Lena Marquise

Lena Marquise (Russian: Елена Утина; born February 24, 1985) is a Russian interdisciplinary artist based in New York. She started her career in the early 2000s. She works primarily within the disciplines of performance and video art. Her works have been known to push the boundaries of ethics and morals within the context of human sexuality in order to ask the audience how they feel, and why, stating, “I'm asking them to think about the piece itself rather than allowing the piece to become a spectacle.” As a professional dominatrix, she strives to reveal the different forms of sexuality apart from what is conventionally accepted. All her works are based on redefining sexuality and art, as publicly acknowledged by celebrity satirist Perez Hilton in stating on his confusion about Art, “We're not really sure how this is art, but it's awesome!” She is based in Brooklyn, New York.

Performance

Her most notable performance was “Body As Commodity” performed at Art Basel Miami, at VECTOR Gallery, sponsored by Select Fair. The Huffington Post made note of the irony with which the piece gained international viral attention, “How artworks meant to call the unsavory aspects of culture into question often end up affirming them.” Proclaimed by VECTOR Gallerist JJ Brine to be a post human performance artist, she touches on post modernist concepts, “Yes, I think the piece speaks to how people are finding out about it. And how people are finding out about is itself a commentary."

Her work has called into question where art begins, and where it ends as sex culture blog Fleshbot wrote: “Maybe I'm a part of this gigantic art installation now, and by extension, so is everyone reading this…” Despite the controversial Not Safe For Work (NSFW) content of the physical portion of this piece as she described it to Cool Hunting as, "It may or may not actually be about prostitution." The work was billed as the top social post of Art Basel, with a majority of the posts focusing on musical artist Usher's participation in her installation, as summed up by a review by ArtNet News, “Unfortunately for both the artist and the gallerist, as the Internet sees it, Usher is still the star of this tale.” Since Basel 2014 Marquise has collaborated with artists, JJ Brine, Zefrey Throwell, Adrian Buckmaster and Caspar Petéus in variety of mediums.

Body as commodity

Marquise sat without movement or emotion forcing the audience or participant to consider whether using a doll for sexual pleasure commodifies sex more or less immorally than using a real body for amenities that can be monetarily quantified, such as energy; the charging of a mobile phone. This performance uses the exchange of literal energy (battery life) for figurative energy (use of body) for money ($100/10min), to exemplify the exchange of simulated sexuality for monetary gain.