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I purchased this Humiliation kitchen towel from Shannon Cartier Lucy as a birthday gift to myself last year. I am unsure how I first came across her work – friend of a friend? Instagram? Hard to keep track of these connections anymore. While most recognized for her absurd, figurative paintings, Lucy also makes editioned works and common objects with distinctive features like an all black jigsaw puzzle, a deck of losing playing cards, or a door plaque labeled “PLEASE” with corresponding braille. In each piece, a subject undermines itself and its presupposed intention. Her slight obscurations are always effective.

“Humiliation” is an intensely loaded word which implies negative associations of shame and guilt. Towels are meant to clean up messes, but with the word “HUMILIATION” in bold red lettering stitched to an otherwise ordinary white cotton cloth, I am compelled to avoid treating the thing as another kitchen accessory to mend mistakes. Inversely, the function of humiliation is reduced to a futile object, and I become occupied with the possibility of confronting humiliation’s degrading properties. It is a powerful, funny little object; much more provocative than a “hang in there” poster and a temporary substitute for therapy.

Maybe someday I will use this towel to sop up liquids or wipe my hands after touching something disagreeable, but for now it hangs over two empty metal picture frames in my bedroom waiting patiently for the right moment to be treated with disregard.

— Aurora San Miguel