It May Be You Fear More to Deliver Judgment Upon Me Than I Fear Judgment is, in the words of the artist team of Lovett/Codagnone, a ‘performative sculpture’. It consists of a pair of glass objects cast in a material diametrically opposed to their original function; one of iron (torture, the heretic’s fork), the other rubber (pleasure, an S&M ball gag). These objects are presented as dual aspects of a relationship and the tenuous nature of the struggle for power in many of its various incarnations. Far too fragile to perform with, It May Be Your Fear… still conveys the qualities of danger, sexual tension and duality which exist in much of the team’s other work. The title of the piece is an historical quote, one given by the philosopher Giordano Bruno to the Grand Theologist of the Inquisition when the philosopher’s sentence of death was pronounced on the grounds of heresy. Bruno was burned at the stake on February 17th, 1600 in Rome, Italy, declared a heretic and all 30 of his books destroyed.

Lovett/Codagnone's work is an ongoing exploration of relations of power as manifested in explicit cultural signifiers, including its clandestine or unconscious practices. Since 1996, Lovett/Codagnone have been rigorously engaged with performance and video installations. Previous photo-based collaborations have referenced S&M through the displacement of gay sub-cultural signifiers into suburban environments and public spaces. The content, however, is not limited to this ironic juxtaposition. As culture at large has inured itself (through fashion and other mainstream depictions of S&M and drag performance) against the destabilizing power of these practices, the artists have focused and commented on the trend, along with its underlying dynamics of interaction that sexual role-play can literalize. In many of their works the audience is confronted with a theatrical fall-out: one which reflects on the identities of scripted and patterned communications/interactions of family dysfunction. The complexity of human dynamics is dramatized, often through the distillation of a pose that demands intensity and endurance. The strenuous performances often convey the uncomfortable and complicated shifting dynamics inherent in human relationships.

Lovett/Codagnone have had numerous international exhibitions, performances and screenings, including P.S.1/MoMA, New York, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA, The Deutsche Bank, New York, Documenta Publications Project 2007, Kassel, Germany The Eighth Square: Gender, Life and Desire in the Visual Arts Since 1960, Ludwig Museum, Cologne; PERFORMA 05, First Biennial of new Visual Art Performance, New York; Split Subjects, De Appel, Amsterdam; Log Cabin, Artists Space, New York; Hosted, Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem Netherlands; Sparwasser HQ Platform´da: The Home Video System Project, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul; Chironex Fleckeri, or Suspended Moments (Mulholland Drive), Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK), Berlin; 20th TFF (Torino Film Festival), Palazzo del Lingotto, Turin; Identité, Mètissage et Autres Arrangements, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Video Art Plastique, Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie, Hérouville Saint-Clair, France; My Generation: Video Art from the 70's to the Present Day, The Atlantis Gallery, London; Contemporary Utopia - Musdienu Utopjia, Latvian Centre of Contemporary Art, Riga Latvia; Mining the Store, Allentown Art Museum, Allentown; Non Solo Fotografia, Centro d’Arte Contemporanea Ticino, Bellinzona; Remix, Musee des Beaux Arts, Nantes; Transatlantico, Centro Atlantico De Arte Moderna, Las Palmas, Spain; Interferencias, Canal De Isabella II, Madrid & Centro Andaluz De Arte Contemporaneo, Sevilla; Universidad De Salamanca, Spain; and Edifying Sappho and Socrates, Darlinghurst Station, Sidney. Solo exhibitions in public spaces include Participant Inc.; Trans>Area, NY; MicroMuseum for Contemporary Art and Culture, Palermo, Italy; Centro d'Arte Contemporanea Ticino, Switzerland; Thread Waxing Space, NY; White Columns, NY and numerous commercial galleries. Lovett/Codagnone live and work in New York.

A monograph on the artist’s work from1995-2005 will be available in bookstores May 2006, published by Charta and distributed by DAP.

Other artworks by Lovett/Codagnone

A Love Extending Far Beyond, 2004


I Only Want You To Love Me, 2004


For You, 2005


For You (Knife), 2003


Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, 2005


Heretical Empiricism, 2005


The Width Of A Room That Can Hold So Much Pleasure Inside, 2004


Guns & Dolls, 1995


Untitled Fantasy, 1995


Palm Island Honeymooners, 1996


Peak, 1997


San Lorenzo, 1997