SKIN 2003 index

During the last year and a half Helen Berkun and Rita Sky have been attempting to create performance art and its documentation as a single entity. They began by painting models in a studio and photographing the act after which the model became in itself a piece of art. Helen being their first victim and a self-portraiture artist asked Rita to paint her in camouflage after which she would photograph herself, recording the combination of two artists on film. Six months after art duo and made up what is now known as Corporalis Couture. They did what is basic to making art in the most literal way possible - revealing the body by taking off the model’s clothes, investing the body by using the skin as their canvas and recording the act by making an actual art piece.

Painting flesh literally intensifies the contradictions between art as a private performance and art as a public projection of self as other. Like Pollock, Rita, and Helen step into the painting, but at this point, they get rid of the canvas. The central motive is to explore the recital aspects of painting -- to reflect on what it feels like to trace a moment, to inhabit our skins, and leave a signature mark. Their strategy is to reclaim cultural traditions, especially in painting, by inscribing them literally on ones body. Then, as the models move, live, and breathe, the surfaces crack and reveal something new, with no edges safe for the camera's point of view.