Lisa Kokin
Girls Who Like Ice Cream Also Like Pie, 1997
Unique, signed by the artist.
1531
Oblong octavo. (13)ff. Made almost entirely of found objects, most related to sewing and fashion, the book slyly deploys the language and imagery of heteronormative dress to comment on the...
Oblong octavo. (13)ff. Made almost entirely of found objects, most related to sewing and fashion, the book slyly deploys the language and imagery of heteronormative dress to comment on the fluidity of sexuality. It oscillates between images of average (i.e. straight) looks and relationships, as constructed by an external social and commercial force, and the materials of do-it-yourself clothing, suggesting that your inner life, including your sexuality, is what you make it. Kokin's specific attention to 1950's America highlights the consumerism and conservativism that weighed upon those who dared be different; her aim is clearest at the second leaf, where an Oakland police fingerprint document has been altered to the "Bureau of Orientation." The book's readymade structure embodies exactly the sort of coy winks required to communicate queerness in the midcentury period. Bound with a binder ring in cardboard covers printed with instructions for assembling a dresser. Fine. Archivally housed in clamshell box.