Smutty Smut Exhib – Performance

Through myself, I activate an alter ego whose material of choice is dirt.

Performance

Duration: 20 min.

Versions: wet–black look; dry–grey look

Smutty rejects outfits that can be bought ready made.

He DYI's his own flow, as a way out of commercialised gay lifestyle.

From the bathroom
into various landscapes and in front of an audience, Smutty carves out queered spaces.

He believes in muck as it grounds inner turmoils into a sound physical reality.

Spending time with Smutty is a process of

sensorial discovery.

Although he might look terrifying, Smutty is a rather sweet persona. He is not well–versed in the many manners and codes of our society. He exists so that he can present himself to an audience. To show us new ways of being with ourselves.

The process of shaping this character took me a while. It all started with an emotionally fuelled automatic writings that uncovered a persona that I craved to be.

I then had an opportunity to visualise him through a photo series for the zero number of KUNTENSERVEN MAG.

In this publication, the character was brought into context:

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I break with commodified notions of queerness and center a subjective experience.

Smutty Smut carves out a safe space for himself in a queer world that is fraught with tension. The work gives a glimpse of what could happen if we allow ourselves to move back to the ‘worlds within the world’ sketched by Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta in the book ‘The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions’.

The explorations that might result from this will provide a safe space for queer subjectivity to take hold, and allow other subjectivities to blossom, like it did for Smutty Smut.

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Later in the process, I expanded the work into a live performance – the Smutty Smut Exhib. Smutty exhibits himself, allowing people to admire him, to see a kink in him, or to project just anything that comes up at that moment...

PERFORMED AT

2025

Pride Art Route, Amsterdam

Published in

2024

Kuntenserven Mag. – Issue Zero