ON BEING TANGLED UP
Definition: twisted together untidily; matted; complicated and confused; chaotic; involved in a conflict or fight with
Embodied: necklaces strewn about; cat’s cradle; brawling; a leash wrapped around a dog’s leg; spaghetti; bedhead; a cuddle puddle; wired headphones at the bottom of your bag; bondage; codependency; a love triangle; combs
Combing the Hair (1895) by Edgar Degas
When I think of being ‘tangled up,’ I think about my hair, which is long and straight and reaches my waist: I think of brushing my hair with someone else’s brush after sleeping at their place, leaving strands of my hair in-between the bristles, wondering who else’s hair is lingering there; I think of being a child, my mother spritzing detangling spray into my hair before combing it out; I think of my friends running their fingers through my hair, asking me if I am tender-headed, if anything they’re doing hurts, and me always saying no.
Above is a selection of work from Framing by one of my favorite artists: R. Minissi. Here, being tangled up is about connectedness (if I move, you move) and the struggle and/or submission involved with being bound.
The first position evokes a shared empathetic confusion between the two models: neither has a torque point in which they can push off to leverage themselves against the other; both appear to be in the vulnerable and clumsy raised-arms position of removing one’s shirt. The second position involves more of a power dynamic in which the standing model pushes in one direction, seemingly trying to break away from her companion, looking ahead, while her partner looks up at her, pulling her back towards the ground.
I like presenting these photos together because it demonstrates that being tangled up with someone or something isn’t inherently negative or positive, although we tend to think of being tangled up as a negative thing (the frustration of untangling wired headphones, feeling ‘tangled up’ in a sticky situation). In these photos, being tangled up implies the ability to exert influence or power over another thing/person, but this influence can either feel threatening or liberating. Navigating this dynamic is part of what makes kinbaku (sometimes referred to as shibari) so enthralling—more below:
Hajime Kinoko performing shibari at The Museum of Sex
Seen above is renowned rope artist Hajime Kinoko performing shibari at the Museum of Sex in New York City as part of The Incomplete Araki Event Series. Shibari is a form of rope bondage originating from Japan. While the terms shibari and kinbaku are often used interchangeably, kinbaku is typically used to describe shibari that intentionally uses rope artistry for the purposes of sensuality and eroticism. Popular conception of rope play conjures up ideas of BDSM, but shibari is not an inherently erotic act: it can also be used for relaxation, trust-building between partners (this is how it was supposedly used in the first season of Too Hot to Handle), or purely as aesthetics/art (as it is meant to be above).
Kinoko was working at a fetish bar when he first learned how to perform shibari, much like rope artist Coco Katsura, whose artistry was commissioned in 2017 for a fashion editorial in SLEEK 54 Mag, shown below:
And below is Marika Leïla Roux’s artistry for the European magazine Fantastic Man, with a male model as the tied subject (atypical):
By the way: the use of shibari in the fashion prints above mirrors the fashion industry’s overall current interest in fetishcore aesthetic, from latex to leather. BDSM-adjacent styles are increasing in popularity both on and off the runway.
Cuddle Puddle (2019) and Weenie Roast Wrestlers (2019) — Jenna Gribbon
These oil paintings of women intimately tangled up in a cuddle puddle and a friendly campsite brawl are by Knoxville-born, Brooklyn-based artist Jenna Gribbon. Cuddle Puddle reminds me of my senior year of college: the pandemic had just begun, and my roommates and I frequently piled into one bed to sprawl out across each other and chat; to feel comfort, warmth, and closeness during a time of intense and sudden isolation. While the women in Cuddle Puddle are clothed, Weenie Roast Wrestlers is more representative of Gribbon’s work, which typically features her partner or friends in the nude. “Whether wrestling one another in a field of grass or picnicking in the nude, her subjects exhibit an agency we don’t often see within women in Western art[…]Gribbon has said that she hopes her compositions will ‘jar people out of what they think they already know about consuming images of naked women’” (TheRealReal).
Lastly, I want to share Tracey Emin’s My Bed. It is a replica of her resting place after she suffered a four-day spiraling breakdown. It may not be immediately obvious why I think this piece belongs in the tangled up newsletter, but this work reminded me of how tangled up you can get with an intense emotion, thought loop, or other destructive internal force. This kind of tangled-up-ness is more akin to being ensnared than it is to being intertwined.
Seeing My Bed in 2022 is intimate and jarring — it makes us feel borderline voyeuristic, seeing this mess, this misery — but imagine seeing My Bed (littered with blood-stained underwear, used and unused condoms, empty alcohol bottoms, and cigarette packs) when it was first on display 23 years ago in 1999, before conversations about mental health and women’s sexuality were as prominent as they are today.
Writing about My Bed’s ability to inspire both repulsion and compassion, Alina Cohen says, “Tate Liverpool curator Darren Pih described the work as a ‘form of assemblage art’ that ‘almost resembles a crime scene.’[…]Yet My Bed also elicits warmer, more personal responses. It remains one of contemporary art’s most striking depictions of vulnerability, a self-portrait that doesn’t veer from the messiness of depression and heartbreak” (Artsy).
Are you good at untangling things (jewelry, messy situations, hair, headphones)? What tangled up things have you recently encountered (you and your partner’s legs overlaid each other’s; a landlord dispute; a mess of yarn you were crocheting; your friend’s hair at the beach)? Did it have positive or negative connotations for you? Thinking back to shibari, is this a practice that interests or repels you (as an art form, as an erotic act, as a trust-building exercise, etc)? Why?
with affection,
makayla
p.s. my previous newsletters were about moving together, tenderness, public space, and accumulation