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We use the language of fetishes because they are displays of alternative sensitivities, symptomatic expressions of a culture. Desires transferred, rerouted into others. Metal bars as alternatives to comfortable arms, steel tubing as both safety and repression, of course someone is going to develop some odd affinities toward it, would want it to restrain some silken flesh. The bondage community has long been attuned to black leather and clean skin. Art premised on its cultural associates, the feminine and flesh, WWII paratroopers drifting through the heavens, their death: Art's survival on the ability to innuendo itself. A material we call stainless. Instead like tofu absorbs the flavors of everything.
See too: Chadwick Rantanen at Essex Street, CAWD on Fetish