___________
Tayeba Began Love Bed, 2012
metal
___________
Christian Boltanski Migrantes, 2012
metallic beds lined and illuminated by fluorescent lights and covered with plastic sheeting
___________
Sarah Lucas I might be shy but I’m still a pig, 2000
Dead pig, blood, cotton, mattress
Sarah Lucas Sex Baby Bed Base, 2000
fruit, vegetables, raw chicken carcass, mattress
___________
Meg Webster Moss Bed, Queen, 1986
Peat moss, earth, and plastic tarp
____________
Elmgreen & Dragset Boy Scout, 2008
Custom made bunk beds
____________
Rosemarie Trockel Structure, 2019
watercolor on board
____________
Jana Sterback Bread Bed, 1996
Iron and bread
____________
Tehching Hsieh One Year Performance, 1978–1979
‘The first of Hsieh’s year-long performances, One Year Performance 1978–1979, demonstrates his interest in durational time, agency, and representation. In this work, which is also known as Cage Piece, the artist spent an entire year inside a prison cell, measuring 3.5 x 2.7 x 2.4 metres, in his New York studio. This self-imposed solitary confinement involved limited communication with the outside world and required the help of a friend who brought the artist food and clothing and removed his biological waste.’
_____________
Mona Hatoum Dormiente, 2008
Steel
_____________
Michelangelo Pistoletto Hunger, 1988
Wood, foam rubber, canvas
_____________
Yael Davids Head, 2011
mixed media
_____________
David Hockney Peter Nude, Sitting on Edge of Bed, 1968
ink on paper
____________
Valeska Soares Mattress II, 2007
Solid carved marble block
____________
Louise Bourgeois Beds, 1993 – 2001
Arched Couple, 1999
Red Room (Parents), 1994
In and Out, 1997
Seven in Bed, 2001
Arched Figure, 1993
____________
Bruce Charlesworth untitled (Rabbits in Bed), 1985
Cibachrome photograph
____________
Dan Finsel The End of Time, 2019
plaster, wood
____________
Tony Conrad Examination, 1979
pencil on paper, Lucite, strap, bed
____________
Ron Mueck In Bed, 2005
mixed media
____________
Vik Muniz UNDER THE BED (POEM BY GOETHE), 2005
Wood boxes with ambrotype and letterpress
____________
Lea Porsager PAULI’S DREAM BED [Miniature Neutrino Horns on Hotbed], 2019
Steel
____________
Lygia Clark Nostalgia of the Body, 1966
‘In 1964, Clark began her Nostalgia of the Body series with the intention of abandoning the production of art objects in order to create art that was rooted in the senses. The Nostalgia of the Body works relied on participant’s individual experiences occurring directly in their bodies. These pieces addressed the simultaneous existence of opposites within the same space: internal and external, metaphorical and literal, male and female.’
____________
YEARS I don’t want to live, I don’t want to die, 2012
Beds, alterations
_____________
Joseph Beuys Bett (Bed), 1969
bronze
______________
Robert Morris Restless Sleeper/Atomic Shroud, 1981
Bed, cotton, paint, silkscreen
______________
Georg Baselitz The Painter in His Bed, 2022
Oil, dispersion adhesive and fabric on canvas
_____________
Jimmie Durham A Stone Asleep in Bed at Home, 2000
stone, bed
_____________
Robert Fawcett Lying on the Bed, 2018
Oil on copper
_____________
Antony Gormley Bed, 1981
bread and parafin wax on aluminium panels
_____________
Cajsa von Zeipel BED SCENE, 2012
Jesmonite, Styrofoam, plaster
_____________
Scott Indrisek Split Rocker, 2014
Mattress with archeological foam insert and petri-culture of organisms rotated daily.
_____________
‘In 2014, Chinese artist Zhou Jie started her art project titled 36 Days on August 9, in which she lived inside an exhibition hall lying and sleeping an unfinished iron wire bed with a certain amount of food and her mobile phone, for 36 days.’
