Marlene Haring Sucking Marks

The new year is customarily ushered in with a big lit up ball dropping in New York City and a kiss with that special someone. For many of you, that customary kiss may have not gone as planned this year. Maybe your special someone was in a different location, maybe you don’t have a special someone, or maybe you drank too much and passed out before midnight. In any case, if you had been celebrating with Marlene Haring, your new year’s kiss (well, suck really) would have been contractually guaranteed. We found Marlene at the entrance of the Scope Miami art fair about a month ago, and we were impressed with her Sucking Marks exhibit for several reasons: it was, in every sense of the word, unconventional art; it was a cheap ($10) and sanitary thrill; and Marlene creatively redefined the relationship between the artist and the art collector. Aias Vargas put it best: “Like many of Harling's works, Sucking Marks $10 engages directly not only her "˜audience' but the rules society determines for the relationship between the artist and the collector, the producer and the consumer, the body and the commodity.” See some more photos we took of the ‘sucking booth’ after the jump…