The catalogue includes all visual and textual works that are a part of the Engendered Species Exhibitions.

Cecilia Bullo | Italy / Ireland

“The truth is irrelevant…There’s nothing close to the truth, it’s all in your mind”
- William Burroughs

Reality is what one perceives to be true within one’s own context. Our organicity can be summarized as pieces of people, pieces of the truth, and pieces of science. But our organicity does not develop in a vacuum; rather it is slashed at, torn from us, and collaged together in an unforgiving sociocultural framework. Untitled, a marble sculpture by Milan-based artist, Cecilia Bullo, agitates the anatomical construction of our stagnant binary gender system. The stiff, phallic marble form has been wounded, spliced to unfold a deep vaginal opening. As the fleshy lips unfold, upper and lower rows of human teeth gleam with vengeance to attack any potential penetrators.

Bullo acknowledges William Burroughs, David Croenberg and Sigmund Freud as influences in her work. Especially significant is Freud’s work with ferocious toothed vaginas that possess the capability to castrate penetrators. Science mirrors and enforces this fear with such creatures as the female praying mantis that devours her mate immediately after intercourse. Bullo states that because the vagina is wounded through penetration, her piece speaks as “a wound that wounds.” The vagina has penetrated the penetrator in Bullo’s work; it threatens castration to anyone who tries to enter.

- by Marisol Rodarte

Cecilia Bullo
Untitled, 2005
candoglia marble, human teeth
60cm x 16cm