Mixed Messages (1995)

Mixed Messages is a work that addresses the issues of race and sexuality. This mixed media installation consists of three life size photographs of Gina Gonzalez, who is subject of two 20 minute videotapes. Gina is a transsexual claiming to have undergone a sex change between the first taped interview, in 1990, and the second, in 1994. In the initial session Gina allows us to glimpse into her life as a prostitute; in the next she reacts to the first taping. We not only look at her or listen to her, but she is also present in the form of a life-size photo cutout. The artist explores the boundaries between the public and private, and between appearance and reality. Conventional behaviour patterns, attitudes, and stereotypes are challenged in a work that brings out a variety of voyeuristic reactions in the subject, the artist, and the viewer.