In the Power of Your Care, an exhibition presented via The 8th Floor’s website, explores health as a human right and a cultural construct imbued by expectations of what health and sickness should visually manifest. Works within the exhibition highlight not only the shortcomings of healthcare policy but also how health is defined both physically and mentally. In her performalist self-portrait Untitled (1992), Hannah Wilke challenges the eroticization of femininity in conventional society while waging war against disease. The suite of three images were taken during her lymphoma treatment. Mimicking mugshots—views of the front, back, and side of her shaved head—the triptych shows Wilke smiling defiantly, navigating the internal and external identity shifts induced by disease. Another work by Wilke—a sculptural piece called Why Not Sneeze (1992), a homage to Marcel Duchamp’s Why not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? (1921)—consists of a birdcage filled with empty prescription medicine bottles, syringes, and other medical paraphernalia. While the work represents Wilke’s body as a vessel of illness during her treatment, it can also be seen as a tally of medical consumption in relation to the economic systems of healthcare policies, in which drug treatments are more important than the prevention of illness. Because of works such as Wilke’s, In the Power of Your Care posits art as a tool for social change, taking steps to dismantle our culture’s biased perception of health.
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