The Art Gallery Where Orgasms Are Happening
Diamond Stingily’s new exhibition, “Orgasms Happened Here,” can conjure good and bad memories for those who dare peer into it.
In the summer of 2003, a 13-year-old Diamond Stingily moved with her family to a house in Romeoville, Illinois, a suburb a few miles southwest of Chicago. Her mother and grandmother had already chosen their bedrooms in the new house and instructed Stingily and her older brother to do the same. Looking through the empty rooms, Stingily discovered a Post-it note stuck to a bedroom closet. Orgasms happened here, it read. In a house scrubbed clean of its previous tenant, only those words were left behind. Stingily and her brother laughed at the note. Maybe her mother threw it away, maybe she did, but in any case the phrase stuck with Stingily, who grew up to be a multimedia artist and writer who has exhibited everywhere from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami to the New Museum in New York and Art Basel in Switzerland. “I maybe understood their sense of humor,” Stingily says of that mystery tenant. “It had something to do with desire.”
The phrase is now the title of the poet and multimedia artist’s solo exhibition at 52 Walker in Tribeca. The exhibition, which opened earlier this summer and is on view through September 14, has transformed the gallery into a hallway of inset closets that feel lifted from domestic spaces and evoke the secret yearnings and mundanities of adolescence and beyond: neatly folded and sloppily discarded towels, newspaper clippings of girls in car magazines, baseball bats, and rows of white shirts reserved for middle-school graduations of the aughts.
Some of the closets, like one piled high with bricks, are tinged with the surreal. Others sit half-open, as if actively repressing the memories inside of them. “I was thinking about desire, everyday desire,” says Stingily, who admires bell hooks and relates to creating work that draws from the past to explore the present and the future. “Repressed memories — that’s a nice word for, Oh, that person’s got a lot of secrets.” The closet pieces, Stingily says, bring up good and bad memories for the people who peer through them. But they can also bring up plain old silly ones. “A lot of people brought up masturbation with me,” she says. “I was talking to one of my gallerists about a closet piece. I said, ‘It’s sexy.’ He was like, ‘I think it’s sexual, but not sexy.’” I ask her if she can show me the sexy ones, but like the other memories the closets tend to resurface, the “sexy” closet is more of a vibe. “It’s just a feeling,” Stingily says through laughter.
First of all, congratulations on your opening. How does it feel?
I still have a lot of excitement, as if it hasn’t opened yet. I’m really honored to have been asked to participate in the vision Ebony L. Haynes has for 52 Walker. I believe it to be historical in a lot of ways for my career. I feel good. The Saturday after the opening, I celebrated by getting breakfast with my friend Martine Syms. We went for a walk in the park. It was a quiet weekend spent with friends.
I love the origin story of “Orgasms Happened Here.” It’s rare for tenants to leave reminders of themselves like that. Why did the phrase stick with you all these years later?
Because I’m a bizarre person. I used to write stories all the time, and a lot of my stories from when I was younger, there was never really any yearning in them. Yearning is a bit of desperation and maybe some limerence. I’ve always had desire. Looking back on those stories I wrote as a kid, they were always love stories. Shakespeare and Terry McMillan, those two combos. I think that’s why it stuck with me. I maybe understood their sense of humor.
Speaking of childhood memories, let’s talk about that 2004 photo of you in the press materials. Is that from your middle-school graduation?
That’s me graduating eighth grade. Because “Orgasms Happened Here” is based around that time period. And what a time period! I’m wearing a white button-up, and in one of the closets there’s a bunch of white button-ups, which is another reason we chose it. Maybe it’s a Black- and brown-girl thing, but parents really care how you present yourselves. There’s something about Black and brown girls in white button-ups that I’m really like, Girl, go! I’m not nostalgic, but I thought it was a way of honoring that time and myself. A lot of women I know fix things, accommodate others to make sure they’re comfortable. They take care of family and you’re told to do these things, you’re not really taught. Everyone’s very much in survival mode, and I was really hard on my past self. And that’s like me at the age I am now being upset with a 14-year-old girl, for things that wasn’t even my fault, ’cause I was a child. So that’s me being like, She’s present too.
What did the younger version of you desire?
As a kid? A lot of stuff. This idea of what freedom would look like to me as an adult being in the household I was in, having so much personal quiet embarrassment and shame and shaking that off. Maybe that’s what I desired. Maybe, like most teenage girls, you desire to be romantically involved with somebody. Just silly desires too.
Do you have silly desires now?
Of course I do. But they’re more realistic. Not that they wasn’t back then. When I was a kid, I thought I’d be in the club all the time or that clubs looked like music videos. Then you become an adult and you’re like, oh, okay. As a child I thought I’d stay out and about all the time. Now some nights I’m in bed with my bonnet on before ten, you know? I desire different things. It’s not a child wishing to be an adult. I’m an adult now, so I desire peace of mind. But I really thought I was about to be shimmying in a club with my tube top on.
Would ’04 you be happy now?
