Reba Maybury & Lucy McKenzie: Pervert or Detective?

Curated by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen. A collaboration between Ca’Buccari, no place press, and gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich. Opening hours: Thursday–Sunday, 12–7pm.

Opening program: Thursday, May 8, 4–8pm
4pm: Seclusion and Publicity. Art and Architecture on the Island of Sant’Elena and Politics of Space in (Early) Modern Venice, a guided tour with art historian Stefan Neuner
5pm: Talk with Reba Maybury, Lucy McKenzie and Susan Finlay
6–8pm: Drinks and book launch of Pervert or Detective? published by no place press

The exhibition, a site-specific display by Reba Maybury and Lucy McKenzie, reimagines the architecture of Ca’Buccari, a new exhibition venue in Sant’Elena, Venice, founded in 2024. The former shopfront units, connected as an enfilade and framed by an arcade, are emphasized as vitrines showcasing new collaborative works by the two artists.

In Pervert or Detective? Reba Maybury and Lucy McKenzie dissect power, desire, and subversion in an installation including murals, drawings, paintings, and a publication. Maybury, who integrates her work as a political dominatrix into her artistic practice, manipulates the dynamics of control, compelling her male submissives to create art under her direction, only to claim it as her own. Through confession and humiliation, she dismantles notions of authorship, masculinity, and labor. McKenzie, known for her intricate trompe l’oeil paintings and conceptual installations, similarly blurs boundaries—between art and commerce, authenticity and illusion. Her work challenges power structures and exposes the unstable nature of representation.

The show, taking place on the occasion of this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, is produced in collaboration between Ca’Buccari and gta exhibitions, ETH Zurich—two spaces dedicated to an experimental exhibition program at the intersection of art and architecture. Art historian Stefan Neuner will speak about Maybury’s and McKenzie’s presentation within the urban context of Sant’Elena, a residential quarter from the early twentieth century.

Pervert or Detective? opens alongside the release of a new book based on an expansive conversation between the two artists, moderated by Marie Canet. Maybury and McKenzie interrogate the logic of seduction and domination, challenge rigid binaries, and explore the material erotic, appropriation, and transformation. Edited and introduced by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen, the book includes an afterword by Susan Finlay and is published by no place press (distributed by MIT press).