‘You Destroy Every Special Thing I Make’ 2017-2019, part of the MASSMoCA exhibition ‘Suffering From Realness’ curated by Denise Markonish

Joey Fauerso’s reaction when the political landscape went topsy-turvy was to think about the future in which her two young sons would grow up. Often incorporating her family into her studio, You Destroy Every Special Thing I Make, 2017-19, is titled after a phrase that one of her sons said to the other. Fitting in our current world climate, this phase led to an installation comprised of Fauerso’s quick and gestural paintings – a funeral ceremony on the Ganges; Joan of Arc at a pyre; and a vertical pile of women’s bodies. Wooden blocks and other objects flank the paintings, and all appear in adjacent videos of Fauerso’s sons and other performers building and knocking down the arrangements in a continual loop of destruction and resurrection.

-Denise Markonish