Art Fer Mr. Soc: Our Haus (rape stamp) by Julia Morrison
TW: The following artworks contain allegations of drug-facilitated group sexual assault.
_ ❤ _
Our Haus is full of secrets.
A visual representation of Richard Neutra’s Sten-Frenke house on the night of the Artist’s assault, in which Mr. Soc orchestrated for a group of men to arrive for a gang-rape after he drugged her one-on-one alone on his couch.
This is an active LAPD investigation.
Art Fer Mr. Soc: Our Haus (rape stamp)
Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #647: the same residence where 55-year old Charlie Chaplin groomed his underage victim-turned-wife, 17-year old Oona O’Neill, in an effort to hide his predation from public view.
Is this a glitch in the matrix,
A tear in the fabric of time,
Or the battleground of my body?
Rape comes from latin, rapere as in ‘to seize’. For most of human history — and still in many places in the world today — rape is charged as a crime not against a woman, but against property.
When something is on the historical preservation list, it belongs to everyone. Neutra’s legacy is part of our shared heritage. Art Fer Mr. Soc is a body of work that represents the events of November 6, 2021 at LA Historic Cult(ural) Monument #647 as I know and experienced them. These works embody Neutra’s philosophy of experiential and evidence-based design. His architectural practice emphasized a central question: who does this house belong to, and what the F*** is going on in there?
In creating these artworks, I embed the historicity of my experience in these walls and reclaim the cultural legacy of Richard Neutra as equally endowed to me by the Cultural Heritage Commission of Los Angeles.
It’s Our Haus now. ❤
Why not do this through the justice system? Why make art?
I am doing this through the justice system. It’s been over a year. I have been extremely patient, but Mr. Soc is very powerful and is evading giving a statement to the police. My rape kit shows hard evidence. You might wonder why Mr. Soc and his accomplices haven’t been arrested yet. So do I. Is this why he just lowered the asking price of the Sten-Frenke house in what could be a desperate attempt to flee the situation? Is Mr. Soc doomed? Could this be the beginning of the end?
They are no rules when it comes to art. I’m working to channel my energy towards more fulfilling and cathartic emotional objectives, purging these experiences through the labor of making work. The prolonging of cases in our court system prevents victims from healing: many cannot move on from the original traumatic event. The failure of the courts to deliver justice keeps wounds open. I’m fulfilling my destiny with art in my heart and laughter in my belly. Should the FBI or LAPD decide to press charges against these people — we will thank God. But I know that wealthy, white rapists rarely go to prison, and it is a humiliating and trying process for the women who come forward.
- Note: there will be a stack of unmarked ‘Our Haus’ prints at three locations: the Cultural Heritage Commision at Los Angeles City Hall, The Neutra Institute for Survival through Design, and Carolwood Estates (the realtor representing the listing). If you have been assaulted at Our Haus, please contact any of the above-mentioned locations. Then, when you’re ready, paint by number to marc up the map and show us what happened to you.
- 4/24/2023 Update: This statement was sent to the realtors at Carolwood Estates on 3/11/2023. The listing has since been removed from the company website, however agent Bjorn Farrugia continues to represent the crime scene in spite of being made aware of these allegations.
Why come forward now?
Why does anyone make art? Why do women have to sit idly by as they are abused, forgotten and thrown aside? I’m an artist; this is how I express myself. If I were a baker, I’d express myself differently. If anything, it seems madness not to shout even louder.
Couldn’t you get a large settlement?
There’s no amount of money that could stop me from releasing these artworks and engaging the public in this urgent conversation.
Why linocut?
A linocut block is essentially a stamp or tool for branding. The origins of branding trace back to the slave trade. Today, if a victim of sex trafficking is lucky enough to escape, the first thing they want removed are the tattoos and brands from their pimps and traffickers. I chose linocut so that I could stamp my experience in space and time to help guide my detective’s investigation at the LAPD and show him visually the crime commited against me.
