The Corpses - Discipline, 2023
12 x 11 in.
Leather tassel, matchbox, and plastic netting on paint-stained paper towel on paper on cardboard
— The Venus Victrix on a souvenir matchbox from Rome's Borghese Gallery takes on a different tone when joined with a cut-up leather tassel and tightly wrapped and knotted netting meant to protect a wine bottle —
The Corpses - Dark Matter, 2023
10.5 x 8.5 in.
Mixed media and found objects on paper on cardboard
— A dismembered calculator and a found red plastic donkey kicking up its heels in a puddle of paint converge with text to create a merrily ominous mood —
The Corpses - What Remains?, 2023
11 x 8.5 in.
Mixed media, broken china, fabric, and stamped napkin on paper on cardboard
— A cocktail napkin stamped "For Deposit Only" gets a metaphorical boost from shards of a broken vintage pitcher, a piece of cut patterned fabric, and golden brushstrokes on the verso of a painting on paper —
The Corpses - Games of Chance, 2018
12 x 9 in.
Found objects, marbles, fabric, and mixed media on framed blackboard
— Measuring cups and a paper cup become tools of a losing game (two of the vessels are bottomless), as a handkerchief waves farewell —
The Corpses - Horse Latitudes, 2018
Plastic horse, mixed media, tape, and poem on paper
— Accidental dog pawprints and a broken but still forward-looking horse tread a found ink wash painting on paper, overseen by Emily Dickinson's "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died - “ —
Bell and Ganassi
THE CORPSES, 2005 – 2025
Laura Bell, a painter based in the Bronx, and Ian Ganassi, a poet in New Haven, met as artists in residence at the Millay Colony. In 2005, Ian mailed Laura an unfinished poem and handwritten phrases on a piece of printer paper stained with coffee rings, and in an accompanying letter asked her to do something to it. This became the first move in what evolved into their collaborative collage series “The Corpses,” titled after the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse. With each mailing, words, images, and objects were added, and new pieces were started; at any point, either of them could call a work finished. At first, it was assumed that Ian would contribute text and Laura visuals, but this division soon dissolved, with Laura adding lines cut from sources such as ads and subway handouts and Ian melting crayons and experimenting with paint. Each of them had already been using collage methods in their own bodies of work, Ian with overheard and appropriated lines in his poems, Laura with photos and laser prints in the grounds of her paintings.
Pop culture, politics, religion, and poetry made appearances, and recurring images and phrases created echoes and connections between the works. A collage might have traveled back and forth many times or made only one circuit between New Haven and New York City. The pieces were minimal or layered; early works tended to be more spare, later works often gathered more objects, though over the years this tendency followed an ebb and flow. Some pieces developed themes or functioned almost as diaries (a hospital glove, a postcard), and time frames could be found in political references. The gathering of materials became a consuming habit, combining found objects, text, drawings, ads, photos, fabrics, and all manner of mixed media—a painterly, visceral process, the anti-Photoshop. “The Corpses turned us into scavengers,” Ian stated. “We ended up trying to get the whole world into them.”
The work retained its initial sense of play while also reflecting battles over the obliteration of a passage of text or an image during the process, giving the pieces an extra edge. The series quickly demanded a level of intention equal to the work they were publishing and exhibiting individually. Called “joyously Fluxus-like” by Robert Shuster in the Village Voice and described by writer H. Byron Earhart as “going beyond collaborative to a kind of conspiratorial imagination,” the series reflects two decades of personal and material call and response.Â
The evolution of “The Corpses” continued until the last year of Ian Ganassi’s life. He made his final round of moves on the last batch of collages in New Haven, a little over a month before he died.Â
