The infrastructure of gentrification is conspicuous and garish. At Kurfürstenstraße—the preeminent red-light-cum-gallery-district of West Berlin—assorted e-scooters litter the roadsides; overhead, pink and blue pipes sprawl like varicose veins, carrying away swampy groundwater to prime land for development. These colors, however lurid, become subdued in Dora Budor’s frottages. The tripart series of rubbings on fine-grit sandpaper, titled “Terror Terroir,” 2023, were made locally, abstracting and subtracting from the skin of the city, yielding aquarelle-like bruises that flatten three dimensions into two.
A more sardonic practical effect was used to make Orange Film I and Orange Film II (both 2023). In collaboration with artist Noah Barker, Budor rigged a camera with a glass of orange wine so that the trendy libation serves as a second lens. Playing on a loop, the films depict the deindustrializing redevelopment projects and so-called public art of downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn, here a slurred funhouse of glass and chrome. Downstairs, mounted on low, sleek plinths, a group of works called “Autophones,” 2022–23, thrum heartily. Modeled after molds for the “male” (or “positive”) forms of industrial casting components, the sculptures are crafted using tonewoods typically reserved for wind and string instruments, so that the undulating vibrations of the sex toys concealed in the belly of each object resonate smoothly. Whereas “Terror Terroir” and the Orange films imbue this exhibition with a bleary sense of self and site, the sublime mechanism of the “Autophones” best articulates Budor’s disdain toward the privatization of pleasure.
