The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame,
and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn)

Stephen Jones | Dawn Spencer Hurwitz | Nicolette Mishkan
Andrew Sokol | Sands Murray-Wassink | Woodley White | Ryan Wilde


RUSCHWOMAN
May 21 — June 25, 2023

Opening reception: Sunday, May 21, 3–6PM


Following the opening, gallery hours are available by appointment only.

Please contact thewaves@ruschwoman.blue to make arrangements to visit RUSCHWOMAN during the run of the exhibition.


Nicolette Mishkan, Simurgh, 2023, Oil on canvas, 24h x 36w in.



The effemination of the males had continued with quickened tempo. His depressing and erudite productions possessed a strange enchantment, an incantation that stirred one to the depths. This room, each of whose sides was lined with mirrors that echoed each other all along the walls, reflecting, as far as the eye could reach, whole series of rose boudoirs…made fragrant with the odor of mint emanating from the exotic wood of the furniture. Aside from the sensual delights for which he had designed this chamber...there were other, more personal and perverse pleasures which he enjoyed in these languorous surroundings—pleasures which in some way stimulated memories of his past pains and dead ennuis. For the delight of his spirit and the joy of his eyes, he had desired a few suggestive creatives that cast him into an unknown world, revealing to him the contours of new conjectures, agitating the nervous system by the violent deliriums, complicated nightmares, nonchalant or atrocious chimerae they induced. [1]


Taking turtles for urban strolls had become enormously dangerous for turtles, and only somewhat less so for flaneurs. The speed-up principles of mass production had spilled over into the streets, waging ‘war on flaneurie'...On the boulevards, the flaneur, now jostled by crowds and in full view of the urban poverty which inhabited public streets, could maintain a rhapsodic view of modern existence only with the aid of illusion, which is just what the literature of flanerie—physiognomies, novels of the crowd—was produced to provide. If at the beginning, the flaneur as private subject dreamed himself out into the world, at the end, flanerie was an ideological attempt to reprivatize social space...The flaneur had become a ‘suspicious’ character. [2]



Facing off with some of civilization’s most pressing exigencies—class, economics, divisions of labor and leisure, and the politicization of how a body appears or is represented—is a shimmering, misty reflection that peers disquietly into the potency and latency of what Marcuse called “The Aesthetic Dimension,” one in which desire and death, fetish and commodity, material and meaning are circulated in a continuous dance. At this site of intersection, art, design, and fashion are jointly mapped across a volatile bourgeoisie: consumption comes under scrutiny, rapt negotiations between ‘high’ and ‘low’ are processed, and beauty finds itself an ever moving target contingent upon dominant power structures and popular ideologies. It is through the densities of these atmospheres and their attendant affects that RUSCHWOMAN flutters as an all too interested passerby. As flanêuse, as dandy, as artistic interlocutor, the gallery and her audiences daydream their ways among shirts and the torsos who wear them, perfumes, millinery, and comportments both sophisticated and foreboding. These phantasia and what mysteries they betray about our cultural value systems rest at the heart of a paradigm wherein decadence, luxury, self care, and eccentricities are mapped relationally.

Convulsions of attraction and repulsion upset time as it attempts to pass across these eccentric bodies; entanglements emerge that tie bows into the linear order of unidirectional chronology. Fashion does that. Trauma does, too. Something returns. And before you know it, you’re ensnared in a trap of your own predilections: held as a potion in a bottle, drawn underwater by sirens and their cannibalistic festivities, or lost—as a white bunny might be—in the endless caverns of a magician’s hat. This exhibition invites repose and dreaming vastly about eventual demise and the decadent pathways that unfurl toward those horizons. Glittering jewels, dazzling rhetoric, hushed inferences, glinting objects of erotic longing: you’ve discovered a darker world just behind a secret trap door. Please make yourself comfortable.



[1] Joris-Karl Huysmans. Against the Grain. Translated by John Howard. New York: Lieber & Lewis, 1922. Print, pp. 16, 28–29, 90, 101.

[2] Susan Buck-Morss. “The Flaneur, the Sandwichman and the Whore: The Politics of Loitering.” New German Critique, Autumn, 1986, No. 39. Print, pp. 1-2–103.



Sands Murray Wassink, Horse Triangle #1 (Mental Health), 2023, Watercolor and pen on paper, 19h x 1 1/2w in.



