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The exhibition, a site-specific display by Reba Maybury and Lucy McKenzie, reimagines the architecture of Ca\u2019Buccari, a new exhibition venue in Sant\u2019Elena, Venice, founded in 2024. The former shopfront units, connected as an enfilade and framed by an arcade, are emphasized as vitrines showcasing new collaborative works by the two artists.<\/p>\n
In \u201cPervert or Detective?\u201d Reba Maybury and Lucy McKenzie dissect power, desire, and subversion in an installation including murals, drawings, paintings, and a publication. Maybury, who integrates her work as a political dominatrix into her artistic practice, manipulates the dynamics of control, compelling her male submissives to create art under her direction, only to claim it as her own. Through confession and humiliation, she dismantles notions of authorship, masculinity, and labor. McKenzie, known for her intricate trompe l\u2019oeil paintings and conceptual installations, similarly blurs boundaries\u2014between art and commerce, authen- ticity and illusion. Her work challenges power structures and exposes the unstable nature of representation.<\/p>\n
The show, taking place on the occasion of this year\u2019s Venice Architecture Biennale, is produced in collaboration between Ca\u2019Buccari and gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich\u2014two spaces dedicated to an experimental exhibition program at the intersection of art and architecture. Art historian Stefan Neuner will speak about Maybury\u2019s and McKenzie\u2019s presentation within the urban context of Sant\u2019Elena, a residential quarter from the early twentieth century.<\/p>\n
\u201cPervert or Detective?\u201d opens alongside the release of a new book based on an expansive conversation between the two artists, moderated by Marie Canet. Maybury and McKenzie interrogate the logic of seduction and domination, challenge rigid binaries, and explore the material erotic, appropriation, and transformation. Edited and introduced by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen, the book includes an afterword by Susan Finlay and is published by no place press (distributed by MIT press).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n