Month: March 2019 (Page 3 of 12)

 

‘Martin Arnold has constructed a cinema machine – not simply a custom optical printer or recycling system, but a kind of mnemographic machine, an apparatus that writes and rewrites memories on the surfaces of film. Arnold’s cinema functions by incorporating exterior forces, an outside source of energy that presses upon the projected images. In turn, the machine exports text, forming a kind of open economy. …

‘Arnold’s cinema, however, is not a smooth machine. The breakdowns, short-circuits and gasps that define his cinema create a violently neurotic machine. (Neurotics, Freud reminds us, distrust their memories to a remarkable extent.) Arnold’s machine stutters and twitches from the moment it is turned on. This is due, in part, to the fact that Arnold’s cinema barely holds together under the strain of a constant tension between its elements. It is a machine that thematizes even as it reproduces the scene of its own breakdown, obsessively and compulsively.’ — Akira M. Lippit, Canyon Cinema

 

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Stills

 

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Interview
from Avanto Festival

 

How did you end up making films after studying something else?

Martin Arnold: The thing is I was always interested in making films, and especially experimental films. I got interested very early because back then the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna was very active in showing all kinds of classical avant-garde works – let’s say Kubelka, Kenneth Anger, Brakhage, Michael Snow – so you really could see these things in this town. The only problem back then, and I think it’s somehow still a problem, was that the Arts Academy didn’t have any classes for film or media, so there was no chance at all to study these things so I enrolled in psychology and art history. I always made films when I was a student, smaller projects, but essentially I never really liked them that much. So then at the end I finished the studies and I thought that I would never become a film-maker because the movies were so bad! I was sad, you know, but then I came up with pièce touchée. The film worked well and from that point on I was a film-maker.

How did you develop your film-making techniques of looping and stuttering images and sound?

MA: I was interested in using single frames, and I think the film-maker who influenced me most in this approach was Peter Kubelka who was very active in giving lectures in Vienna and always insisted that film was composed of single frames, and that we should think of film in terms of single frames. So that’s how I got interested in single frames. Together with a friend, I built my own optical printer which is a tool that you can use to re-photograph single images, single stills, from an already existing film. When I started doing these things I tried all kinds of structures like running it forwards, then running it backwards, then I even inserted breaks and worked with extreme time lapse and also slow motion. So I did all kinds of things and ended up with this continuous forwards and backwards movement because I found them the most interesting. I used popular movies like B-pictures in my experiments and felt that if you break the continuum – if you jump from frame 2 to frame 12, then jump back to frame 3 and then to frame 16 – then this would insert breaks into the movement of the actors. What I found convincing in these continuous forwards and backwards movements was that I didn’t actually break the gestures of the actors, but I could somehow extend them or change them, which means that I not only got to work in a formal way, but I also got to influence the gestures and the actions that we can see in the movies, so I could command somehow what was happening in the image.

Your films feel and sound like music or miniature musicals in many senses. What is your relationship to music?

MA: I’m not sure if I have a particular relation to music. I mean, like many people of my age I’m interested in American music of the 80’s like John Zorn and the people around John Zorn. I’m also interested in hip hop, although I’m not an expert. And of course I’m also interested in all kinds of sampling strategies. Although I think in terms of my films a lot of it comes from film itself. I was always surprised to find out that running a film backwards – all of these strategies – are very old. That’s what the Lumière brothers did at the Grand Café in Paris at the time when they first showed their films. And then there’s the Len Lye movie Doing the Lambeth Walk – Nazi-Style, where he used footage from Triumph of the Will. So I think a lot of it essentially comes from film itself.

 

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Further

Martin Arnold Official Website
Martin Arnold @ Canyon Film Cooperative
Sixpack Films
‘To Mock a Killingbird: Martin Arnold’s Passage à l’Acte and the Dissymmetries of Cultural Exchange’
Martin Arnold @ Frieze Magazine
Martin Arnold @ MUBI
‘Wrinkles in Time’: Jonathan Rosenbaum on Martin Arnold
Martin Arnold @ Senses of Cinema

 

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6 films

Piece Touchée (1989)
‘Piece touchee (1989) is a brief exegesis of a woman reading and a man coming to visit her. This footage comes from an unidentified movie from the 1940s, and opens innocently enough with the woman sitting in a chair enjoying her book. There’s no movement at first, but this is deceptive; an almost imperceptible motion starts to happen with her hand moving slightly up and down, a sign of the slight agitation that eventually explodes as something attempts to open the door. Suddenly this homely scene takes on the feel of a horror film, with what may be a monster repeatedly, terrifyingly straining at the door. Arnold builds on this arid atmosphere of entrapment and incipient chaos to the point where a kind of vertigo sets in. In a literally dizzying sequence, Arnold introduces maniacal flash-cuts and repeatedly replays and interrupts a scene in which the camera pans across the woman rising and the man walking; this will have some viewers holding their chairs.’