ARTIST BIOS

Stephen Jones OBE is a British milliner based in London, who is considered one of the most radical and important milliners of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Since 1980, Jones millinery salon in the heart of London's Covent Garden has served as a place of pilgrimage and patronage, as everyone from rock stars to royalty, from Boy George, Diana, Princess of Wales, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Mick Jagger, among an endless A-List of glitterati. He has collaborated with such designers as Rei Kawakubo, Vivienne Westwood, Claude Montana, Thom Brown, Christian Dior, and John Galliano, among others. Across his illustrious career Jones has made millinery seem modern and compelling. In materials that were often radical, and in designs that ranged from refined to whimsical, his exquisitely crafted, quixotic hats encapsulated the fashion mood of the moment. Now, as ever, at the forefront of fashion, his beguiling hats routinely grace the most celebrated magazine covers and enliven window displays of the world's most stylish stores. From runways to race-courses, from pop-promos to royal garden parties, millinery by Stephen Jones adds the exclamation mark to every fashion statement.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz is a true underground force in niche perfumery. DSH, as she is called by her devoted following, has been working with aromatics for nearly 30 years, and is a pioneer of the American indie perfumery movement. She has developed many innovative concept perfumes and worked with top designers to consult and create exclusive perfumes. Beginning her career as a painter, Dawn came to perfumery in 1991 while working at Boston’s famed ESSENSE Perfumery (on Posh Newbury Street). She developed her talent for creating perfumes based on fine art principles, and since the early nineties, began developing her innovative lines of ready-to-wear artisan perfumes under her own label (*including DAWN Perfumes at BARNEYS NEW YORK / Tokyo, Isetan, TOMORROWLAND, and other niche boutiques with Japanese design partners, Undulate Labs) while consulting for niche marketers, such as Luckyscent, Scent Trunk, curie fragrances, Flora Napa Valley, Calypso, Jules & Jane, Zents Spa Collection, and many others.

Nicolette Mishkan graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in 2008. A first-generation Iranian American, she lives and works in Los Angeles. Nicolette Mishkan’s paintings are portals into a utopia where land or sea legs are not required to venture the totality of the globe, where men are nonexistent, where violence only exists in the pleasure of bondage or as a rite of spring. In her cosmology, the mermaid swims through the symbolic order, exploiting her duality to tickle, provoke, and entangle her established relationships with paternal consciousness.

Andrew Sokol is a visual artist and fashion collector currently residing in Chicago, Illinois. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Andrew attended Central St. Martins and received their BFA in Sculpture from Pratt Institute and their MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from The School of the Art Institute Chicago. Their work explores personal narratives related to luxury, commodity, value, identity, and belonging. A Voluptuary devoted to the pursuit of sensual delights—two of the core questions that drive their work are: Is the visual language of luxury always a facade? Is it possible to critique the capitalist structure while embodying the glamour it sold you? Often turning to alternative and discarded materials, Andrew stretches and explores the notion of opulence and questions the parameters around what we deem covetable. Working with materials like used aluminum cans, Swarovski crystals, marijuana ashes, and nail lacquer, Andrew employs labor-intensive handiwork, collecting, and iterative manipulation to create works that span both the minimal and maximal worlds.

Sands Murray-Wassink is a painter, body artist, writer and perfume collector with his main materials being thoughts, feelings, behaviors, emotions and relationships. His practice is indebted to various forms and permutations of intersectional feminist and queer art where Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke and Adrian Piper serving as key coordinates. After studying at the Pratt Institute (1992–94) in Brooklyn where he worked with Schneemann as his teacher, Murray-Wassink moved to the Netherlands in 1994 for an exchange programme at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Following that, he studied at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (1995–96) and, since then, living and working as a queer cult figure with his husband Robin and their cats Betsie and (then/now) Duman.

Woodley White lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. He creates artwork that shows a keen eye for detail and a passion for his subject matter. It is not uncommon for White to draw the same subject hundreds of times across all media and on various surfaces. Each aspect of White’s work is deeply considered, from the placement on the page to the intense line quality. The repetitive nature of his work conveys White’s passion for his subject matter and the focus of his observation. White’s favorite subjects are bottles, shirts, whistles, transit, patterns, and architecture. White has had solo exhibitions at SAGE Studio, Austin, TX and Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ. He has been in several group shows in Philadelphia at venues including High5 Gallery, AIRSPACE, InLiquid, and Savery Gallery and shown internationally at Arts Project Australia, Melbourne.

