Photo: Julia Maria Sinelnikova
The installation.
Photo: Courtesy of Vector Gallery.
JJ Brine’s eyes do not break contact when a man walking down Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn on Friday night stops directly in front of him, entranced by the rainbow light pulsating from inside a pop-up gallery.
“This is the official art gallery of Satan,” Brine, the director of Vector Gallery, tells the man.
“But I am the official art gallery of Satan,” the hipster contests, pulling down his lower lip to reveal a “666” tattoo. The man has never heard of Vector Gallery, but this sort of occurrence does not faze Brine.
Minutes before, Brine had concluded a Satanic mass, and was outside to get some air. The mass, however, resembled less a church service and more a series of performances by a group of artists who call themselves “Ministers of The Vectorian Government.”
The gallery is known for its vagina phone charger at Art Basel in Miami Beach last year, and its female performers tend to not be shy about disrobing in front of an audience. Tonight was no different.
Performances began with Lena Marquise, Vector’s Minister of State. Entering the gallery wearing a fur coat, she quickly discarded her covering and stood naked in gold stilettos, while Brine added vinyl alphabet stickers to her body. Then Marquise, known as “The Enforcer”, passed a gold spiky orb around the room before securing a silver mask to her face, placing herself atop a coffin, and proceeding to caress a disembodied mannequin arm with real feeling.
JJ Brine and Lena Marquise performing.
Photo: Courtesy of Julia Maria Sinelnikova.
Next up was Vector’s Minister of Education “Monty” Montgomery Harris, who ritualistically opened and slammed shut a leather-bound book, aggressively chanting biblical-sounding phrases. (Our Latin is a bit rusty, we’re afraid.) Then “The Oracle” Julia Sinelnikova proceeded to lead the audience in a surreal guided meditation. Everyone in the cramped, shiny space dutifully sat down and began to breathe deeply.
Were we achieving total consciousness? If this was, indeed, a Satanic mass, then shouldn’t there at least be some bloodletting?
Sinelnikova was part of the installation before performances began.
Photo: Courtesy of Josh Kil.
But no, we were in Bushwick, and the only sacrifices made were by patient audience members. We witnessed the final performance by DJ and performance artist Xenolith Yolita, who repeated a series of increasingly satirical self-affirmations such as “I am college educated” and “I have the sexiest tits in Bushwick” while Sinelnikova read from a book on astral projection.
Yolita concluded the mass by yelling “Butcher white Americans for art! Art! Art!” and “Legalize murder now!” to the mostly white crowd, while Brine looked on nervously.
Julia Maria Sinelnikova and Xenolith Yolita reciting self-affirmation.
Photo: artnet News.
Despite the fact that all of these activities resembled what happens at a typical Bushwick house party, we were told we were missing the point. Tonight was all about fate.
“Those who do enter view Vector as a temple of their own fulfillment,” Brine told artnet News. “Those who are deterred from entering based on existing religious beliefs or prejudices are not moved in that way. But all who are persuaded to enter have already come to the conclusion that they must do so because it is their destiny.”
Apparently one of Vector’s current catchphrases.
Photo: artnet News.