I am giving a short talk at Berlin's Pecha Kucha night. What is Pecha Kucha? Around 200 people come to hear between 10 and 15 short talks. Every talk is the same format: 20 images, 20 seconds per image, 6 minutes 40 seconds. The talks cover a range of topics and are in English and German. I will give an overview of some of my research for my PhD.
Pecha Kucha #27
Festsaal Kreuzberg
Skalitzer Str. 130 • 10999 Berlin,
Einlass / Beginn: 19:30h / 20:20h,
Eintritt / Entrance: 6 Euro.
Pina Bausch is divisive. Some adore her work. Others reject it as sexist, classist, and cruel (or "torture" as Joan Acocella states in her New Yorker review). For me, if cruelty is present in Pina's work, it is there in an Artaudean sense, not a literal one (by the same token, would these people likewise say Monty Python is about torture and humiliation?). Watching Wim Wenders personally introduce his film, and listening to the interviews in the film, it is striking how Pina is surrounded by love. In one moving moment, a dancer points out (I'm paraphrasing) that Pina had watched her for more hours than her own parents had... who would watch her now? For me, it is Bausch's watchfulness that informs her work, not any desire to depict torture.
Of Wender's film I had mixed feelings. The way the interview segments cut into the dance segments often left me frustrated. Some of the interviews appear to be included for inclusiveness' sake, rather than because they inform us about a new aspect of Pina's life. I didn't like the 3D: I would have preferred to see the images brighter and clearer and without the reflections of smeary plastic glasses in front of my face. And where Pina's performances were peppered with textual elements, these were largely missing from Wender's tribute. All this said, I left the film with the same sense I have when I went to see Pina at BAM. Yes, I remain very resolutely a Pina fan.
What most impressed me about Maurizio Cattelan: All at the Guggenheim was the way it visually held together. It is remarkable how consistent Cattelan was over the years. Where other artists increase their showyness with their fame, Cattelan's work retains a certain scale of production throughout, speaking of a level of discipline that rubs against his reputation as a prankster. It was a forceful and utterly convincing show. And we must wonder whether 'All' is all, or if the title is just another prank. Both make sense - and this, really, is the point.
I recently visited two of my favorite bookshops in New York, St Marks and the Shakespeare & Co on Broadway. Both shops used to have great philosophy sections. Now they have adopted the approach of presenting larger format books, and turning many of the books face-out. Consequently they now they carry a far smaller selection, barely anything beyond the top-of-the-pops. They've eliminated the one reason why I love going to bookshops: when you search for a specific title, you often find lesser-known works shelved nearby. Now, rather than a dozen books on a particular topic, the shelf only displays two or three. The bookshops appear to have ceded diversity to the Internet, and focused instead on the appearance of ease of access. It is a massive loss for readers.
I have been selected by curator Elke Falat to be a resident at LoBe. Founded by Olivia Reynolds, LoBe is project space and gallery in Wedding, Berlin. I will be resident for the month of February, collaborating with artist Ulrike Mohr. We will create artworks that responds to the space, to each other, and to the Berlin context. There will be a gallery opening and dinner at the end of the February to celebrate the resulting artworks, which will be exhibited for three weeks during March.
For images of past exhibitions at LoBe, see their Flickr Stream.
My artwork is included in Portal - Process of Performance at the Institute for Contemporary Art Newtown (I.C.A.N), Sydney, from Aug 12 - 28.
The exhibition is curated by Stephen Truax and organized by Janis Ferberg. There are six artists in the exhibition: Colby Bird, Jon Meyer, Kevin Regan, Jason Varone, Jody Wood and Mikel Bisbee-Durlam.
Stephen Truax writes:
"Process of Performance will present five works by six artists: a VHS tape recording Colby Bird’s formal experimentation’s in sculpture in his studio, edited on the same TV-VCR on which it is presented; Jon Meyer’s performative drawing Eight hours drawing at one inch per hour with left and right hand, 2011, a drawing which was created with assistance from a unique software program the artist developed; Kevin Regan’s home-made video, widely available and presented in the gallery on YouTube, The Conversion of St. Paul, 2007, shows the artist passing out and waking up three minutes later after taking Salvia Divinorum, while his wife supervises and cleans the kitchen in the background; an illustration of a cloud, hand-painted on the wall, will rain Twitter feeds in Jason Varone’s microprojection Inclement Weather, 2010; Jody Wood and Mikel Bisbee-Durlam present a two-screen video documenting their performance of dragging one another through the streets of Bushwick, and within the controlled environment of a studio, while covered in concrete.Representing both a unique cross-section of the wide variety of artists’ practices in Brooklyn today – with a strong focus on the artist-rich neighborhood of Bushwick – and providing an intimate view into their quotidian lives, Process of Performance serves as a snapshot into the incredible creative energy present in Brooklyn now, and reveals how even the most traditional artist is exposed to the world via the digital space. Each work is strongly connected to digital technology, and how that technology has been employed by these artists to address’s the archetype of the artist, and how the artist engages in performance in every aspect of their practice. – ST"
My friend Sam Cuttriss and I just completed an enduro motorcycle trip from San Francisco to the Colorado rocky mountains and back. We rode 1,200 miles on dirt roads and trails, and travelled a total of 4,000 miles. A complete trip report with dozens of images is posted at AdvTrail.com.
I made a day trip to visit Robert Smithson's 1970 earthwork sculpture, Spiral Jetty. The jetty is sometimes fully exposed. During my visit it was partially submerged in water. See link for more images.
My friends told me Spiral Jetty was down a rough narrow road, a little hard to find, with four-wheel drive highly recommended. Exciting! However, some folks have decided to "improve" the site, extending the gravel road all the way to the end and plonking a large car park literally a hundred feet from the sculpture. eliminating any sense of discovery. Smithson would have hated this. Why do institutions have to sanitize everything?
On the Lido
This year I am staying in a small hotel on the Lido in Venice. It smells of jasmine, is away from the crowds, two stops on the vaporetto from the biennale, and best of all it has a small beach. At the end of each day I come back to the hotel, drop my bags, grab a towel, and walk to the beach. After a swim and a run I have a beer at the surf-bar on the beach, then return, change into dinner clothes and walk to a restaurant. The sun is out till around 7.30 so its a perfect way to end the day. My hotel is Villa Della Palme. Its fairly basic, reasonably quiet, clean, and a hundred euros a night for a double room. Time for a spritz!
The crowds in Venice
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