{"id":611103,"date":"2026-09-09T21:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T21:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/611103\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T21:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T21:34:14","slug":"a-brief-history-of-testicle-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/611103\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Testicle Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feature<\/a><\/p>\n

Kacey Musgraves’s viral disco balls moment points to a lineage of artists whose use of the genital form is camp-as-critique.<\/p>\n


\n \"Phillip
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"A
\n Alexandra Rubinstein, \u201cDisco Balls\u201d (2020) (image courtesy the artist)<\/p>\n

How does one write an art history of testicle-shaped disco balls? Does one begin with the most recent iteration of disco balls and trace their way back, through the raucous hollers and blacklit rooms of a Southern Californian gay bar<\/a>, and a fine-dining restaurant in Norway<\/a>? Or does one draw a line from the first depictions of testicles in Paleolithic cave art to \u201cthe day disco died\u201d in 1979 and the unrelated spate of humorous genital-themed art born in the decades since?<\/p>\n

They say no time is like the present, especially in this case \u2014\u00a0because, presently, the Grammy-winning country music star Kacey Musgraves is perching herself on a giant suspended testicle-shaped disco ball night after night in front of tens of thousands of fans as part of her 36-date Middle of Nowhere Tour. Nearly two weeks after the tour kicked off in Chicago on August 20, Musgraves sat on the slowly spinning sculpture for two nights at Madison Square Garden, singing the starry-eyed, romantic \u201cRhinestoned\u201d off her sixth studio album to a sold-out crowd of 20,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Kacey Musgraves performing \u201cRhinestoned\u201d next to a disco balls sculpture at Madison Square Garden (photo Lakshmi Rivera Amin\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

For Brooklyn artist Alexandra Rubinstein, the country artist\u2019s take on the mobile, which quickly went viral via videos shared across social media platforms, uncannily resembled a sculpture that she made in 2020 and exhibited at the Spring Break Art Show in 2024<\/a>. On August 22, the artist posted<\/a> photos of her work, titled \u201cDisco Balls,\u201d on Instagram with the caption, \u201cIt\u2019s true I made them first (maybe, who knows it\u2019s all been done).\u201d Users made quippy replies in the comments, writing \u201cWho said disco was dead?\u201d and \u201cTesticle spectacle.\u201d Artist Mike Glier commented that Rubinstein\u2019s work resonated with Louise Bourgeois’s testicular sculpture series Janus<\/a> (minus the disco mirrors, of course).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rubinstein told Hyperallergic that she quickly learned of Musgraves\u2019s use of remarkably similar, albeit much larger disco balls in her tour, \u201cas people often send [her] all these balls.\u201d The artist made \u201cDisco Balls\u201d in 2020 from a mold that she had previously used to make a testicle-shaped pi\u00f1ata filled with \u201cplastic babies, blue and pink candles, and condoms\u201d for her 2020 solo show Dick Diaries at Established Gallery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pi\u00f1ata was about bringing attention to the cis male role in pregnancy and reproduction at a time when Trump had filled the Supreme Court with conservative judges, while also playing on the trope of a ball-busting feminist,\u201d Rubinstein said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Alexandra Rubinstein at the opening of Dick Diaries at Established Gallery in 2020 (photo courtesy the artist)<\/p>\n

Much like Dick Diaries, and the artist\u2019s signature paintings of oversized phalluses<\/a> which she views \u201cas stand-in symbols for traditional masculinity,\u201d Rubinstein\u2019s \u201cDisco Balls\u201d are a tongue-in-cheek response to the patriarchal establishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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