Oh, yeah! She’d be happy. She’d be like, “Girl, you got tattoos?” Everything I wanted to do as a child, I’ve done it. It may not be how I thought it would happen, but it happened. So I’m very blessed.
In addition to making physical artwork, you’re also a writer and performance artist. Did you always want to be an artist, or did you consider other paths?
I wanted to do a lot of things as a child. At one point, I wanted to be a pediatrician or an OB/GYN or a midwife. At one point, I wanted to be a veterinarian, but a crocodile-hunter type. My mom was like, “Girl, you don’t even like snakes, what are you talking about?” I really liked alligators. I wanted to be someone who studies gators, or, I don’t know, that girl at the zoo, holding a little gator like, “You guys could pet him!” They’re one of my favorite animals. They’re ancient and stoic and should be respected. And they have great faces with amazing cheekbones; I’ve never seen an alligator with a bad face. I also wanted to be an actress. I wanted to be a Romy Schneider/Liz Taylor fab actress, a lot of crying and falling on things. Or a makeup artist. My auntie is a businesswoman who owned a salon. It all came back to being a woman who people came to if they wanted their hair and makeup done. In college, I was that girl for my friends. If I really want to do something, I can make it happen.
How did you start pursuing art, and what made you stick with it? It’s hard to stick with the pursuit.
It is! I was living in Chicago with my grandma to save money. Martine Syms was making some videos, and my voice was in them. At the time, I worked at an American Apparel. I recorded myself in what I called my cage, which was the stockroom. Chicago basements can sometimes look like the set of Saw. Me and Martine used to talk on the phone a lot; I be at work just on the phone, headset, just chitchatting. Martine was like, “Record yourself.” So I was just talking about being at work. At one point, I opened the door and I was like, “This is the stockroom, it’s a cage,” honoring the reality I was in, which was steaming clothes in a cage.
A few months went by and Martine shot a video that was going to Bard. She was like, “Do you want to come up so I can shoot it?” It was “Notes on Gesture.” I took that opportunity to just move to New York. It was very 1970ish of me to move with a one-way ticket. I didn’t have an apartment and I moved with $300. I was pinching when I moved here; I’m dollar-sliced and bodega-sandwiched out. I got a job at a dog boutique delivering dog food for the clients, sometimes celebrity clients. After “Notes on Gestures” came out, I got mistaken for Martine. People are just lazy, right? But they told me how excited they were for what I was doing. Some people still come to my show thinking I’m Martine. Then my friend and I did a show together, “Queer Thoughts,” my first official show in New York, and it snowballed from there. I didn’t have anything outside of art and being a creative person. I was just taking the opportunities that people presented me. They were like, “Want to do a reading? A show?” I started out saying yes to stuff that excited me.
In a recent conversation with Arthur Jafa, you mentioned you taught yourself art history, and that amid the art-world jargon, you experienced feeling like you didn’t know what you were talking about when you did. What’s it like to be your own teacher and student?
I’m still teaching myself. I’m constantly learning. I hope that didn’t make me sound like Boygenius or something. I have to teach myself not to be so intimidated talking about these things. It’s fun. I can take my time, I’m a whole teacher! I really like going to the Met. I can just chill out and sit. There’s an older Black man who’s always there and constantly sketching; I admire him. He’s constantly learning and teaching himself new techniques. I’ve learned to put myself out there. That’s how a lot of people learn. Accept that you’re going to make mistakes and say something silly and be wrong.
What’s your process like?
I sketch a lot. I don’t draw very well, so I write it out in kind of a paragraph. I can see it better that way. That sounds so like, She’s an artist. But for real, I can’t draw. Most if not all of my work is ready-made, so I just have to see how I can make it mine once it’s in front of me. The fun part is installing, and the challenging part is how are we going to install it? Are the contractors okay with that?
Onto the taste test. Do you have a creative ritual?
Not really. Sometimes I make a private playlist, and it’s a lot of classical and ambient music. Crystal Castles and house music. But mainly chill music. I call it anemic dancing; you can sit in a chair and kind of wiggle, but you’re not doing too much. During this installation, I was listening to silly R&B. “In Your Wildest Dreams,” by Tina Turner and Barry White, because I always thought that song was really funny. I think it’s about orgasming. Quincy Jones’s “The Secret Garden.” Eddie Kendricks’s “Intimate Friends.” Smooth-jazz-sexytime music. Sex ain’t even that sexy. Do a little two-step, dance like Lenny Kravitz, go-about-your-business-type music.
What’s a book you couldn’t put down?
Martine recommended this author to me, Natalia Ginzburg. I enjoy her a lot. I like weird girls, weird writers, weird women. She’s strange and I was rocking with her. (And she’s also Italian — mother Roma! I’m always joking with people because one of my great-grandparents or something was Italian.) The book, The Dry Heart, is a how-we-get-there story about how a woman kills her husband. I loved it. All Our Yesterdays was really good. I put Ginzburg in the same category as Leonora Carrington, who is also a painter. Gayl Jones is also really good and bizarre. Then Anna Kavan, an English writer who wrote about fast cars and was a functioning addict. When she died, they found enough heroin in her house to OD everyone on her block; she heard it was going to become illegal and started hoarding it. I like women who have a clear vision of themselves, who have their style and are unabashed about it.
