Saints and Sinners

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Saints and sinners

Saints and Sinners is a site-specific installation of selected photographs and objects celebrating and documenting works created by two collaborative couples over a period of many years.

The column of shoes and boots encrusted with gems and embellished with pompoms are parts of costumes worn by Mrs. Vera and participants in Verasphere happenings. These joyous interventionist performances are quasi-tribal gatherings of creative people who engage passersby and the audience at street fairs in celebrating creativity and otherness. Verasphere emerged as a counterpoint to a legendary performative character called Mrs. Vera, a solitary, transgressive creature invented by David Faulk and Michael Johnstone. Vera embodies the recycling and transformation of formerly discarded materials into something of value, becoming a stand in for the many talented artists and performers who we lost to AIDS.

Nontraditional wedding bouquet sculptures are installed as souvenirs of a seven year cycle of 14 weddings in six countries performed by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle and a huge cast of many hundreds of artists, performers, writers, photographers and helpers who came together as part of the Love Art Laboratory to create earthy, ecstatic spectacles. These mesmerizing performances incorporated multiple acts, ritually exploring themes of unity and oneness, interwoven with love, eroticism and ecology.

The exhibition is part of an exchange show between artists connected to Visual Aid San Francisco and Estudio Nómada Barcelona. For more information, click here.