Stephan Dillemuth’s The DAMNED (Reena Spaulings Fine Art, NYC, Sept 13–Oct 11, 2015) was a fully immersive, theatrical installation built from plaster cast bodies, animal hybrids,
skinned paintings, and kinetic elements that animated the gallery like a strange social organism. It was his third appearance at Reena Spaulings Fine Art and was created almost
entirely on site in the weeks leading up to the opening. The show brought together sculptures, paintings, video elements, and assemblages into what the gallery described as a
“theatrical social group”—a cluster of figures and objects that seemed to inhabit the space collectively rather than as discrete artworks. The installation process itself was
performative, the entire gallery floor was coated in latex, then partially peeled up to create a translucent “skin” or veil hanging in the space.Dillemuth cast his own body
repeatedly, producing limbs, heads, and torsos that he then reassembled using hooks, bungee cords, and plaster cogwheels. The wall works were based on photographs Dillemuth made
for Starship magazine. He glued the prints to the wall and then ripped them off, leaving torn, skin like residues reminiscent of Nouveau Réalisme. These “skinned” images echoed the
peeled latex floor and the fragmented bodies. A subtle electro mechanical pulse ran through the installation, causing one sculpture to spasm and the hanging pictures to jump slightly
on the wall. This gave the entire exhibition a sense of nervous animation—an uncanny, communal breathing.
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