Oh God/ Martina 59/9
Artist: Deborah Czeresko (American, born 1961)
Date: 2019
Dimensions:
80 × 24 × 22 in. (203.2 × 61 × 55.9 cm)
Medium: 10 mm Italian neon, argon gas, outdoor BBQ, vintage women's trophy, blow glass briquettes, concrete
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Purchased with funds given by Ann W. Hartmann and Frank Snug, with funds given in memory of Larry Thompson by his children and grandchildren, and the Museum Art Fund
Object number: 2020.4
Label Text:Deborah Czeresko uses humor and food in her work to make statements about gender inequality. Oh God/Martina 59/9 features a trophy of a female tennis player being swallowed up by neon flames atop a grill. The title references the lesbian tennis player Martina Navratilova, one of the best female tennis players of all time, and the number of titles that she won during her extraordinary career: 59 Grand Slam and nine Wimbledon tournaments. Oh God was created for Collaborations with Queer Voices, a group exhibition organized by the neon collaborative Fag Signs (FS), that aims, in part, to reclaim a historically derogatory word for the Queer community.
Czeresko explains: [Oh God]…confronts ideas about female physicality and value within the labor of athletics. […] The idea to make the grill still life grew when I unknowingly visited the pyre of Joan of Arc in Rouen, France. Then solidified when the news that the US national women's soccer team filed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation over the unacceptable gender wage gap they experience. Using neon flames and blown glass charcoal atop the altar of male cooking—the outdoor grill—the victorious figurine is immolated by the grill, which stands in for societally dominant ideas about gender and the body.
A masterful glassblower and sculptor who has worked with glass for more than 30 years, this is Czeresko’s first work incorporating neon.
Czeresko explains: [Oh God]…confronts ideas about female physicality and value within the labor of athletics. […] The idea to make the grill still life grew when I unknowingly visited the pyre of Joan of Arc in Rouen, France. Then solidified when the news that the US national women's soccer team filed a lawsuit against the US Soccer Federation over the unacceptable gender wage gap they experience. Using neon flames and blown glass charcoal atop the altar of male cooking—the outdoor grill—the victorious figurine is immolated by the grill, which stands in for societally dominant ideas about gender and the body.
A masterful glassblower and sculptor who has worked with glass for more than 30 years, this is Czeresko’s first work incorporating neon.
DescriptionA basic black bbq with three-colored (yellow, white, orange) flames ascending upward from the grill. A found trophy of a girl playing tennis sits atop the grill. Blown glass briquettes are under the grill on the base of the bbq
On view