Emma Sulkowicz (born October 3, 1992) is an American
performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
ist and
anti-rape activist["Carry That Weight"](_blank)
Emma Sulkowicz interviewed by Roberta Smith, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum, December 14, 2014. For age, see c. 48:50 mins. For recording of police report, see c. 38:45 mins. For rules of engagement and source of mattress, see c. 39:57 mins. who first received media attention
[Lux Alptraum]
"There Is Life After Campus Infamy"
''The New York Times'', July 21, 2018. for the performance artwork ''
Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)
''Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)'' (2014–2015) was a work of endurance/performance art which Emma Sulkowicz conducted as a senior thesis during the final year of a visual arts degree at Columbia University in New York City.For "end ...
'' (2014–2015). The artwork consisted of Sulkowicz carrying a mattress wherever they went on campus during their final year at Columbia University. Sulkowicz said the piece would end when the student who
they alleged had raped them in their dorm room in 2012 was expelled or otherwise left the university.
The work was a protest against
campus sexual assault
Campus sexual assault is the sexual assault, including rape, of a student while attending an institution of higher learning, such as a college or university. The victims of such assaults are more likely to be female, but any gender can be victi ...
and the university's handling of the sexual assault case, in which it had cleared the accused of responsibility.
[Lauren Gambino]
"Emma Sulkowicz's 'This Is Not A Rape site' taken down by cyberattack"
''The Guardian'', June 9, 2015.
Early life and education
Sulkowicz is the child of Sandra Leong and
Kerry Sulkowicz, both psychiatrists from
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, and is of Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish descent. Sulkowicz attended the
Dalton School
The Dalton School, originally the Children's University School, is a private, coeducational college preparatory school in New York City and a member of both the Ivy Preparatory School League and the New York Interschool. The school is located in ...
on the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...
, where she was an A student and competitive
fencer, and
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where she fenced sabre for the
Columbia University Lions fencing team, and obtained a degree in visual arts in 2015.
[Vanessa Grigoriadis]
"Meet the College Women Who Are Starting a Revolution Against Campus Sexual Assault"
''New York Magazine'', September 21, 2014. Sulkowicz is
non-binary and uses both ''she/her'' and
''they/them'' pronouns.
Rape allegation
In April 2013, Sulkowicz, then in the fourth year of a degree, filed a complaint with Columbia requesting the expulsion of fellow fourth-year student and German national Paul Nungesser, alleging he had raped them in Sulkowicz's
dorm room
A dormitory (originated from the Latin word ''dormitorium'', often abbreviated to dorm) is a building primarily providing sleeping and residential quarters for large numbers of people such as boarding school, high school, college or university s ...
on August 27, 2012.
Nungesser was found 'not responsible' by a university inquiry. In May 2014, Sulkowicz filed a report against Nungesser with the
New York Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
(NYPD).
After the
district attorney's office interviewed Sulkowicz and Nungesser and found insufficient grounds for
reasonable suspicion
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch; it must be based on "specif ...
, Sulkowicz declined to pursue criminal charges further,
saying that NYPD officers were dismissive and had mistreated them.
[Ariel Kaminer]
"Accusers and the Accused, Crossing Paths at Columbia University"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', December 21, 2014: "Sulkowicz did not press criminal charges, a lengthy process that she said would be too draining"[Van Syckle, Katie (January 20, 2015)]
"Alleged Columbia Rapist 'Dismayed and Disappointed' by Accuser’s SOTU Invitation"
''New York Magazine'', January 2015; accessed May 29, 2016.[Van Syckle, Katie (September 4, 2014)]
''New York Magazine''. Sulkowicz subsequently focused their senior thesis on a work of
performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
entitled ''
Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)
''Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)'' (2014–2015) was a work of endurance/performance art which Emma Sulkowicz conducted as a senior thesis during the final year of a visual arts degree at Columbia University in New York City.For "end ...
''. The performance and the allegations received considerable media attention, with Sulkowicz becoming known as "Mattress Girl". Nungesser denied Sulkowicz's allegations of rape, citing as evidence friendly messages from Sulkowicz in the weeks following the alleged attack.
In April 2015, Nungesser filed a
Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
gender discrimination lawsuit against Columbia, its board of trustees, its president
Lee Bollinger, and Sulkowicz's supervising art professor
Jon Kessler
Jon Kessler (born 1957, Yonkers) is an American artist. He began college at SUNY Purchase from 1974—78 but left after two years to travel in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. He returned to Purchase in 1978 and graduated in 1980 with honors ...
, alleging that they had facilitated gender-based harassment by allowing the art project to proceed.
