"Exaltation of the Porous Body" is a new body of video work in which Clough celebrates his experiences as a queer submissive. All of the work in this project is about exaltation—an expression of both pleasure and worship—of a body that is amorphous, shifting, dynamic, and uncertain, full of gaps and holes.
The project is centered around a two-channel narrative video work titled "On the Erotics of Stuffing Large Objects into Small Spaces." The video is a meditation on a variety of Clough’s lifestyle practices that center around using devices or “toys” to control his experiences of space and time, including his long-term wear of a chastity cage, his daily use of butt plugs, and frequent sessions spent locked in a small cage. As a person standing six feet and six inches tall, Clough has always had a sensitivity to the uncommon dimensions of his own body. This work explores the unique experiences of space and time gleaned from the world of BDSM, and the solace Clough finds in experiences that push the boundaries of comfort and consciousness. And it explores the ways that using objects to regulate the body’s processes, focusing on the body’s holes and gaps, can address complex issues like subjecthood and gender identity.
The project also features a new series of single-channel videos on monitors that function more like moving photographs. These works are silent and still, and many are shot in slow-motion as a way to situate them between the narrative and the photographic. Each is a meditation on a single practice or body part, and together they present a rich and multifaceted account of Clough’s own bodily experiences.
Peter Clough was born in Boston in 1984 and received a BA from Grinnell College in 2006 and an MFA from NYU Steinhardt in 2009. Clough has presented work in New York at MoMA PS1, Printed Matter, Fresh Window Gallery, Microscope Gallery, Southfirst Gallery, Wayfarers Gallery, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, SPRING/BREAK Art Fair, the Center for Performance Research, and Dixon Place Theater, in Pittsburg at the Andy Warhol Museum, in L.A. at Human Resources, in Nashville at Open Lot, in Berlin at Peres Projects and Space/Time at FLUTGRABEN e.V., in Seoul at Konkuk University and The House of Collections, in Antwerp at the Monty, in Ghent at Off/off Cinema and in Oslo at Kunstnernes Hus, Fotogalleriet, and SOPPEN Performance Festival at Ekebergparken. Clough’s work has been featured in the New York Times, Frieze, and Time Out magazine. Clough lives and works in Brooklyn.
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