Sweaty Pearls, Sweaty Pearls
Hubbell’s multi-channel video and sculpture installation Sweaty Pearls, Sweaty Pearls (2016), breathes consumer-biological phrases: “like magic...don’t let it stop...if you cover yourself in it your wishes will be granted...like duh!...ADP and PI are released, ATP splits, myosin is released -- the head returns to its original position...repeat the process.” Returning to the word “filaments” bodies and plastic materials beat to the non-synchronous rhythms of the seductive voice. On another screen, Hubbell’s body sways to cage-like ambient sounds, pulsating across the space as organic shapes converge upon her body.
She continues to move, returning to her original position, and “repeating the process.” The third screen layers a smooth derriere with sheets of veins that overload the screen, as the breathy voice uttering “filaments.” She tempts us to keep looking, to try to occupy the slippery space, to move with her movement. In the center of the gallery space soft ropes draped across wire armatures, falling in sensuous skeins, as if to entangle us deeper into the space, physically tethering us to it. From it’s covert appearance in each of the videos, to its weight in the round, the sculpture basks in its own referential narcissism, much like Hubbell’s movements.
Nevertheless, in Sweaty Pearls, Sweaty Pearls, the various parts do not constitute the whole that Hubbell beckons us to enter. Our ill-equipped bodies follow the language and look of her consumerism only to realize that this space is already occupied.