Federal District Court Judge
Gregory H. Woods dismissed the lawsuit
but allowed Nungesser to refile an amended suit, the refiled complaint was also dismissed, but Columbia settled the case under undisclosed terms after Nungesser's attorney began the process of appealing the dismissal.
Works
''Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)''
Sulkowicz created ''
Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)
''Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)'' (2014–2015) was a work of endurance/performance art which Emma Sulkowicz conducted as a senior thesis during the final year of a visual arts degree at Columbia University in New York City.For "end ...
'' in the summer of 2014 as a
senior thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
while at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
Summer School of Art and Music. This performance artwork was in protest against
campus sexual assault
Campus sexual assault is the sexual assault, including rape, of a student while attending an institution of higher learning, such as a college or university. The victims of such assaults are more likely to be female, but any gender can be victi ...
and the university's handling of Sulkowicz's
allegation that a fellow student at Columbia University anally raped them.
The university cleared the student of responsibility,
and the district attorney's office declined to pursue criminal charges, citing lack of
reasonable suspicion
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch; it must be based on "specif ...
.
Sulkowicz's first effort was a
video
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
of themself dismantling a bed, accompanied by the audio of them filing the police report, which they had recorded on a cellphone.
The mattress later became the sole focus of the piece.
Sulkowicz told
''New York'' magazine:
The , dark-blue, extra-long
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
mattress used in the performance art piece is of the kind Columbia places in its dorms, similar to the one on which they say they were raped. Sulkowicz spent the summer of 2014 creating the rules of engagement: written on the walls of their studio in the university's Watson Hall, these stated that Sulkowicz must carry the mattress whenever they were on university property; that it must remain on campus even when Sulkowicz was not there; and that Sulkowicz was not allowed to ask for help in carrying it, but could accept if help was offered.
In September that year they began carrying it on campus, which they said was a physically painful experience.
During a protest organized by the student group No Red Tape on Oct. 29, 2014, hundreds of Columbia students stacked 28 mattresses on Columbia's president Lee Bollinger's doorstep. The mattresses symbolized the 28 sexual assault complaints in Columbia's Title IX case, reported ''
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
'' magazine. The Columbia student group Student Worker Solidarity, who booked the space for No Red Tape, would be charged $1500 for the removal of the mattresses on behalf of the university.
''Newspaper Bodies (Look, Mom, I'm on the Front Page!)''
Sulkowicz's final thesis show, the week before graduation in May 2015, included depictions of a naked man with an obscenity and a couple having sex, printed onto a ''New York Times'' article about the student they accused. Sulkowicz said that the images were cartoons, and asked: "what are the functions of cartoons? Do they depict the people themselves (a feat which, if you've done enough reading on art theory, you will realize is impossible), or do they illustrate the stories that have circulated about a person?"
[Emily Bazelon (May 29, 2015)]
"Have We Learned Anything From the Columbia Rape Case?"
''The New York Times Magazine''. This work was later shown under the title ''Newspaper Bodies (Look, Mom, I'm on the Front Page!)'' as part of a group exhibition at the Southampton Arts Center,
Southampton, New York.
[Andy Battaglia (May 28, 2015)]
"Will Emma Sulkowicz's Protest Mattress Wind Up in a Museum?"
''New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
''; accessed February 13, 2019.
''Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol''
On June 3, 2015, Sulkowicz, working with artist
Ted Lawson, released ''Ceci N'est Pas Un Viol'' ("This is not a rape"), an eight-minute video of Sulkowicz having sex with an anonymous actor in a Columbia dorm room.
The title of the piece is a reference to the caption in
René Magritte's ''
The Treachery of Images
''The Treachery of Images'' (french: La Trahison des Images, link=no) is a 1929 painting by Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte. It is also known as ''This Is Not a Pipe'' and ''The Wind and the Song''. Magritte painted it when he was 30 ye ...
'': "''Ceci n'est pas une pipe''". Introductory text by Sulkowicz stresses that the sex was consensual throughout, though toward the end it portrays resistance, violence and force.
[Cait Munro (June 4, 2015)]
"Emma Sulkowicz Breaks New Ground With Troubling Video Performance"
''Artnet'' When the video was first posted, each screen displayed the timestamp of August 27, 2012, the night of the alleged assault, but later the date was blurred.
[Teo Armus (June 5, 2015)]
"Sulkowicz films herself in a violent sex scene for newest art project"
''Columbia Daily Spectator''. Sulkowicz wrote that the work, which examines the nature of sexual consent, was not a reenactment of the alleged rape and later stated that it was a separate piece from ''Mattress Performance''.
''Self-Portrait''
From February to March 2016 at
Coagula Curatorial ''Coagula Curatorial'' is a contemporary art gallery founded in April 2012 by Mat Gleason, Los Angeles art critic & curator. From 1992-2011, Gleason published Coagula Art Journal, a free zine-style publication on contemporary art, which gained noto ...
in Los Angeles, Sulkowicz exhibited a piece, ''Self-Portrait''. For the first three weeks of the exhibition, Sulkowicz stood on a pedestal in the gallery, and had one-on-one conversations with visitors who would stand on an identical pedestal in front of them. The exhibition featured a life-sized robotic replica of the artist that was called "Emmatron". Emmatron plays prerecorded answers to several questions Sulkowicz has been repeatedly asked, which they will no longer respond to. A few examples of questions Emmatron had answers to included "Tell me about the night you were assaulted", "Is this art piece a part of ''Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)''?" and "What do your parents think of all this?" If audience members asked these questions to Sulkowicz during their conversation, the artist would send them to Emmatron for the answers.
''The Ship Is Sinking''
In 2017, Sulkowicz performed a
bondage performance piece titled “The Ship Is Sinking”.
In the piece, Sulkowicz (in high heels and bikini with the “Whitney” logo, to convey the look of a woman in a
beauty pageant
A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...
) is tied up, berated and hung from the ceiling on a wooden beam by a man in a suit, “Master Avery”,
as the figurehead of a ship. Sulkowicz said “white
cis
Cis or cis- may refer to:
Places
* Cis, Trentino, in Italy
* In Poland:
** Cis, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, south-central
** Cis, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, north
Math, science and biology
* cis (mathematics) (cis(''θ'')), a trigonome ...
men have the privilege of making art that can be divorced from their lives”
while “it’s a privilege that I don’t really have so I’m trying to work in a way that makes the best use of that position as I can.” At closing time, the museum turned off its lights, but spectators stayed and used phone flashlights to continue watching until Sulkowicz was finished.
Sulkowicz portrayed being able to express the pain they felt and endured, putting themself physically within the artwork.
Untitled Protest Performance
On January 30, 2018, Sulkowicz was documented protesting at two New York City museums and a subway station. During the protest, Sulkowicz posed for several photographs in front of Chuck Close
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
s at
The Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of the ...
and
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Close
mosaic
A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
in
a subway station, as well as in front of Picasso's ''
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon''. Sulkowicz wore black lingerie, with home-made
pasties made of tape, and covered their body with drawn-on
asterisk
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
s. Sulkowicz stated that the protest was a response to a ''New York Times'' article from January 28, in which members of the art world, responding to
allegations of sexual harassment against artist
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...
, debated over the future of art created by individuals accused of improper behavior. Among the people quoted in the article was Jock Reynolds, the then-director of the
Yale University Art Gallery, who stated, "
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
was one of the worst offenders of the 20th century in terms of his history with women. Are we going to take his work out of the galleries? At some point you have to ask yourself, is the art going to stand alone as something that needs to be seen?" Sulkowicz was reportedly "appalled" by the comments, asking, "are you only showing work by
Harvey Weinstein?"
The protest was described as a "performance" in the media,
and as "performative action" by the artist.
''The Floating World''
From March 10 to April 22, 2018,
The Invisible Dog gallery in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York hosted Sulkowicz's first gallery installation as a
performance artist,
a piece entitled ''The Floating World''.
The title ''The Floating world'' is a literal translation from the Japanese term
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
, an ironic homophonous Buddhist term for "sorrowful world." The piece consists of a series of glass orbs that symbolize trauma, suspended by ropes, containing floating artifacts of personal significance to Sulkowicz and members of their community.
A hybrid style of Shibari,
Japanese bondage
means "tight binding," while literally means "the beauty of tight binding." is a Japanese style of bondage or BDSM which involves tying a person up using simple yet visually intricate patterns, usually with several pieces of thin rope (often j ...
, and Ukidama, Japanese
glass float
Glass floats, glass fishing floats, or Japanese glass fishing floats are popular collectors' items. They were once used by fishermen in many parts of the world to keep their fishing nets, as well as longlines or droplines, afloat.
Large groups ...
s tied by fishnets, are used respectively to lift and hold the orbs in the air.
The relationship of the ropes and the orbs is the metaphor for the love and support Sulkowicz received from loved ones and the community.
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sulkowicz, Emma
1992 births
American people of Chinese descent
American people of Japanese descent
American performance artists
Columbia University School of the Arts alumni
Columbia Lions fencers
Dalton School alumni
Living people
People from the Upper East Side
Non-binary artists
Non-binary activists
Sexual abuse victim advocates
Transgender Jews
Artists from New York City
American artists of Asian descent
Jewish American artists
21st-century American artists
21st-century American Jews