FILM

The censored images in Rosebud were shot in a library in Tokyo. The books, monographs on Mapplethorpe, Tillmans and Man Ray, were being imported into Japan from Europe when they were stopped by customs officials. Local law in Japan forbids a library from having books with any images that might induce arousal in a viewer. Customs did allow workers to go through the shipment and sandpaper away the genitals from any contested images. The video is focused on the violence of the action of sandpapering and at the same time a study of rubbing against and along different surfaces: the meniscus of water over the print, the elderflower rubbed along a boy’s body.