The Blazing World

Patrick Donan (review of The Suffocation Rooms, Art Beats, NYC, March 27, 2002)

“I love the heat, don’t you?” Phineas Q. Eldridge smiles as he talks about his installation at the Alex Begley Gallery. His first solo show consists of seven enclosed kitchens connected railroad-style by doors. Each room is a little hotter than the one before, which means every visitor must get ready to sweat. The downtown performance artist, known for his gender-and-race-bending monologues at the Pink Lagoon, has made a move into visual art. Each kitchen of The Suffocation Rooms features two large stuffed figures, a chest, and a creepy wax character that might have popped in from another galaxy. Theater is part and parcel of installation art, but Eldridge has brought his overt staginess to this series of rooms.

According to Eldridge, the piece has no message. And yet, it is hard not to think of American culture wars while passing through his otherworldly kitchens. The eerie intersex person rising out of the seven chests speaks directly to the LGBT community. The box (perhaps a little too obviously) is also “the closet.” Eldridge came out in 1995 and has been exploring gay and racial identities in his work ever since he launched himself as part of the underground cabaret scene.

And the two oversized, stuffed humans? Could it be the white America of right-wing “family values”? Eldridge is noncommittal. Twisting Susan Sontag, he says, “Interpretation is dangerous.”

After 9/11 a lot of art has just looked irrelevant, but the claustrophobic atmosphere and the gradual decay and destruction of the seven rooms address the smug insulation of most Americans, who were locked in their own materialistic dreams until they were shocked out of their complacency by the terrible events of last September. Alex Begley offers his own take on suffocation. “This installation has genuine impact. It addresses our situation now.”