JIM AMARAL: THE POETICS OF UNCERTAINTY, SEX AND SURREALISM piece, it functions as a memento mori, inciting poetic rumina- tions on the femininity, the body, and loss. Double Dick ( ; FIG. 177 ) and Hidden Glance ( ; FIG. 179 ) are assemblage pieces created at the end of the s that have a more profane aura. A cross between a Catholic reliquary and a witches’ supply cabinet, the blue satin lined jewelry box used for Double Dick is faded and stained as if carrying decaying body parts. What separates Amaral from the assemblage boxes of other artists, for example the great master of such constructions Joseph Cornell, is that he allows for a more visceral interaction. e dead flowers on the lid are ready to crumble, the broken egg with the eye-like yoke hint at an extinct species found in a dusty curiosity cabinet. e two penises painted on the satin in the corner are about to touch, tip to tip, tenderly beside the egg. Although, like in a Catholic reliquary, the box contains death and desiccation, the genitals are vital and life-restoring, albeit completely heretical. A similar feeling is to be found in Hidden Glance where in a small glass box, on a pastel blue cushion an unspeakable object lies, more the stuff of science fiction than re- ligion. A glass eye peers out from a purple shell nestled in what appears to be blond pubic hair. But unlike the famous scene in Bataille’s Story of the Eye where Simone inserts a dead priests’ eye into her vagina, this eye peers at us instead from the head of a pe- nis. Does this eye serve as a metaphor of the male gaze? Here is where the understanding of Amaral’s obsessive depiction of the penis gets complicated. ey cannot be read exclusively as part of normative phallocentric discourse because they are simply too queer. ere is a lack of aggressiveness and violence and they at times appear oddly feminine in their bows, pastel colors and ten- der nudging of other body parts. Another series from the highly productive decade of the seventies utilizes old carte-de-visite photographs, many from the late  century, in ornate metal and glass upright frames. Am- aral directly paints and draws on these pictures of stolid bour- geois individuals in ways that are amusing and that problematize gender. For example, in Bullet-Proof Vest ( ; FIG. 180 ) the artist supplies a man in uniform with a paper-doll jacket in the shape of a penis with harlequin sleeves and a red badge over his heart like one for membership in a religious society. e mustachioed and serious Mr. Duperly ( ; FIG. 183 ) is visually assaulted on all sides by genitalia and his own body has been morphed into a her- “While staying in at Jacques Leenhardt's apartment in the Marais I bought this box at a brocanteur . An artist friend in New York, Leonore Tawney, had done a series of many objects which she would intervene, touch up or alter in one way or another. I began making many boxes/objects with my mind. ree Long Moments is the first of the several boxes that I made. Inside of it are pencil drawings of female and male sex organs twined around with a necklace of dried rose buds. e perfume of the roses continues.” —Jim Amaral . Three Long Moments, ˆ‰. Š× Š× cm, assemblage.