_____________
Edward Kienholz The State Hospital, 1966
‘Locked up, lethargic and isolated from the world. Like a freeze-framed scene from a play, the two figures lie huddled in the spartan hospital bunk bed. The stale smell is also part of the work. Edward Kienholz had worked for a short period in a mental institution and seen the unglamorous, shabby world within the asylum walls.’
_____________
Man Ray Marcel Proust on his Death Bed, 1922
‘At the urging of his friend Jean Cocteau, Man Ray rushed to photograph the author of Remembrance of Things Past on his deathbed.’
_____________
Jim Lambie Bed Head, 2002
Plastic buttons, stitching, mattress
_____________
Paul P Untitled, 2016
oil on linen
_____________
Berlinde De Bruyckere Met Tere Huid, 2014
‘Constructed from layers of wax, pigment, cloth, metal and wood, the luscious surface of the Belgian’s sleeping sculpture is as fascinating as it is repellant. Reminiscent of both human and tree, it creates a basterdised hybrid, an unsettling amalgamation of animate and inanimate. This dark, earthy assemblage is stained with pigment, as if blood runs deep through its fleshy core.’
_____________
Maurizio Cattelan We (In Bed with Lorca), 2010
‘We is the three-dimensional version of a work by the artistic duo Gilbert and George entitled In Bed with Lorca created in 2007 for an exhibition entitled “Everstill” that celebrated the life and work of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. The artists photographed themselves in their customary tweed suits, lying side by side on Garcia Lorca’s narrow wood-frame bed. In Bed with Lorca work hints at Garcia Lorca’s homosexuality, which he never publicly acknowledged. Here, both diminutive waxwork models resemble Cattalan himself, suggesting that Cattelan identifies with both Gilbert and George and with Garcia Lorca himself – but this cannot be taken for granted.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Hey. Well, he should definitely see a doctor, or hopefully definitely did. You don’t want to fuck with mouth infections. Too close to your brain. I hope he’s recovering. I think Auster was a very skilled, intelligent writer, but I was never much into his fiction. It always felt a little inert to me, but, that said, I get why he’s both respected and popular. ** _Black_Acrylic, Happy that Schuyler drew you in. ‘This Dark Apartment’ is in my handful of all-time favorite poems. My sincerest pleasure about the episode. It was dreamy supreme. ** Tosh Berman, Hi. Like I said, I’m not a huge Auster fan, but his value is indisputable. He’s huge in France. I was most interested in his translations of French poetry, which are very good. The fact that he was coupled with Lydia Davis for a long time always made me think there must be something more there in his work than I was getting. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I’m so happy you liked the poems. I really love Schuyler’s work. At least I’ve never seen a snail here. Isn’t that strange? Or a cockroach, although I am assured that they do exist here. I applaud your snail rescue missions. I’m still suffering from my recent addiction to pet rescue videos, so … I saw ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, or, rather the first 15 or so minutes before I pressed Stop rather aggressively. Love, having recently learned through me of your fondness for beds, hereby offers you any bed you see up there that you wish to lie on with free delivery and installation plus removal of the bed that you currently have if you so wish, G. ** Joseph, Good. Oh, I love when you can get in that state where you’re sufficiently distanced from your work that you can totally objectify it and mess with it dispassionately. So, congrats, I hope. I never know what my stuff is about. High five there too. I’m happy you came around to Schuyler. His stuff sneaks into me in the most deft and unassuming way. That fascinates me. Good day, sir. ** Gaah, Oh, hey, Harper. Gaah is good, colorful. Agreed completely about indie rock’s recent meh status. There was that time in generally the 90s where both rock and electronic music were forging ahead with what felt like equal just differently architected ambition. So you had your Pavement and GbV and Sebadoh and so on exciting you from the guitar/sonics angle and Aphex Twin, Autechre, and others doing the same thing electronically. I guess it makes sense that electronic music ended up being so wide open since it had no obligation to the verse/chorus/verse structure. Not to say there aren’t interesting rock people pushing onwards out there, but it does seem like a trickle compared to the ongoing wealth on the other side. It’s interesting. Lots to think about. So happy about your New York School obsession. The New York School poets kind