In linocut, there is no turning back — only moving forward. Making the work itself is a violent process and the stakes are extremely high. I consider these artworks a documentation of my experience and an insurance on my life. Ever since minting the Armie DM TMI NFTs, strange things happened and it is not lost on me that the events of November 6, 2021 were an attempt to make my body into ‘free use’ as described in the ‘Caligula Triptych.’ What’s more, if I were to tell you the number of intimidation and fear tactics that I’ve faced online and in the real world since, some of which were documented in the 911 SOS WTF NFT artworks and in Culture Jammer at the Hammer, it would make your head spin. It is the stuff of sci-fi thriller novels and involves an incredible cabal of very powerful people (unfortunately for them, I have a memory like an elephant).
What is a ‘rape stamp’?
The rape stamp is the new tramp stamp. An inversion of the stigma attached to sexual violence.
Is this activist art, political art, or both? Is all art political?
Activism is not only central to democracy, but essential for it’s maintenance and protection. The sharing and exchange of knowledge is a key modernist task, serving to empower the masses. Art activism is an essential tool for communication, catharsis and social change. I consider myself a public servant and cultural defector. I’m oiling a machine, but the machine is greater than me.
How could a woman have so many experiences like this?
One in every four women are raped, and these are just the ones who report. Every woman I know has some kind of experience with sexual harassment, degradation, assault or abuse, and many men as well. It is a hidden plague among society with a common denominator: men. Furthermore, beauty is perceived as an incredible privilege, so much that beautiful people are assumed to have untainted or favored life experience. But many of the beautiful women I know have multiple and some of the worst experiences.
However, this is not to say that rape or sexual assault is rooted in lust or desire — far from it, in fact. Rape and sexual assault is driven only by the desire for domination and power. It is an oppressor consciousness.
What would you say to men or anyone who might be apprehensive towards these artworks?
I’d tell them to educate themselves, starting with Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.
“For the oppressors, it is always the oppressed… who are “violent,” “barbaric,” “wicked,” or “ferocious” when they react to the violence of the oppressors.
Yet it is — paradoxical though it may seem — precisely in the response of the oppressed to the violence of their oppressors that a gesture of love can be found… as the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they themselves also become dehumanized. As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressors the humanity they had lost in the excercise of oppression. It is only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves, can free their oppressors. The latter, as an oppressive class, can free neither others nor themselves. It is therefore essential that the oppressed wage the struggle to resolve the contradiction in which they are caught…”
What is important to you creatively about these artworks?
Historical representation of rape in art has been heroism or conquest. War and rape are synonymous. In making this work, I found solace in excavating the linoleum to create a battlemap, as my excavation mirrored digging into the rich history of the house during the creation of the work.
This is the way I know how to express myself. Growing up as a ward of California, I would go to therapy once a week paid for by witness protection via the state. In my therapist’s office and at five years old, I had only a zen garden and a few rocks. I raked the sand for hours and rearranged the rocks. Bored to tears over the course of many sessions, I begged for something new. Eventually, I convinced my therapist to bring in some colored pens and paper.
I’d draw only two visuals for years after that: a two-story dream house, and my dream room. One day, my therapist asked me if I could draw anything else… but my dream house and a room of my own were all I could think about.
I never really thought about the art that I made during my childhood as particularly profound until the discoveries I made about myself in making these artworks. As I printed my rape stamp of the famous Sten-Frenke house over and over, it flashed me back to the past to a time when I made images of another dream house. In making these artworks, I realized that I am activating the tools gifted to me by the state of California as I process the trauma of what happened to me.
Decades later, I return to the state of California in need of help, carrying with me the image of a dream house. Art has staying power. I don’t know how else to exist in the face of such cruelty but to alchemize this pain into something meaningful. Preventing me from telling this story in a way that I know how would be like telling me not to breathe. God has given me these experiences, no matter how unfortunate they are. All my traumas and other ordeals don’t make me weak — they make me strong, because I’m still here fighting, pushing onward.
Aren’t you afraid people are going to think you’re… crazy?
They’re going to call you crazy no matter what. Every woman has been called crazy. You might as well lean into it.
Plus, being called ‘crazy’ doesn’t discredit the very serious allegations made via these artworks.
What do you hope will happen next?
Mr. Soc needs to meet with my Detective at the LAPD immediately. The only way out is through.
