In the third installment of the Contemporary Museum’s recent Liste exhibitions, a rotating series of small solo shows, a number of gallerygoers entered a dark, curtained-off back room and emerged soon after, looking confused and slightly harassed. “I think it’s a gay thing,” said one shrugging woman to her disinterested male companion as they walked away.

Behind the curtain, a distorted song played at low volume and suspended hunks of melting ice encasing obscured objects dripped slowly into a fish tank, accompanied by the sound of the occasional plunk of a keychain or brooch breaking free and splashing down. A tiny video of two young men in a shower played on a cellphone attached to a semi-medical-looking bench, with a towel hand-customized with zippers, hand sanitizer, zebra-print keys, and a flashlight cryptically incorporated into the installation. Refraining from overt signifiers, the work dissected idiosyncratic aspects of contemporary gay culture, voyeurism, and the internet age. The installation was the work of DUOX.

In a short year and a half, DUOX, the name under which artists Malcolm Lomax and Daniel Wickerham (both ’09 Maryland Institute College of Art graduates) work collaboratively, has presented three major projects locally and a fourth at New York’s Bard College in March and April with what can only be described as exponential leaps in sophistication. Treating the sexual and abject in their work with triviality and a cool nonchalance, DUOX examines the way we represent ourselves in reality, through the filter of our sexual orientation, and as virtual avatars.

In past exhibitions King Me at Open Space and Museum of Modern Twink at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center on West Chase Street, DUOX’s approach to installing collaborative solo shows in large spaces has been maximal and a little overwhelming. Lomax and Wickerham’s modus operandi seemed to be filling the gaps between larger, more impressive works with a slew of small moments and humorous details, be it crushed snack cakes, articles of clothing, or magazines, the latter ranging in subject from fashion to pornography. DUOX’s rejection of the idea of an art exhibit as a typical assortment of pristine objects echoes their unconventional way of communicating about their work. When asked via e-mail to sum up these stray details into a description of their work, Wickerham rattles off a list: “Manifesto; Dynamic loading of content without refreshing a page; Hijacks preexisting forms; Approach and presentation as subject and not merely process; The City Self. The Virtual Self; The Private Self; The Hustler Self; Social Media and anti-social behavior. . . .”

According to Wickerham, their minds and works are a consistent buzz of absorption and output. “The amount of details and dense reading we consider reflect our time, which has access to so many things, BUT our work is never about that,” Wickerham writes. “Our work will take that kind of access for granted, as a readymade, and provide a show that is a simultaneous reality to the one we live in.” With each exhibition, DUOX has struck a more apt balance between individual works, overall aesthetics, and a repetitive set of references, due to the building momentum and ambition of their mounted exhibits.

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