of made me. I was completely obsessed with them in my early 20s. I carried around this old anthology ‘An Anthology of New York Poets’ Bible-style for a long, long time. Thanks for the gender clarity. I don’t think I had a gender for you in my head. But focusing is always good. Or, well, almost always. What are you doing for inspiration these days? ** 🎹Da🏃♂️rb🚚y, That’s a good one. Wait, you’re moving? Okay, sounds like a step up hopefully, but moving a piano? Ouch, my aching back. Wow, good luck. I hope it’s newly ensconced by now. I’m been pretty fine, I guess. No complaints, or, well, no big complaints. A fair number of little ones. I hope you get to write, duh. Sure, show me your piano by whatever means is easiest. Weird things in my home … Uh, I have this little plastic statue of a baseball player that they gave out to everyone who went to a Dodgers game in Los Angeles that I attended. That doesn’t seem very me. I have a desk lamp that has a metal (bronze?) statue on its base of this dandyish guy with one hand faggily on his hip and the other hand holding out a fountain pen that I stole from an apartment I used to live in and is maybe worth something. That’s all I can think of. Would you want your piano to be a player piano if that was an option? ** Uday, Conceptual lit votive candle that it works. You look like Jesus? That’s interesting to know. I would never have guessed even though I’ve never pictured what you look like. ‘Romanian movie of people confessing’: no, I don’t think I know that. What a premise. I would only be in an anthology like that if I owed the editor a huge favor, and even then I’d find some way to wriggle out of it. Yes, ugh. Yes, I have you contextualised among my friends too. Whoop! ** Right. I hope you’re interested in beds because I’m presenting a whole bunch of them to you today. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
*
haha fuck, the boy scout 2008 piece is incredible – i’d probably struggle to articulate why it really registers quite as much as it does – maybe the sexual pull from one bed to the other? or maybe it’s a similar appeal to those men who install mirrors in the ceilings above their beds to watch themselves have sex, but a little more intimate. anyway, thanks for sharing!
interesting to see louise bourgeois on your blog too! she’s someone i’ve always kind of visually associated with your work somehow – i often visualise / design book covers for books i’ve particularly enjoyed as a kind of exercise, and she always springs to mind as a perfect companion piece to some of my favourite bits of your writing, particularly her more “body in a bag” kind of art.
i’m doing great, thanks for asking – how’s everything with you?
Tracey Emin – My Bed was a genuine cultural phenomenon at the time, making the tabloid front pages of the 90s UK. As a young art student back then, I was impressed that such a challenging work could have an impact on the public imagination. But I then I do like her stuff, despite the YBA movement being Kryptonite to many.
Just saw Rimini, a recent film by the Austrian director Ulrich Seidl whom I’m very fond of. Interestingly, he seems to have dialled down the misanthropy and gone for something a bit more elegaic with this one.
Rock seems livelier in the UK. Still House Plants are really doing something new with it. But shoegaze sounded so fresh in 1990. More than 30 years later, bands are retreading it instead of coming up with something just as innovative. Most of the time, “indie” sounds closer to ’70s soft rock singer/songwriters than anything derived from punk or post-punk.
The Prismatic Ground festival, devoted to experimental films, opens here next weekend. I have already bought tickets for the new films by Tsai Ming-liang and Joost Rekveld. I wish I could afford more, especially Raul Ruiz’s EL REALISMO SOCIALISTA (made in 1973 but left unfinished due to the coup, finally edited by Valeria Sarmiento last year.)
At the risk of launching a political rant, the repressive climate in the US, especially New York, has hit new lows. It’s really terrifying.
Uday, what’s the name of the Romanian film you mentioned?
PS: Here’s my review of I SAW THE TV GLOW: https://gaycitynews.com/i-saw-the-tv-glow-stuck-in-rut-with-a-dream-of-change/
Hi Dennis! I like complicated too, and I hope I can be its friend back if it does things like be friends with odd people. I’m okay, I had an eventful but apparently necessary hospital visit but otherwise same basically, things have been boring in an okay way. Thanks for being patient with me in general. I’ve wanted to read ‘Pornocracy’ forever, so I’m going to try to nab a copy if I can find one. Thanks! It’s great to see you too. Here’s a bed from Rachel Whiteread I really like https://tinyurl.com/dnm75p93 — x, e.
