KING COBRA: Heathens

3.27–5.2.26

KING COBRA HEATHENS

3.27–5.2.26

KING COBRA’s visceral sculptural and performance works confront the dimensions of consumption and perversion that underscore histories of colonial violence and racial subjugation. Utilizing synthetic and organic materials, COBRA produces corporeal forms that bear the condition of whiteness as a festering wound—one often sugarcoated or concealed but ultimately sustained through the spiritual and physical cannibalism of bodies deemed “other,” and the Black body in particular. Melding medical pathologies and abject imagery with BDSM and kink cultures, COBRA’s work interrogates not just how power is constructed, but also how it may be dissected, subdued, and debased.

Heathens features an installation of sculptural objects and a kink film screened on a reclaimed vintage television set. COBRA’s new series of bondage hoods developed from an interest in kink, BDSM, and the role of masks within contexts of pleasure and pain. The anonymizing power of masks is, and historically has been, central to the condition of whiteness in America: a cloak for its perverse psychologies and a license to enact violence and destruction with impunity. It is the same hegemonic veil donned by white Christian institutions that enable systems of empire and abuse while simultaneously branding kink practitioners and non whites as heathens. In contrast to the opaque black leather of conventional bondage gear, COBRA’s masks are cast in a light Caucasian pink. By making the hoods with white “skin,” COBRA displaces the assumption of Blackness as the target of punishment and submits white flesh in its place.

The bondage hoods are composed of cast silicone fabric stuffed with raffia palm. Each hood is designed to embody a specific white American persona, signified by an accessory or distinguishing feature: a lace bonnet atop the head of a genteel lady; a necktie around the white collar of an American Psycho; and a red-lipped gag puckering the mouth of a platinumblonde bimbo, mounted on an undulating hobby-horse pole. The surfaces of the hoods ripple with discoloration and disease, including tattooed pustules and smallpox blisters in varying stages of infection. They are no longer protective shields of white skin, but self-contained objects of degeneracy, stimulated by sexual greed and consumptive desire. In COBRA’s hands, the impulse of white Christian America to publicly condemn and privately indulge is laid bare in its hypocrisy, inverted and exposed as vessels of perversion.

The bondage hoods are displayed with a red gingham picnic blanket mounted on the wall—a place setting for an impending ritual of consumption. The kink film compiles scenes from a Femdom session utilizing the hoods on view in Heathens. Clad in red leather latex, the Domme punishes, degrades, and tenderizes her white pig sub, whose flesh-toned body melds with the pale pink of COBRA’s hoods. Playing alongside the sculptural works, the film activates the perversion they hold, bringing it to life and to its knees.

KING COBRA (born 1986, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. COBRA’s monumental sculpture When You Are Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is currently installed at MOCA Cleveland, Ohio, on view through August 2026. Selected solo exhibitions include White Meat at JTT, New York (2023); Revolted at the New Museum, New York (2022); Pale in Comparison at the SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia (2022); Doreen Lynette Garner at the Perlman Teaching Museum, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota (2022); and Steal, Kill and Destroy: A Thief Who Intended Them Maximum Harm at Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz, Austria (2021).

COBRA was most recently an Artist-in-Residence at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans (2025). Other awards and fellowships include a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2018); the Socrates Sculpture Park Emerging Artist Fellowship (2017); Pioneer Works Artistin-Residence (2016); and a Franklin Furnace Fund Grant (2016). COBRA’s work is included in the public collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; the Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.

56 1/2 × 53 × 7 inches (143.5 × 134.6 × 17.8 cm)

36 × 8 1/2 × 8 1/2 inches (91.4 × 21.6 × 21.6 cm) variable

× 33 × 18 inches (180.3 × 83.8 × 45.7 cm) variable

57 1/2 × 37 × 18 3/4 inches (146.1 × 94 × 47.6 cm)

Installed overall: 40 3/4 × 24 1/2 × 19 inches

(103.5 × 62.2 × 48.3 cm)

KING COBRA

Born in 1986, Philadelphia, PA

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

EDUCATION

2014

MFA, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

2009

BFA, Tyler School of Art at Temple University

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2026

Heathens, Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York, NY, March 27–May 2, 2026

When You Are Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, January 30–August 2, 2026

2023

White Meat, JTT, New York, NY, April 11–May 13, 2023

2022

REVOLTED, New Museum, New York, NY, June 29–October 15, 2022, curated by Vivian Crockett

Pale In Comparison, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, February 21–July 21, 2022, organized by DJ Hellerman

Doreen Lynette Garner, Perlman Teaching Museum, Carleton College, Northfield, MN, January 6–April 17, 2022, organized by Sara Cluggish

2021

Steal, Kill and Destroy: A Thief Who Intended Them Maximum Harm, Halle Für Kunst Steiermark, Graz, Austria, September 3–November 14, 2021, curated by Cathrin Mayer

