Tell Me What You Want: Desire at the Blanton Museum of Art

Desire can be passionate and pleasurable, but we all know it can break us too. In Greek mythology, the sun god Apollo’s desire so overwhelmed Daphne that she turned into a laurel tree to escape it. The ancient heartbreak of shapeshifting comes alive in Perth Coyne’s "Untitled 103 (Daphne)", which actively draws the viewer into a desire so strong that one has to break out of their body to accommodate it. Daphne, here, is a graceful tree, composed entirely of charred black roses and the feathers from her dress. The figure of a swooning woman is suggested vivid enough that one can feel Daphne rooting herself to the ground, her womanly figure triumphantly retaining its beauty as though this flora is flesh. What better encouragement to go green?

Desire’s landscape is always unpredictable, and curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi confirms that on this point, reactions vary. “I’ve heard people say, ‘I was mesmerized, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it,’” she says. “And I’ve heard people say, ‘I was disturbed, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. And some people were just disturbed.”. This unpredictability is at the core of desire itself. “Nobody can anticipate [desire],” Carlozzi says. “Half the time people don’t even agree with one another.” In a culture dominated by fear of desire, this multifaceted exhibit confronts it from all angles, taking in work from all over the world, and, significantly, all stages of life. Artists showcased in Desire range from twenty-four to 75-years old. Carlozzi describes desire as “a lifelong thing. If you’re lucky, it never goes away.”

Sometimes, though, desire is elusive. In our voyeuristic age, saturated with reality television, Miguel Angel Rojas’s "Via Lacteal [Milky Way]" makes voyeurs work for their pleasure. Tiny resin circles tease like a row of thumbtacks, and only by standing extremely close do you see what the black-and-white photographs depict. Appropriately, these hidden acts in the men’s room of Bagota’s Magador Theatre are only available to those who strain to peek.

Isaac Julian’s film, "Long Road to Mazatlán", also illustrates the thorny side of desire. It doesn’t hold back in its depiction of nude male bodies, but the harsh Western landscape registers like burrs on the desert ground, pricking the viewer if we get too close. The snake sliding across the sand is slow and symbolic, but its very suggestiveness accents the roughness of the road, harsh, we can imagine, under the snake’s smooth underbelly. The camera literally backs away at the film’s closing, confirming that we are not welcome here. Those who’ve found desire to be a rough, uninviting, but tantalizing landscape might find catharsis in this piece.

Susan J. Lee’s “Consummation” depicts lovers as you’ve likely never seen them before: two threads on fire. But the curling threads and the resulting smoke, wind their way of coming together and breaking apart in a visceral expression of love. The film, projected on hand-carved wood, has a silky, inviting, and ultimately hypnotic effect.

Everything in Desire has the power to hypnotize - from resonating with primal memories of early desire, to tickling undiscovered fantasies, all the way to that tenuous spark of morbid curiosity. Carlozzi’s goal with this exhibit was to emphasize art’s crucial role in our everyday lives, and spark dialogue about this vast topic. Desire is more than an exhibition - it’s an environment, safe to invite people to say, in Carlozzi’s words, “Come look at this with me, and tell me what you’re thinking and feeling.” Kick your spring fever into high gear and taste the blossoms of this one.

Desire will be on display at the Blanton Museum of Art until April 25th.