Smoking Forever

Smoking Forever was a live installation in which static figures composed of elements of Baroque sculpture and drag culture were arranged in theatrical tableux and animated by an off-stage performer reciting an absurd, campy dialogue. The ritualistic dialogue spoken by the performer was interspersed by bursts of music and ambient noise.

Clare Stephenson’s sculptures are barely sculptures at all; their physical presence is a humorously humble illusion. Made from silkscreen on wooden panels, her prop-like cut-outs stand in as representations of form: completely flat-packed, cartoon-like, and slap-stick. This game of perception, of subverting material with image and vice versa, is redoubled in her work’s development process: each sculpture-image is assembled from photographs of other sculptures that have been cropped and photocopied from books.