About Dinner Party as Revolution:
Dinner Party as Revolution consists of 3 devils and demons, the Ecstasy Devil, the Money Demon, and Death, Brother of Sleep, all glazed in saturation gold referencing found in monasteries and temples. These deities have been created through a modern lens and are, figures of contemplation on themes of late-stage capitalism, radical joy in meditation, and fear of power. In this two-day show, audience members were invited to eat and spend time sitting with the work. This photo shows the artist, their friends and loved ones kneeling at the altar-dinner table
Death, Brother of Sleep / the violence of broken english, part of Dinner Party as Revolution installation
Death, Brother of Sleep mediates on lost safety and lost sense of home. In March, my concept of home was challenged by a violent encounter with the NYPD. This was the first time I realized how useless language was in the face of anger and hatred. The gap between me and the other was so large. The level of distrust and lack of shared perspective of reality rendered all communication using words, using English, meaningless. When I cannot defend myself with words, I create demons and deities I pray can protect me, channeling all my fear into art-making to process what it was like to give up on trying to fight a pyrrhic battle against people who despise me because of my Asianness or queerness. I found little rest in this time except at the studio, as my sense of home had evaporated.
Ecstacy Devil, part of Dinner Party as Revolution installation
Ecstasy Devil is a meditation on the boundaries between joy, pleasure, and mania, and where healthy distinctions exist between these different experiences.
Ecstacy Devil, part of Dinner Party as Revolution installation
The Money Demon meditates on the complex feelings that arise from participating in a capitalist society. Single dollar bills fill her insides and she is sown together with red thread, in reference to the myth of the red thread of fate in Chinese mythology.
Bio:
Cathleen (Cat) Luo is an artist and art educator based in Brooklyn, New York City who works in ceramics to explore their experience and histories as a queer Asian American and disabled person. Their work reclaims the term “queer” by purposefully stretching and distorting their figures beyond anatomical accuracy, challenging preconceived notions of what a body should look like. Luo’s work also questions into the term “alien” which is legally defined in America as individuals who are not citizens: foreign(ed) bodies. Beyond a personal exploration of their experiences of alienation from society and self, their art aims to validate the marginalized experiences of their communities. By embracing the aesthetic of the uncanny/unheimlich, their art seeks to create a visual narrative that honors Otherness.
They graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor’s in Visual Arts and Creative Writing in 2023 and are currently working as a Museum Educator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They have exhibited in group shows including Of What Remains curated by Lex Jacques and FABnyc’s Young Artists of Color Fellowship show in 2024. Luo was awarded the Asian American Arts Alliance’s What Can We Do grant to carry out community art programming in Manhattan’s Chinatown during Asian American Heritage Month as a way to share their practice and serve the public. They have also received SICK Magazine’s Microgrant for Disabled Sculptors in 2023. They have been interviewed for Ratrock Magazine and have been featured in publications including The Columbia Review and SICK Magazine.
