Daniel Goldstein: The Marks We Leave Behind

Daniel Goldstein’s Icarian series is a memorial in the form of a ghost. The abrasion, sweat, and heat of countless bodies over many years imprinted itself on these seat covers for fitness equipment. But now these men are dead, part of the relentless toll of AIDS that nearly wiped out an entire generation. Muscle Systems, the gym that held this equipment, was the undisputed queer gym of San Francisco, so much so everyone called it Muscle Sisters. The series is named Icarian after the brand of exercise equipment from which these covers were removed.

In the late 1980s, Muscle Systems remodeled, and the artist collected the used leather seat covers. He has done nothing to them save mounting them as relics. And relics they are, the sole visible remnant of a once thriving community that sought visibility and electoral power. But unlike the famed religious icons of Christianity such the Shroud of Turin or the Veil of Veronica, this residue of martyrdom wasn’t individual but collective and communal. By the mid-1990s, Muscle Systems’ owner, too, had died, and the gym itself closed.