PIERMARQ* projects is pleased to present: An Allegorical Cave for Lonely KISS Fans, an exhibition by Australian artist Bridget Stehli, opening Thursday, 6 February 2025, with a reception from 6-8PM.
Bridget Stehli’s multidisciplinary practice includes painting, sculpture, and video, interrogating and challenging the visual language of popular culture from the 1970s and 1980s. Her work draws on the kitsch aesthetic of media from this period to provide an alternate perspective to the dominant heterosexual male gaze, exploring gender dynamics, spectatorship, and the performative aspects of human behavior.
The installation, An Allegorical Cave for Lonely KISS Fans, presents a constructed environment that invites viewers into a surreal, performative space. The exhibition is informed by Stehli’s own fandom of the iconic rock band KISS and by Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which illustrates the notion that true knowledge can only be attained through liberation from the confines of illusion and ignorance. Reflecting on the alienation experienced by fans whose engagement with a cultural phenomenon predated their own existence, Stehli imagines:
" ...the inhabitants of An Allegorical Cave for Lonely KISS Fans return to indulge in the fantasy of live interaction with their beloved band, KISS. Having experienced an idealised form of reality in the 'outside world,' these fans gradually confront the painful realization that such a fantasy is unattainable. Dispossessed, they return to the refuge of the cave, where they are able to surrender to the fantasies mediated by telephone chat lines and their accompanying television commercials."
An Allegorical Cave, a bed surrounded by a cave-like structure, serves as both a sanctuary and a shrine to the aesthetics of 1970s retro sleaze-chic and rock-star hedonism. The cave functions as a space for both fandom and self-expression, symbolising escapism, desire, and resistance to societal norms—central themes within Stehli’s broader artistic exploration. By creating an “artifice-laden theatre stage,” the installation offers the illusion of enclosure when viewed from the front, which is then revealed as false when observed from the side. Like the plight of the prisoners of Plato’s cave, the audience is presented a mediated, limited version of reality.
The cave also serves as a pseudo-movie set housing the audiovisual component, Fantasy Hotline for Lonely KISS Fans, Television Commercial. The video parodies late-night television commercials for adult chat lines, positioning viewers as potential callers to a fictional hotline where they can interact with their favourite KISS member. Stehli directs an all-male cast to perform actions that are commonly associated with feminine ‘sexiness,’ a commentary on the eroticisation of the media that becomes an ironic inversion of the male gaze. The video, projected on a CRT television set placed upon silk sheets, features Stehli's actors in leather attire and KISS-inspired makeup, reciting the band’s iconic lyrics from their zenith. The intimate setting captures the nostalgia of an era steeped in camp theatricality, hyper-sexualisation, and personal devotion.
The exhibition also includes new works of oil on linen. In Untitled (Fans 2) Stehli uses loose, fluid brushwork to depict a young boy wearing The Starchild’s make-up, encapsulating a sense of yearning for youthful excitement, while the muted palette underscores the bittersweet nature of nostalgia. The paintings are suffused with a sepia-like quality, as if each scene exists in a memory, now dulled with time, with an atmosphere of alienation and the quiet fervor that comes with being a part of a fandom that predates you.
The installation, An Allegorical Cave for Lonely KISS Fans, was first presented at the National Art School Gallery in Sydney as part of the 2023 postgraduate exhibition. Bridget Stehli (b. 1986) is based in Sydney, Australia, and completed her MA in Fine Art at the National Art