Ríona MacManus

“There isn’t room for two in the body of a Young-Girl.”*

Give It 2 Me wants you to feel left out. Madonna blares from an iPhone 8 while mostly empty plastic beer cups and discarded clothes lie abandoned on the floor. Appearing sincere, the work attempts to convince you of its own legitimacy, asserting agency over itself and the viewer. Aesthetic signifiers leverage status over the space and, more importantly, over you. The intimate residue of indulgence pulls you in, while its austere surroundings quickly push you out again.

The absence of a subject places you in the middle of it all, both as an observer and an agent within this system. No one is there to answer for the fraudulence. You are left to assume responsibility, tidy the mess, and resolve the problem.

*Tiqqun, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, 72.