Ryan Wilde is a New York City based visual artist whose practice extends from her career in millinery. Wilde received a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from Queens College. Most recently, her work has been exhibited at Anton Kern Gallery, Perrotin, and Galerie Julien Cadet in Paris. Her work as both artist and designer has been featured in Vogue, New American Paintings, New York Magazine, and Forbes, among other publications.




The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Ryan Wilde, Men Seldom Make Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses, 2023, Felt, leather, wood, brass, cotton, glass, and resin, 23 1/2h x 14w x 1 1/2d in.

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Madame Le Prune, 2023, Eau de parfum, Fragrance Notes: classic aldehydes, galbanum, bergamot, neroli, cognac, prune accord, rose, osmanthus, jasmine, orris, patchouli, labdanum, leather, tobacco, vetiver, castoreum, civet, musk, and oak moss, 7.5mL embellished flacon, Edition of 6

Andrew Sokol, Crystal Parameter, 2023, Crystal chain, Dimensions Variable

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Phantasia (Aldehydes Are So French), 2023, Eau de parfum, Fragrance Notes: classic & modern aldehydes, mandarin, bergamot, lemon, leafy green accord, violet, jasmine(s), rose petals, neroli, ylang ylang, orris, sandalwood, vetiver, oak moss, civet, musk, and ambergris, 7.5mL embellished flacon, Edition of 6

Nicolette Mishkan, Persephone, 2021-23, Oil on canvas, 20h x 16w in.

Nicolette Mishkan, Simurgh, 2023, Oil on canvas, 24h x 36w in.

Nicolette Mishkan, Cupid's Fire, 2022-23, Oil on canvas, 16h x 20w in.

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Phantasia (Aldehydes Are So French), 2023, Mixed media on paper, 22 1/2h x 15 1/2w in.

Stephen Jones, Concept, Autumn/Winter 2013, Polychrome steel wire headdress, 19h x 24w x 12d cm

Stephen Jones, Interview, Autumn/Winter 2013, Digital leather tiara, 19h x 19w x 5d cm

Stephen Jones, Construction, Autumn/Winter 2013, Velvet spinning top with veil, 19h x 26w x 17d cm

Stephen Jones, Freedom, Autumn/Winter 2013, Signature mask in silver plated steel mesh, 22h x 28w x 17d cm

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Andrew Sokol, High - low I, 2022, Resin, marijuana ash, foam, and plastic, 43h x 17w x 2d in.

Woodley White, Untitled 1-36, 2022-23, 36 drawings: graphite and black crayon on paper, 43h x 17w x 2d in.

Woodley White, Untitled 1-36, 2022-23, DETAIL VIEW

Woodley White, Untitled 1-36, 2022-23, DETAIL VIEW

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Andrew Sokol, Frivolous Essentials, 2023, Crystals and packing material, 47 1/2w x 16d x 1h in.

Andrew Sokol, Frivolous Essentials, 2023, DETAIL IMAGE

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Black T, 2023, Eau de parfum, Fragrance Notes: metallic aldehydes, sumi ink accord, linen accord, orris, salty musk accord, sugar, ambergris, and vetiver, 7.5mL embellished flacon, Edition of 6

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Madame Le Prune, 2023, Mixed media on paper, 21h x 15 1/2w in.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Madame Le Prune, 2023, Mixed media on paper, 21h x 15 1/2w in.

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Sands Murray-Wassink, Sideswiped / List of Grievances, 2023, Watercolor and pen on paper, 19h x 11 1/2w in.

Sands Murray-Wassink, Horse Triangle #3 (Body), 2023, Watercolor and pen on paper, 19h x 11 1/2w in.

Sands Murray-Wassink, Horse Triangle #1 (Mental Health), 2023, Watercolor and pen on paper, 19h x 11 1/2w in.

Sands Murray-Wassink, Horse Triangle #4 (Influencers), 2023, Watercolor and pen on paper, 19h x 11 1/2w in.

Sands Murray-Wassink, Horse Triangle #2 (How To Be An Artist), 2023, Watercolor and pen on paper, 19h x 11 1/2w in.

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

The Game of Pearls, Prune de Madame, and Other Phantasia (As Confided to the Rusch Womxn), Installation View

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Powder Puff & Pearls, 2023, Mixed media on paper, 22 1/2h x 15 1/2w in.

Dawn Spencer Hurwitz, Powder Puff & Pearls, 2023, Eau de parfum, Frangrance Notes: classic aldehydes, violet lipstick accord, rosewater, orris butter, jasmine, powder accord, sandalwood, cold cream accord, civet, and musk, 7.5mL embellished flacon, Edition of 6