Nora Riggs, “Erotic Bath”, 2018, oil on canvas, 42 x 30 inches
January 14 - March 8, 2019
ASSEMBLY
A colorful patterned shower curtain is pulled to the side of a freestanding tub, grazing the hex tile bathroom floor. Visible pee in the toilet bowl reveals the intimacy of a shared space. Bathtub accoutrements on a turquoise square tile wall include an upright bar of soap, a hanging natural sponge, and two plastic bottles with organic graphics in a wall basket. Two people face each other in the bath with three overlapping knees emerging from the water, the outer two attached to lingering languid legs, above a red and green floor house plant beside a white wicker stool with two burning candles, a small pink votive and a large ivory pillar. These mimicking selves in profile- half circles of hair waves, a sunken dilated eye, a flared nostril, an exposed ear, a downturned frown, the arc of a dangling arm and another’s steady gaze, flowing undone hairdo, mute pout, submerged limbs- who is displeased or focused, which is calm and effacing? The water must be hot because her smooth skin and his hairy legs are flushed pink. Floating on the surface are the tips of her wood grain hair and some airy bubbles which appear sudsy not flatulent.
JP (furious): What the hell, Charlotte? Right in the heart!
Charlotte (tight-lipped in anger): Look, JP, can’t we just agree that killing people is bad?
JP (still upset): Well, you seem quite pleased with yourself.
Charlotte (resolved): I do feel good about things actually. Now move your foot, it’s pulling my hair and my neck hurts.
He wants her to be impressed
She doesn’t want to hurt him
They are on the same page
Discussing the mundane
Summer camps and head lice
Stomach viruses and parties past
Wishes they wanted the same things
Hopes they don’t notice that ingrown hair Is bored and thinking about someone else
Plans to ask about marriage
She wants to go to sleep
She’s hoping he’ll spend the night
Its morning and the daylight
No, it’s night and there are scented candles burning
Who forgot to flush the toilet
He even vacuumed the rug and washed the towels
Her dinner was perfect
Does he look fat with his tummy full
Will they find this sensual
The humid musky scent of the apartment bathroom
Expels the odors of all its former tenants
They are proud of the renovation and happy with their choice of finishes They shouldn’t have made that joke at dinner and offended their friend Couldn’t tell them they have bad breath
Wouldn’t say they hate their new haircut
Feeling a sudden rush of giddiness
Even still after all these years
Blood rushing to their cheeks
Often at the thought but always as at the sight
Wondering what their last text really meant
Talking about themselves too often
Asking more questions to seem interested
The TV is on in the other room
The Spotify playlist has gone awry
Dishes in the sink
Dishwasher humming
Taking pictures of each other
Cooking new recipes
Folding laundry on the bed
Checking the mail to find nothing
Running to do the shopping
After work and before this
Making lists of things to do
Together and alone
Tomorrow, next week, month and never
For each other
In this moment
How can they share all of it
How can they forget all of it
Anxiety about things overlooked
Egos shed with clothes
Soaking away the day
Dipping into it
Open and closed facing apart
Religion politics privilege
Race class heritage style
Comedy tragedy drama
Flowers in the bedroom
Coats in the hall
The other rooms occupied
With static guests
Belongings in a state
Frozen animation anticipating the next action
Her cold subsides
His hay fever severe
The tension from their argument
Soreness from a long workout
In preparation of the evening
Their friends that skipped out with some lame excuse so they had one last drink and then somehow ended up here
CURTAIN
EPILOGUE- after Joan Didion
They have never been any place they wanted to go.
Their minds are expanded enough.
The temperature at two was 98 degrees.
They had misunderstood one another, or they had not.
How had they gotten from there to here- there, as always, was the question.
Moving like somnambulists through the days of their lives.
They were quite beautiful with a NY LA coastal arrogance.
A day of boredom so extreme as to be exhausting.
They are easy here in the way that they are not easy in other places. They do not know whether they said things to each other at three or four in the morning or whether they dreamed it, and have not asked.
CHARACTERS- 1793 status quo
Jean-Paul Marat, Jacobin, “Friend of the People,” Reign of Terror, skin condition
Charlotte Corday, Girondin, “Address to the French People, friends of law and peace,” 5’1” Plutarch’s Parallel LivesA 6-inch kitchen knife, a guillotine
“Aidez-moi, ma chère amie!”
“I killed one man to save 100,000”
His heart embalmed and enshrined
Her body autopsied for proof of virginity
A slap to the face of her severed head
Alternate title: Marat and Corday take a bath together in the afterlife
Acknowledgements: Marat/Sade, A Play by Peter Weiss
Scenes and stories are entwined in Nora Riggs’ paintings, inter-related by proxy of palette and conjuring- a room weaves to another room, the apartment stack of adjacent interiors, a side plan view filled with layers of patterns and colors and fabrics and surfaces, a floor above or below, cropped bodies faces, facing towards and away, across sections of culture, outlines of lives, cis gay, boy girl persons, high low, clothed naked, dead alive, revolutionary contra, standing reclined, inert action, peaceful malaise, familiar unknown.