Sarah Decristoforo
Freelance artist
Text, installation, light & sound
Linz / Upper Austria
PAN-DOOR-AAAAH
2018
Neon-sound-installation
Various different dimensions
//Comissioned by
TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tirol for SEX
Courtesy: Sarah Decristoforo
// Photos: Thomas Scheid
In Sarah Decristoforo’s work, three influential male concepts of threatening female sexuality merge into a figuration of ambivalent desire that glows in high-voltage lettering: PAN-DOOR-AAAAH. Pandora (from Greek mythology: the first woman and the bearer of all fatherly evil), Sigmund Freud’s “Dora“ (the notion of hysteria as an outgrowth of perverse female inclinations) and Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita“ (the child-woman who inevitably provokes male drives) merge in a text spoken by a female voice with a breathy, erotic timbre. The loudspeaker cabins opposite the glowing red neon letters of PAN-DOOR-AAAAH force the heads of visitors into this narrow grid of traditional ideas and their bodies against steep peaks. The three female figures exhibit numerous cross-connections, which are also described in the annotated text in the accompanying guide. Do the overlapping citations in words, high-voltage letters and sounds that lead to the point of absurdity allow us to strip these discriminating inscriptions from our sexualized bodies, or at least to tattoo them a bit differently? // Text: Nina Tabassomi (Director & Curator TAXISPALAIS Kunsthalle Tyrol / Innsbruck, Austria)