2020

The Remains, JTT, New York, NY, January 19–March 8, 2020

2019

Doreen Garner, CAPRI, Düsseldorf, Germany, September 6–October 26, 2019

She Is Risen, JTT, New York, NY, April 21– May 26, 2019

Doreen Garner: Alternative Modes of Penetration, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY, March 3, 2019 (performance)

2017

Doctor’s Hours, Larrie, New York, NY, May 21–June 18, 2017

Doreen Garner: Full Body, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, January 23–February 25, 2017

2016

Art in Buildings: Doreen Garner, AIB West 10th Window, New York, NY, December 20, 2016–January 28, 2017

Surrogate Skin: The Biology of Objects, MoCADA, Brooklyn, NY, November 18, 2016–February 26, 2017

Ether and Agony, Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, LA, October 8–November 6, 2016

Flora: Viscera, Wave Hill, The Bronx, NY, September 17–October 23, 2016

Removing the Veil: Vanity as Material for Incision, Essex Flowers, New York, NY, September 9–October 9, 2016

2015

SHINY / RED / PUMPING, Vox Populi Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, February 6–March 1, 2015

2014

ABJECTION, Bannister Gallery, Providence, RI

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024

Scientia Sexualis, Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, October 5, 2024–March 2, 2025

For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA, September 19, 2024–

February 2, 2025

2023

Death and the Devil: The Fascination with Horror, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany, September 14, 2023–January 21, 2024

HARDCORE, Sadie Coles HQ Kingly Street, London, United Kingdom, May 25–August 5, 2023

2022

The odds are good, the goods are odd, Lisson Gallery, New York, NY, June 29–August 5, 2022

2021

Greater New York, MoMA PS1, Queens, NY, October 6, 2021–April 17, 2022

ECLIPSE, 7th Athens Biennale, Athens, Greece, September 24–November 28, 2021, cocurated by Omsk Social Club and Larry Ossei- Mensah

Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency, Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago, IL, January 19–May 23, 2021; The Frances Lehman Loeb Arts Center at Vassar College, September 28, 2024–February 2, 2025, curated by Karen Irvine and Kristin Taylor

2020

Statues Also Die, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT, October 25, 202–January 21, 2021

Painting Is Painting’s Favorite Food: Art History as Muse, South Etna, Montauk, NY, July 16–August 30, 2020, curated by Alison Gingeras

2018

The Public Body .02, Artspace, Sydney, Australia, July 28–October 2, 2017

Cell Count, La MaMa Galleria, New York, NY, May 31–June 16, 2018, curated by Kyle Croft and Asher Mones for Visual AIDS

2017

White Man on a Pedestal, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY, November 10–December 17, 2017

The HeLa Project, Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, Baltimore, MD, March 29–April 2, 2017; Washington DC, National Center for Civil and Human Rights & Culture, Atlanta, GA, April 13-16, 2017; National Museum of African American History, May 15, 2018–March 31, 2019

The Socrates Annual – The Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY, October 1, 2017–March 25, 2018

Dirge, JTT, New York, NY, June 29–July 28, 2017

Stranger Things, Outpost Gallery, Queens, NY, June 9–July 7, 2017

Sexual Fragments Absent, Paddles, New York, NY, April 27, 2017

Movement Research Festival, New York, NY, November 30–December 2, 2017

2016

Something I Can Feel, Volta Art Fair, New York, NY, March 2-6, 2016, curated by Derrick Adams

Subject To Capital, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY, March 3–April 17, 2016

MAMI, The Knockdown Center, Queens, NY, August 6–September 2, 2016 2015

Young & Loving, S12 Gallery, Bergen, Norway, October 2–November 8, 2015

Pussy Don’t Fail Me Now, Cindy Rucker Gallery, New York, NY, July 9–August 14, 2015

International Glass Prize, Glazen Huis Museum, Lommel, Belgium, April 4–September 13, 2015

New Work, Urban Glass Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, June 10–August 22, 2015

2014

Girl-Bye, Rush Arts Gallery, New York, NY, October 2-31, 2014, curated by Rashaad Newsome

skowheganPERFORMS, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY, September 27, 2014

Black Ocean / Big Black Motherfucker, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, New York, NY

2014 Graduate Thesis Exhibition, RISD/Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI, May 16-31, 2015

More Beautiful for Having Been Broken, List Gallery, Brown University, Providence, RI

Abstract Affinities, Find & Form Space, Boston, MA

It Doesn’t Show Signs of Stopping, AS220 Project Gallery, Providence, RI

Our Beloved Community, Expose Gallery, Providence, RI

2013

The Gaze, Sarah Doyle Gallery, Providence, RI

Last Week, Benson Hall Gallery, Providence, RI

Body Talk, RISD Museum, Providence, RI

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-onHudson, NY

The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY