Rated RX: Sheree Rose with and after Bob Flanagan

by Yetta Howard (Editor)

“The thing that people don’t understand is that Bob was  my invention, ” says Sheree Rose, the oft-overlooked partner of the late “supermasochist” performance artist Bob Flanagan. Unpacking this statement is at the heart of this important collection, which seeks to recuperate and showcase Rose’s contributions as performer, photographer, writer, and cultural innovator. While Rose is mostly known for blurring the boundaries between art and lived experience in the context of her full-time, mistress-slave relationship with Flanagan,  Rated RX  shifts focus from Flanagan to Rose, presenting a feminist project that critically reassesses the artistic legacies of Sheree Rose.
 
Curated with attention to queer-crip subjectivities and transgressive feminisms,  Rated RX  includes essays by and interviews with scholars, artists, and Rose’s collaborators that address gender politics, archival practices, minority embodiment, and disability in Rose’s work as well as more than eighty photographs and rare archival materials reflecting Rose’s recent and past performances. Offering a necessary corrective,  Rated RX  is the first collection to underscore Sheree Rose as a legendary figure in performance art and BDSM subcultural history, reflecting her lifetime of involvement in documenting the underground and the transformative role her work plays in sexual, subcultural, and art exhibitionism.
 

362 pages, Hardcover

Published September 29, 2020

Reviews

[Iain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheree Rose house wife turned mistress and performance artist is the subject of this collection of various writings and images. While those aware of Bob Flanagan and his art would likely see Sheree as his other half this well edited collection showcases Sheree as her own woman and artist, less of a participant in Bob's art and more of the mastermind behind him who then superseded him upon his death.

Yetta Howard provides an introduction that frames Sheree's art in a feminist lense seeing her art in the framework of queering the heteronormative nature of society while also showing crip or aging bodies as the sexual beings they are. I won't lie when I say my academic career centered on the legal field, so much of Yetta"s commentary was very foreign to me but I do understand her points and they're a great analysis of the persistent value of Sheree's work both past and present.

From there we get a section of written pieces firstly from Rose herself and then her collaborators. This is the meat of the book and its very strong in letting us know more about Rose and the context of her performances and other art of hers that the collaborators write about. The next section is filled with images from throughout Rose's career which pair well with the pieces in the written section. Finally we get two pieces that are out of print written by Bob about Sheree, "Slave Sonnets" and "The Fuck Journal".

For the moment this is the capstone of Sheree's career. A great retrospective but also a view into her present and possible futures. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in Sheree or Bob and his continuing influence on her art even in the absence caused by his death.

[David Kuhnlein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone working bravely, and transgressively, across forms in this way, and with as such a sustained career as Sheree Rose, may have to deal with pop radio versions of their craft... More often than not, the source artist must be intentionally sought out.

My full review here: https://www.full-stop.net/2021/04/26/...