RYAT        ˈrī-ət        
Grip
2015

In Grip, Ryat Yezbick reimagines the gun not as a weapon but as a site of intimacy, tension, and embodiment. The work features a soft, flesh-toned silicone object molded in the likeness of a firearm, transforming an emblem of hardness, violence, and control into something disarmingly vulnerable. In the performance, Yezbick—nude and exposed—mimics a traditional firearm tutorial, methodically demonstrating how to hold, aim, and stabilize a gun. This deliberate mimicry collapses the boundaries between instruction and performance, parody and critique.

The act of gripping the silicone gun becomes a meditation on touch, power, whiteness, masculinity, and control—and on the cultural coding of these forces within the American imagination. The softness of the material destabilizes the authority of the original gesture: where the weapon once promised mastery, Yezbick’s version invites uncertainty, care, tenderness, and humor. The piece stages a quiet confrontation between the logics of domination embedded in the gun’s design and the body’s capacity for empathy and vulnerability.

By juxtaposing tactility and aggression, flesh and form, Grip exposes the social anatomy of power—how whiteness and masculinity are performed, taught, and reinforced through gesture and repetition. In undoing the mechanics of the “proper grip,” Yezbick opens a space to imagine a different politics of touch: one that resists control, embraces fragility, and reclaims the body as a site of agency rather than submission.  

 
Upcoming | Current
The Innocence of Unknowing at Tribeca Film Festival (Immersive) 
Recent  
Workers Fleeing the Factory in MIMESIS Magazine 
grip at other others // rehearsals in the skin at Human Resources


Contact: ryat.yezbick [at] gmail.com


Photography: Hagen Betzwieser, Keelan O’Hehir, Jessica Wittman, Panayiotis Tsangas, Cedric Tai, Eleni Maligoura, Zach Korol-Gold, Gabriel Sweet, Jen Gilomen


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