Where do you get your best culture recommendations?
From cassettes. I like buying tapes that look weird. I’m a noise girl at heart. So I’m always looking for new music, and a lot of my friends are in the music scene and I respect their taste. I’m always in conversation with people who love to read.
What’s your favorite piece of art that you own?
It’s not art, but something I cherish is, I have a godbaby in L.A. And my baby mama — I call her that, but she’s the mother of my godbaby — is very thoughtful. She knows I’ve been through a lot. 2021 was a heartbreaking year for me. She got me an antique photo album; it’s red and small, and in my opinion, very chic. Inside I have photos of me and my mother, of my family and my chosen family, and at the end it’s a photo of me and my goddaughter. I love it so much. I wanted to put it in my purse and carry it around, but I’d be devastated if I lost it.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
When I was a child, girl groups were very popular. I wanted to be in the talent show with a group of girls. They said no. I went home and was bummed out. My dad said, “Girl, fuck them, go solo.” I didn’t end up doing the talent show, but that stuck with me. Go solo. Do it yourself if don’t nobody want to do it with you. Go where the love is. I went to the talent show and it was fine. The group sang Mýa’s “Case of the Ex,” but they lost because a dance group danced to “Bootylicious” and they tore it up. The past is the past, isn’t it?
How about the worst advice?
This is gonna sound very boastful, but I don’t listen to bad advice. I hope it don’t stick.
You’re in an Uber XL to anywhere. What five people, dead or alive, are coming with you?
Where are we going?
That’s up to you.
You gotta set it up.
Okay, it’s daytime on a long weekend, you’re heading to a wine trail upstate.
I would like to take Joan, the mother of my godbaby, and my friend Kat, ’cause we going wine tasting. Joan doesn’t drink, though … if Martine is in town, she’s coming. Zoë Lund died, but maybe she’d like to go on a trip? I’m trying to make it fun, not that my girls aren’t. I don’t even want to say a fifth one, I don’t want nobody to get mad. This is giving Myspace. Maybe Betty Catroux? She’s a YSL muse and seems like an older French woman to drink wine with, have heart-to-hearts when we’re all drunk, forehead to forehead. I’d also like to take an Uber XL to a Cracker Barrel in a non-ironic way.
What’s your go-to Cracker Barrel meal?
Shit. Chicken tenders with some greens, macaroni, and cornbread. Yup. I’d get some blueberry candy canes from the candy section at the end. That’s the stuff you suck on on the drive home, when you know you had a good Sunday.
What’s the last thing you cooked?
Beef ragù. It was delicious. Cooking for me is a treat we don’t all get to have. I cook like a mother. I watch you eat like, you’re getting your nourishment.
What’s your comfort rewatch?
I don’t watch a lot of TV. But I watch Snow White, the Disney movie from the ’50s. If someone’s like, “Snow White is on,” I’ll be like, “Cool, keep it on that.” She was neurodivergent for sure, very misunderstood and sweet. Her sweetness othered people, but she didn’t let it change who she was as a person. She always looked forward to the future like, Oh, this is just temporary, and she sounds like Mýa when she sings. I also like Disney villains. I think the witch was scary but campy. My favorite villain is Scar. I have a little niece. That’s my little Simba, and I’m her Scar. Every time I see her, I’m like, “Hello. Care to know some secrets?” And she’s like, “Girl, I’m just trying to color.” I’m not a Disney adult, though. Never been there, don’t want to get married there.
What should you never do at a dinner party?
Not bring anything. That’s not okay. Bring something to the table. Sometimes people show up and their presence is enough, but bringing something is nice. Other than that, putting your feet on the table, that’s nasty. Not flushing the toilet, that’s not okay. Offer to help, be available in other people’s homes even if they say no. Move like you got some sense and people will invite you back.
What are you excited for next in your career?
Having a career. It’s not just having an attitude of Oh, I’m happy to be here, but having an art career is a blessing. People being interested in what I’m making and doing what I love for a living is really cool. I have this constant worry that it could go away any day. Time is limiting. I try to take advantage of the time I think I have.
Is there a childhood memory in this installation you most like revisiting?
I don’t have a favorite childhood memory. I don’t think about my childhood that much, actually. It’s funny because I do a lot of work based on what I know. But I don’t think of it in a romantic way. I’m grateful I had the childhood I had because it gave me a story. I wouldn’t be who I am now if I didn’t go through what I went through. That includes the joy and hardship. I can’t think of one where I’m like, Oh, that was great, though I definitely have them. It’s too precious; I can’t think of it as something I want to share. I was a romantic little girl who could daydream. I still daydream. I’ve always been who I was.
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