“Thus I redeem myself from casting stones, so endlessly . . . Thus I taught you not to kill. Erect within yourself the monument to Unsatisfied Desire. And that way things will never die, before you yourself die. Because I tell you, sadder still than casting stones is dragging corpses.

And if you cannot follow my advice, because life is always more eager than all else, if you cannot follow my advice and all the plans we made to better ourselves, then go suck on some mints. They are so refreshing.”

- Clarice Lispector, Cartas a Hermengardo.

In the life-long process of enduring and incorporating many conflicting sort-of truths into our personal constellations, it can be difficult to feel more of a recuperative, empowered self-concept than existing as a mere arena for contradictory impulses to play out, unto death. Is this all I am?, you might ask. How do we function when so many processes, including self-initiated ones, unfurl themselves in wave after wave of unrelenting ruin? How can intentional spaces be cultivated that fortify these bodies–to unabashedly conjure the magic despite the obstacles at every corner?

I Wanna Wake Up With You… is an experiential encounter by the transdisciplinary artists B. Anele and Marcel Monroy, a living poem comprised of installation, drawings, paintings, hand-built ceramic sculptures, and other multimedia objects, situated in a realm activated by performance. Choosing to elevate all senses at the expense of none, visitors encounter sculptures that act as altars, inviting active contemplation and interaction. Candles and incense burn at these sites, creating an atmosphere that speaks to altars as much as alterity–in this space, the ability to soothe and self-soothe reemerges as an irrepressible force, uninhibited, but not without a sense of hard-won resolve.

The ephemerality of these variegated, time-based approaches stand in contrast to others, which conversely immortalize transient processes–such as eating, breathing, falling in love, or other acts of repetition. B’s large drawings are a complex, orgiastic synthesis influenced by an intuitive ‘archive of the mind’, rendered in a kaleidoscopic range of colors with the patience and otherworldly aura that recalls automatic drawing. Depicting distorted, expansive forms drawing from personal lineages in addition to pop culture ancestors, B’s figures are most resolutely themselves, demonstrating sexuality as intractably connected to a spiritual peak. Other sculptural work by B. operate in an interstitial zone–far from being frozen in a state of aesthetic inertia, they can seemingly be reactivated again at any time.

Marcel’s ceramics, situated within the axis of an observable and well-documented language, actively work to become unburdened by any restrictive formal limitations. While functioning in a ritualistic setting, the serving implements are not servile and the vessels do not hold, at least in the ways we might initially think. There are enduring ruptures, and text pulled from personal writing speaks to an oblique spiritual hedonism. By reimagining traditional vessel forms from Arawak and Taino craft-works while removing or otherwise overthrowing any implicit hierarchies of functionality, unexpected conversations are reignited through the creation of a new, refracted paradigm of ritual care.  

Both artists, while playfully modulating an ever-changing palette of references and reflections as well as hopes for an expanded future through broadened aural channels, honor ancestors while inviting vulnerability and a sense of grounding through enacted experience. Altars and ritual settings in their installations encourage contemplation of these forms' transformation and functionality, prompting viewers to engage with the tactility and process of being with refreshing, effervescent protectiveness.