Pieces of You is a performance series created by Steven Cohen and his partner and lover Elu Kieser. They were presented at the Durban Art Gallery in 1998, then on a contemporary ballet stage.

This project questions marginalized and persecuted identities: Ugly girl, Faggot, Dog and Jew.

The four works were then preformed in the form of public interventions (Living Art): UGLY GIRL rugby, fashion/ FAGGOT wedding salon / DOG obedience show, Sandton Square / JEW mall & taxi rank).

In the gallery performance, blood issued from Ugly girl’s mouth and anus, and an image of a healthy, ejaculating penis, alongside an image of a little girl with the premature ageing disease progeria, putting on lipstick, was projected as a backdrop, challenging aesthetic values: “Most people would see the penis as ugly and the sick child as sweet,” said Cohen.

In his gallery performance of Faggot, Cohen wears rollerskates and has a sparkler-bearing dildo in his anus. He also wears an acid-green wig and a bicycle helmet. The gaudy use of colours and outrageous appurtenances by way of fire and rollerSkates in Faggot gives the work a mocking tone. In the conclusive gesture of Faggot as a gallery performance, Cohen is pulled on a rope by Elu into a room filled with eggs. The image presents the persona in a situation where he is not in control of the damage he may cause.

” I wanted to bring home the point through humour and pathos that what we do in life is often not what we want, but what we are trained for. And we compound that by going to enormous lengths to impress as if we are dogs on show. “

Steven Cohen

This work parodies and challenges anti-Semitic stereotypes by using hunting symbols to address social persecution. The Star of David is worn on the chest, but is obscured by the “Mercedes car crash wig” (also seen on UGLY GIRL FASHION). In addition to a corset made from a dressmaker’s dummy, this work includes a gas mask, with an exhaust pipe and tusks attached to it, and an elephant foot and a bull hoof, attached to a pair of shoes. Jew uses crutches as a balancing device.

Because Jew is less overtly sexual than other works in Cohen’s œuvre, the public response was closer to curiosity and warmth.

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