Every week this spring and summer, I would receive a photo message from Aaron depicting a new tableau ready for human adornment and activation. Then, as quickly as he manifested, he dismantled and devised the next scene of glittery, languid, luscious, play-space for his co-conspirators. The portraits and fever-dream fake outtakes of ‘las sirenas’ are created in full detail with exuberance and gaiety that leaves no surface or edge untouched; Aaron literally leaves no tassel un-tasseled. Across the panorama of ‘las sirenas,’ the excess of the frame exposes the armature of the set – even the stage has a stage, people! “Operating outside the laws of tempo, tone, decency and key” the camp of these works unravels in the neon-mannerism to edgy baroque stylization of each scene, the doubling, tripling, quadrupling of self-reference and contagious repetition of image, object and pose, and the play between twoD and threeD taken to the nth degree.

The tableaux themselves are mesmerizing as there are so many details that amplify a hyper sensory experience. Words generally just get in the way of this is the kind of sensual viewing. So that my words add and do not distract, I could turn this into a treasure hunt, e.g. Find all the red candles. Where’s the kerosene? How many fish skins were sacrificed to make these photos? What is in the fanny pack of that cop? Do mermaids have legs? Light a match or tie a knot? And who could resist: Are there more dicks than nipples than tassels? MEOW!

Oh dear, no... Sigh.

What intrigues me most as I look and look and look again across this body of work, is that my looking is returned with astonishing alacrity. More than looking at one another within the frame, the protagonists confront and arouse the viewer and the photographer at once. At times their gaze is sidelong, knowing, mischievous, petulant, egging you on, and sometimes saying: “fuck it all and fuck me while you’re at it – well actually, in your dreams, honey.” These sideways glances are matched with red, bold lip, headlong, look all you like, direct address of those holding the title roll, burning down the house, and hog-tying the pigs wearing black lace-up leather platforms. This exchange between photographer and performer – amplifies the co-creation of each tableau and maximizes the collective potential of exploring strategies of community care developed within an art practice during a global pandemic.

In this exhibition of photographs, ‘the tassels have tassels,’ luxuriate in the intense sense of purpose, vision, and seductive play that emerges from a.r. havel’s extravagant attention to manifesting the cruddy opulence of his mind’s eye.

kara lynch :: Talasi/Tulsa, Indian Territory/OK

November 19, 2020