Cassils's work comes from rage. PISSED, the centerpiece of their exhibition “Monu-mental” at Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York this past autumn, testifies to that anger. Exhibited as a massive glass cube containing two hundred gallons of the artist’s urine surrounded by the containers used to collect and carry it, PISSED addressed a transgender political struggle via a formal language at once confrontational and uncompromisingly austere. The work was sparked by the Trump administration’s spiteful, reactionary decision to rescind an Obama-era executive order that endorsed the rights of transgender students to use the bathroom of the gender they know themselves to be. In response, Cassils began collecting all the urine they passed since that date. The resulting installation offered a defiant material presence that resists the ways in which “privacy” has been weaponized against transgender lives.
From Cassils's "PISSED":
Leah McPherson was born in 1984 in Sydney. McPherson has had solo exhibitions at Firstdraft, Chalkhorse and Mori Gallery. Recently, she has performed at Peloton, PSH Gallery and the Oxford Arts Cube. McPherson’s 2005 film “The Quiet Section” has traveled to 700IS, Experimental Film Festival in Iceland, Örebro Video Art Festival in Sweden, The Alsager Arts Centre in Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom and The ASU Media Art Center in Arizona, U.S.A. McPherson is a co-director at Sydney's Artist Run Space '55 Sydenham Rd Marrickville NSW 2204 AU'. She studied at Sydney College of the Arts including an exchange in Paris at École Nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Atelier Annette Messager. She is currently undertaking her Master of Fine Arts by research.
From Leah McPherson's "Untitled (flung piss experiment)":
