I was sitting in front of a video. I heard what sounded like a kid thrown against a wall echo from the other room. I watched Sharon Hayes’ new work Ricerche (2021) on the opening day. Like most these days, the opening was longer, midday, all day. The gallery, The Common Guild, attracts an older crowd. An older lot often bring a younger group of kids. The rooms were noisy, I'll get over it. The Common Guild is currently baseless. The rumour I heard was that their townhouse location on Park Circus, a rich bit of the West End, was reacquired by whichever benefactor had granted them its use in the first place. Before the lockdown, the gallery was giving talks around the city. Now exhibitions appear to be happening in makeshift spaces. The work, which I will get to, is on show in the old Adelphi Terrace Public School at 5 Florence Street. The location was an exhibiting space during the last Glasgow International Festival. It hasn’t been a public school for a while. Again, why am I crying about kids screaming in a school?
The American artist Sharon Hayes has presented three works, multi-channel videos, on each floor. Each somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes long, their content presents Hayes with her back turned to the camera questioning various groups of people. I read the text, the work uses Comizi d’Amour (1964) by Pier Paolo Pasolini as a guidepost. I watched a bit before I went, and it is true, Pasolini does much the same in black and white—even asks some of the same questions, like where do babies come from? The questions, or rather, the answers I found fascinating were those from the women of the Arlington Impact and Dallas Elite Mustangs, both, First Division, Woman’s Football Alliance.
In February 2020, a couple dozen American football players answer questions into Hayes’ wind-shielded microphone. Questions like; What’s it like taking a hit? What’s it like being a woman on the field? How long have you played? What does your family think? Does playing football make you a better lover? Did you have to learn how to use your body in a different way? The answers are all complex, varying from person to person; the microphone is passed around so many can respond. The players talk about escapism in sport, taking out parental aggression, the difficulty in finding appropriate sports gear like pads that accommodate their bodies, what their relationships are like, and their dedication, gender experience, and sisterhood. The conversation opens both participant and viewer alike to expanded thinking on gender presentation and sexuality, among other things.
When I began writing a newsletter in May 2021, I posted a review of Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby. I spoke about the book and my experience with detransitioning—a component of the fiction. I identified as a woman once, I was on hormones and used she/her pronouns. I de- or re-transitioned, to a man. In Ricerche TWO (2021), the women talk about masculinity on the field.
—Do you get more masculine on game day?
—Yes. Urghh– it comes out, you know? It's… I mean– Yes. [Laughs]
The women all talk about their different experiences with their gender on the field. What it means to them. For some their gender is something static and for others it's fluid. Gender can be in the practice, in the performance, playing a game; or it can be in neither.
Recently, I joined a gym—I will be taking my congratulatory correspondences henceforth—to get ripped. I want a larger body. I want breasts, pecs; a bigger chest. Which are all different, or are they? I was once taking estrogen for the same reason alongside an anti-androgen that made me whiteout talking to a friend on a bench. I wanted certain parts of my body to look different. I still do. I know that acquiring such a body inches me more masculine, more man, by modern standards.
Some players see themselves the same on the field and off, others don’t. A practice, no matter what it is; sport, art, writing, goblet squats; can accommodate a resolution by repetition. The act of doing something can make it so. I drink horrible proteinaceous shakes, lift weights three times a week, and write a snarky newsletter. And I haven’t a single bone in either of my wrists! In small performances of eclectic masculinities and femininities, I live my sad little life (Jane). In performing the reporter, Sharon Hayes asks questions and I appreciate their answers. The work is a guidepost for necessary conversations and introspective contemplations. I would recommend it.
—Andy x
Ricerche by Sharon Hayes