How I Made This: Katz Tepper’s Hysteric Signs and Roasted Cockroach for Scale

In 2018, the New York alternative space White Columns presented “Hysteric Signs,” an exhibition of monumental wall pieces by Katz Tepper. The four works in that show, Hysteric Sign (Ribbed Tomato ‘n Grapes); Gaping Candle Tripod; Hysteric Sign (Distended J Bean); and I, Infected, articulated the artist’s lived experience of chronic illness by visually conflating the body’s internal workings with its external surroundings.
With billboard-like urgency, these brightly