Asshole Rassgat

The drawings included in this exhibition are intricate tracings of arseholes. They are in turn stylized and non-shaded—we see the lines emanating like rays outwards from the tightly shut hole. In an article entitled “Solar anus” from 1927 French philosopher Georges Bataille says that everything we see is a caricature. To sum up he states that the darkness of the arsehole in no less blinding than the brightness of the sun; the darkness of the arsehole is a caricature of the brightness of the sun, and vice versa.

The title of the present exhibition is also a kind of satire: the quaint Icelandic phrase of endearment, ‘rassgat’ or ‘cutie’, morphs into an ‘arsehole’, thus turning into a ‘scoundrel’. This serves to remind us that there were many that thought the greatest scoundrels to be cute and endearing, ‘algjör rassgöt’ (total cuties), in the years leading to the crash. Now, however, one begs the question as to whether we should not utilise the possibilities of Steinarsdóttir’s work and do a thorough cleaning. The white porcelain tiles function as a virtual enema, encouraging us to do a thorough anal cleansing. Thus the viewer can imagine purifying their own anus so that it comes to resemble the caricature, becoming shining clean like the sun; in this manner spectators are invited, virtually, to convert their own arsehole into a shining ‘cutie’.