriarchical violence and homo-phobia/erotica) is the absolute baseness of it all. Leaving aside aesthetics, the
proceedings are crude to the boarder of being almost punk. Over the course of nearly an hour, the actress has her
vagina not only stuffed with multiple penises, a one point being triple-penetrated, but she even has produce shoved
up her anus which she then at the climax of the scene, shits out. All of this is meant to be sexy(?) or edgy(?) but what
results is a view of woman as a garbage disposal.
(2009, JD)
Previewing an upcoming exhibition at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary
Art titled “Faith in the Future,” New Jersey-based Ian Davis’ large painting
(which will be featured in the exhibition) confronts the viewer with disturbing
questions. Combining an aesthetic which is both illustrative and playful,
Davis’ painting “Comeuppance” is a work for the present environmentally
unsound moment. As climate change talks break down in Copenhagen and
much of the US experiences record-breaking gusts of snow and freezing
temperatures, it seems fitting to have Davis’ work on display to connect with
the beginning (?) or the end (?) of a decade marked by ubiquitous talk of
environmental degradation, political instability, and economic disintegration.
Ian Davis’ work is thoroughly in the vein of the Post-Apocalyptic. As in other
paintings by Davis, “Comeuppance” features a figure you could call The
Bureaucrat: with his grey suit, tie, and pale skin, this figure (often repeated
numerously in Davis’ paintings) sits around a table without a center, stands at
the bottom of a quarry surrounded by rocks, or on a drowned road. In
“Comeuppance”, The Bureaucrats stand huddled together on a newly made
island as the road tapers off into water, power lines flooded in the distance, a
narrative befitting of J.G. Ballard. The painting is almost disturbingly
controlled: with a precision of a magazine illustrator, Davis’ brushwork is
deliberate to the point of being oppressive. What is additionally striking about
the piece (apart from its topical post-apocalyptic narrative) is the lack of
movement within it: neither the water nor the men standing stranded on the
road seem in motion, as if mutually paralyzed or un-alive, an effect made
suffocating by the pale grey sky in the background. As in his other paintings,
Davis here highlights the folly of entrusting bureaucrats, politicians, and other
figures of authority with effecting much needed environmental and social
change. A sense of futility infuses the work as well as an enigma: we neither
know nor have any indication from where the catastrophe originates, and this
uncertainty when combined with a technique which is playfully focused,
furthers the feelings of disquiet. Like the many bureaucrats in his painting, we
are stranded on an island without possible respite (and it bears saying that
the work possibly intentionally recalls the horrible media images coming out of
New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina).
By featuring a painting about apocalypse in a show about “faith” (see
exhibition title) the Kemper provocatively confronts the viewer with whether or
not he/she has any in the present moment. The challenges of the New Year
are many and the answers, despite media assurances, are not fore
coming…it is with baited breath that we take the next step, possibly to a
future, possibly to drown ourselves as in Ian Davis’ painting.
