Cat Del Buono
Expose Art Magazine (Special Edition 2014)
When confronted with gender and social issues that I find unbearable, my way of coping is by creating works that exaggerate the obvious. By combining video, performance, and viewer participation, I create public interactive happenings, street art, and videos that criticize conformity and society’s obsession with an arbitrary beauty standard and other social issues. My criticism of society’s obsession with beauty first began after a residency in Miami where I noticed an excessive number of women with plastic surgery. “Now I’m Beautiful!” is a video commenting on plastic surgery and conformity and is part of my Vanity Unfair project which then grew into flash mobs on Lincoln Road and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Another project that began in Miami is my 20-monitor installation on domestic violence, “Voices.” I filmed only the mouths of survivors of abuse speaking of their personal experiences. The interviews then continued to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. And my viral video, “How to Not Get Raped,” was filmed in Miami with the help of my Miami friends and artists. This video satire comments on ridiculous but real “tips” given to women in colleges on how they can avoid rape. A prime example of placing responsibility and blame on victims. With all my works, I challenge the public to think beyond the status quo and to encourage change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57KXo13Z8nI