Demi Kaia
The Heart Wants What it Wants
The black museum
In the story “Le sang de l’agneau”, included in his book Le Musée Noir (1946), André Pieyre
de Μandiargues describes the adventures of young Marceline Cain, “a mixture of ash, sand
and blood who, in her fourteen years had loved no one and nothing save a fat rabbit, orangeyellow, fluffy, with black ears and a white belly and feet”.1 The emotional and physical
attraction between Marceline and Souci —that’s what she called her pet— is so strong that it
helps the girl discover some unknown aspects of herself. Under the influence of a “mutual
magnetism”, Marceline enjoys rolling with him in the ground, taking him in her arms, often
letting him walk on her bare breasts, as she would do with a lover. This very close
relationship between human and animal in the story of Mandiargues culminates when
Marceline, out on a summer stroll to the harbour with her mother, sees three huge swordfish
recently slaughtered and laid on handcarts. The young girls stops speechless before this
spectacle: “Mrs Cain had to call her daughter and then walk back and take her by the arm,
distracting her from her melancholy ecstasy”.2
Comparisons may often be superfluous and pointless, but in the case in hand they
appear to be inevitable and illuminating. The protagonists in the new works of Demi Kaia
exude a melancholic ecstasy like that of the heroes of Mandiargues. The subjects that trigger
Kaia’s interest so as to render them in painting are more or less familiar to fans of erotic
literature: man’s association with animals, to the point of sexual attraction; the miracle of the
nude body and its fetishism; nudity and its theological connotations; the common nature of
eroticism and sanctity. Add to these the artist’s interest in the narcissism of self-photography
—the notorious ‘selfies’ that inundate the social networks on the internet— and you get quite
a clear picture of what her painting is about.
The heroes in many of Demi Kaia’s works seem to experience “something like a dark
bliss” that comes from their consorting with animals.3 Two Little Angels Holding a Mouse
(2015), for instance, shows a teenage couple in the company of a mouse. All three of them
are turned towards us with their eyes absorbed, at once melancholic and ecstatic, as if they
are watching some dreamy spectacle. The two little angels’ languor, in contrast with the
animal’s alertness, suggests that their union is probably of a sexual nature — in other words,
their reverie indicates a forbidden act that has just been committed. The bodies of the two
angels are shown nude —denuded, more accurately— and incomplete: the lower part of their
André Pieyre de Μandiargues, Le sang de l’agneau, translation: Leda Pallantiou, Agra Publications, Athens
1985, p. 15
2
The same, p. 28
3
The same, p.57
1
bodies, that carries their sexual organs, lies outside our field of vision. Lying on the girl’s
back in a posture suggestive of boredom and daydreaming, the boy has his head propped on
his left hand, and his right hand is holding a string that ends around the mouse’s neck. The
mouse is staring at us speechless, like the silent witness to an illicit love, unable to speak out
and incapable of escaping the angels who are holding him hostage. As for the girl’s body,
who is holding her head with her hands crossed and her fists tight, it appears amorphous: it is
the boy’s pillow, and it lies on a light-green mattress that seems suspended in air like a magic
carpet. A passage written rather hastily along the left side of this mattress may be the key to
decoding the image and its symbolisms: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And though
I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I
have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.
With this passage from the New Testament, namely from Paul’s First Epistle to the
Corinthians, Kaia sheds a little light on the meaning of the work. Whose thoughts could be
reflected in this excerpt that exalts love? The artist’s, the two adolescents’ — or the mouse’s,
perhaps? In any case, this hint would remain uncertain if it were not for another, equally
important clue in the picture: the boy’s right arm bears the drawing of a crown above the
words Philippians 4:13 / I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. If the first
reference to St Paul’s epistle is about the power of love, the second one (Philippians 4:13) is
about the power of God’s word. A quick search on the internet will reveal the current
popularity of tattoos with Biblical passages, especially among the young celebrities of
Hollywood and the music industry. The singer and actor Selena Gomez, for instance, has
chosen to have a tattoo on her hip with the same verse, which means a lot to her.4 In Kaia’s
work, on the other hand, these textual references are read on many levels, above all
allegorically, as a comment on the stars’ unbridled narcissism, their unnaturally abrupt
coming of age and the provocative way they expose their sexuality to their fans.5 If men are
the angels’ machines, as claimed by the romantic German writer Jean Paul, the two angelic
creatures in Kaia’s work are the machines of a rapacious system made by man.
Ultimately, Demi Kaia sketches the portrait of a deviation — sexual, emotional,
psychological, social. The dark bliss that permeates most of her works is just the dark side of
success, of celebrity, of the public exposure of the self and the (photographed) body. Her
influences, the sources that underlie her latest paintings, cover the span from photographic
self-portraits to the side-effects of sexual paroxysm: the “honest” portraits in The Nu Project
of Matt Blum and Katy Kessler, which attempt to undermine our preconceptions about the
beauty of the nude female body; the “digital diaries” of photographer Natacha Merritt,
published by Taschen in 2000 with great success; the pin-up photos of “alternative” female
models on the SuicideGirls website; the unique pornographic imagination and the kinky
scenes in the cult films of Andrew Blake; the letters of Lewis Carroll to his underage girl
friends; the chance encounters and the hedonism of the passengers aboard the Great Eastern
and the saucy “but very cute” photos of young girls by surrealist Andreas Embiricos; classic
4
See the related article on the website: http://hollywoodlife.com/2013/11/07/selena-gomez-tattoo-bible-versephilippians-4-13/
5
A characteristic example is the controversial photoshoot of Selena Gomez for fashion magazine, V, where she
poses in front of the camera half-naked: http://news247.gr/eidiseis/psixagogia/h-amfilegomenh-fwtografhsh-thsselena-gomez-poy-kseshkwse-to-diadiktyo.3313785.html
19th-century erotic literature such as Alfred de Musset’s Gamiani; the perverse stories of
Marquis de Sade, but also a forgotten scandal that shocked Italy in the ’70s, around the sex
life of the voyeuristic Marquis Camillo Casati Stampa and his subservient wife Anna
Fallarino, whom he killed together with her lover before committing suicide.
Combining confession with a diary style, her works ultimately invite us to reflect on
our relationship with nudity. As the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben claims in an essay
inspired by a Vanessa Beecroft performance, nudity is not a state but an event; we experience
it always as denuding, never as a form. “As an event that never reaches its completed form,
[…] nudity is, literally, infinite: it never stops occurring”, he affirms. 6In a country where the
Church believes that “nudity is an offense” (metropolitan Anthimos), the art of Kaia and the
selfies which form the basis of her inspiration go beyond Agamben’s view to take it further:
indeed, nudity is not just infinite — it is contagious, too.
Christoforos Marinos
Translation: T.Moser
6
Giorgio Agamben, “Nudity”, in Nudities, Stanford Univeristy Press, Standford 2011, p. 65.