Exhibitions

Steven Miller

Les Fleurs du Mâle

In his solo exhibition,Les Fleurs du Mâle, Steven Miller presents a cohesive body of photomedia works that pay homage to the French novelist, playwright and political activist Jean Genet.

© 2013 Steven Miller, Les Fleurs du Mâle, Archival inkjet print, 42x28 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
© 2013 Steven Miller, Les Fleurs du Mâle, Archival inkjet print, 42x28 inches. Courtesy of the artist.
  • September 5 - 25, 2014
  • Opening: Friday, September 5

Jean Genet, who lived from 1910 through 1986, was openly gay and imprisoned multiple times for petty crimes and indecency. Representing the absolute opposite of what society considered permissible, Jean Genet is celebrated as progenitor of the modern queer movement.

Steven Miller, inspired by Genet’s 1949 book The Thief’s Journal and 1950 film Un Chant d’Amour has, in Les Fleurs du Mâle, created a captivating narrative depicting a Genet-like version of life in prison.

Jean Genet’s core themes of outcast and oppressor, violence and intimacy pervade Miller’s work. Genet’s theme is relevant: the rate of incarceration in the US is astronomical. Oppression of LBGTQ individuals is worldwide as dependence on human rights falls to the whims of government.

Beyond large-scale photographs, gallery visitors experience a video projection presenting a grid of individual prison cells. Surveillance has cropped up everywhere today, accelerated by technology, but it has always been a mainstay of prison security. In the late 18th century, social theorist Jeremy Bentham introduced the Panopticon – a unique design for institutions (especially prisons) where surveillance of the entire population could be carried out by a single watchman. While it’s obvious one individual can’t observe everyone at once, in the Panopticon, prisoners never knew when they were being watched and thus were coerced into feeling as if they were being watched constantly. This “mind over mind” plan was designed to control behavior and discourage deviance among inmates.

Miller’s meticulously staged, dark and moody representations of prison life are a beautiful homage to Jean Genet’s art and life as well as a disquieting reminder that some things never change.


About the Artist

Steven Miller is a Seattle-based artist whose work has been widely published and exhibited. Queer issues and the theme of nonconformity are central to his art practice.