As a
material «insensibl [e] to contradiction», wax's ability to take imprints
of the unique landmarks
of the skin connects it to strategies
of surveillance and data collection that measure visual, behavioural or chemical characteristics, connecting Hershman Leeson's hotel tableau to her later invented character.14 The artist described Roberta Breitmore as «my flippant effigy» and «a dark, shadowy, animus cadaver».15 Similarly, The Dante Hotel was for the artist simultaneously a scene
of death and «a
means of survival».16 As such Thek's and Hershman Leeson's volatile effigies connect two very different bodies
of work and different political movements — the counterculture, gay rights, women's liberation — to make visible the restraints placed on the subject.