Hi Dennis,
I like complicated, I hope I can be its friend back if it does things like be friends with odd people. I’m okay, I had an eventful but apparently necessary hospital visit but otherwise same basically, things have been boring in an okay way. Thanks for being patient with me in general. I’ve wanted to read ‘Pornocracy’ forever, so I’m going to try to nab a copy if I can find one. Thanks! It’s great to see you too. Here’s a bed from Rachel Whiteread I really like https://tinyurl.com/dnm75p93 — x, e.
oh whoops, sorry!
Hey. My inspiration has not been out of the ordinary as of late. As usual I’ve been reading a lot and listening to a lot of music. The difficulty is finding my own voice. I feel like I have to temporarily forget my favourite writers when I write, not forget them completely, just put them out of sight for a moment so I can find my own voice.
I’ve been reading Genet’s ‘Miracle of the rose’ which aside from ‘Prisoner of Love’ is the only book I haven’t read by him. Genet is just always so natural, and I’ve been paranoid about how transparently revised my writing might come across as. The trick is to make something that looks natural but actually isn’t. Art is artificial, that’s what’s good about it, that it’s all a lie. I want my writing to be like a plastic rose, that looks real but when you examine it see that it’s a fake.
Also, I’ve been desperate to read that Ron Padgett book of New York poets (if thats what you are referring to), but unfortunately it’s out of print. It looks like it could be a gateway to a lot of writers I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise. I know it’s one that has a lot of legend around it, maybe for that someone will bring it back into print eventually? Doubt it but I’m sure the list of writers included is online somewhere. Do you know of any understated writers in the New York School I should check out? I haven’t read Barbara Guest yet.
And re: beds. Here’s Stephen Tennant, one of my many Gods, who once spent seven years in bed and made his life his art instead of his art his life. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/eo9z-_oy38q.jpg
Hi, Dennis! More great curation. That Edward Kienholz piece is really something. Very evocative. Imagining the smell really elevates it, too. 🤮 It’s no wonder so much art has been dedicated to the place we spend 1/3 of our lives. How has your week been?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OskiygT6pMNCAGo2-WqHCeTmF9zCWJZSSK1BuNr6210/edit?usp=sharing
oh here is the piano. Also I added the cat because she was very necessary.
I hope you have a good weekend. I have nothing to say. That lamp sounds kind of cool. I guess it would be cool to have a piano that plays itself. would that be considered piano masturbation? That shouldn’t have made me grin…but I guess I’m glad it did!
I mean I don’t think it’s that there’s a resemblance there it’s just the hair and one week beard. My facial hair grows in alarmingly quickly. I have some idea of what you look like, of course, but merely through images. In honour of today’s post I am writing this from my bed and hoping, for that reason, that tomorrow’s post is not about gymnasiums.
Hiya!!
Currently writing this from bed! Having a weird day where my internal alarm clock decided 7:30am was fine, rather than my usual, rigid 6:00am — which is such a fun little treat. Was also going to mention Tracey Emin – My Bed, but someone else beat me to it. I was born a year after they exhibited it in the Tate and it got a bunch of crazy press, so I haven’t really known a life without that being a touchpoint in every single “modern art is shit!!” conversation in the UK ever.
Also, there’s just something about the moss bed that makes it seem really edible. Maybe the angle just makes it look like broccoli?
Just finished reading The Sluts, by the way! Didn’t know how it was going to end until it did, and I’m glad it went that way. I was sort of expecting everything to have been completely fake, except maybe the first one or two reviews, so I’m glad (???) some of it (???) was real (???). Don’t know if you’re aware of the small army of bots that pump out stock photos of sunrises/sunsets/etc with quotes sourced from GoodReads pasted over the top — à la early-internet “inspirational quotes” — but if you Google “Dennis Cooper Quotes” you get a pretty soothing picture of the moon underneath “Don’t stop believing in me, Brian. It was just a bad day.” So that’s something.
Oh, and happy very belated May Day! Wishing you the best, chillest weekend when it comes — whatever you end up getting up to!!