 

Passsage À L’Acte (1993)
‘Passage a l’acte (1993) makes a simple breakfast scene from To Kill a Mockingbird look like a surrealist nightmare. The 1950s family is the target here. Those who know the film will recognize the characters as a father, his two kids, and a neighbor woman, but the film transforms them into a crazed version of the postwar family. While “Mother” sits with a frozen smile and Father (Gregory Peck) reads the paper, sonny boy gets up from the table and opens and closes the screen door repeatedly. The slamming of the door sounds like gunfire, hinting at an unnamed aggression occurring somewhere just outside this sacred space of the ’50s home and perhaps at disturbing forces at work within this family. Arnold’s exploitation of these characters is pitiless; like an evil puppeteer he repeats a shot of Gregory Peck screaming words and parts of words to stultifying effect, while the son twitches back and forth with some unknowable frustration and the daughter makes gutteral noises that attain a kind of robot rhythm.’

 

Don’t (1996)
‘Commissioned for the 100 years of Cinema celebrations in Vienna.’

 

Viennale Trailer: Psycho (1997)
‘Martin Arnold has adopted a fragment from the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary thriller PSYCHO, rendering and composing it anew with the possibilities of digital retouching. The result is a short yet intense piece of contemporary aesthetics. Devoted mainly to density and omission, it visualizes the cinematic narrative on all its levels as a cinematographic and aesthetic mise en scène. Simultaneously, it reveals that a resolving adaptation of traditional cinematic forms can also create suspense, excitement and pleasure.’

 

Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998)
‘In Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998), Arnold stitches together a strange sexual scenario from three of the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney vehicles. In the opening scenes, Andy embraces his aging mother, but subtle repetitions give this homespun scene an unexpected erotic charge. Arnold brazenly rechoreographs Andy’s movements to make it appear he’s humping the old gal from behind. Meanwhile Judy is singing in another room, but it’s no ordinary song. She’s made to emit disturbing “peeping” noises, sing backwards, and lingers on phrases like a stuck record: “There must be someone waiting … waiting … waiting … waiting …” The effect is both comic and chilling, as she stands pathetically with outstretched arms waiting for Mickey, who, perhaps because he’s just left his mother’s bed, never quite connects with poor, frustrated Judy.’ — Gary Morris, Bright Lights Cinema

 

Deanimated (Excerpt, 2002)
‘In Deanimated (2002), Martin Arnold subjects a legendary American horror movie of 1941 to radical cinematographic surgery. Actors disappear thanks to digital technology, leaving the cinematic space to become the actual leading actor in a precise and absurdly comical new interpretation. Arnold transforms the original movie The Invisible Ghost, in which a wife hypnotises her husband into a murder plot, into a study in the increasing disintegration of actor movies; at its close the camera’s eye wanders through sets devoid of human life where the lights literally seem to have gone out. Death becomes, in Deanimated, the fury of disappearence which gives witness to an “unbearable transition beyond existence” (Georges Bataille). The madness has been inscribed into the faces. The ecstasy of effacement, the annihilation of being, the hypostatisation of the inorganic, the searching glance, which no longer meets with any species of recognition – those are the relays which prepare the transition to a catatonic rigidity.’ — Thomas Miessgang

The music, by TWINSANITY, is not in Arnold’s film and has been superimposed.
—-

 

*

p.s. RIP Scott Walker, a true genius. ** Wolf, Yeah, I know, what a mindfuck. Didn’t see that coming at all. Love to you, bud. ** David Ehrenstein, Reza was great, yes. A massive loss way, way too soon. I’m glad you like ‘Cecil B. Demented’. People rarely talk about that film of John’s. It’s beyond ripe for rediscovery. ** Nik, So happy you liked it! Thanks about the script. We found a translator, and the Frenchifying will begin today. Re: the TV script, it’s all things that give no pleasure (to Zac, Gisele, and me), i.e. make things more dramatic, create more anticipation in the viewer, connect all the dots more clearly, … Blah. Coventionalizing, yes, and, as has been the case for a while now, we have to try to do that just enough to satisfy them while trying to preserve everything we want to do. Great about Maldoror. Yeah it hit me hard too. Oh, gosh, I read it when I was pretty young, in my teens. I still haven’t dipped into East River Pipe, believe it or not. Which speaks to the devouring work. But any hour now. I only saw the first night of the concerts because I fucked up and thought the second one started hours later than it did. The one I saw was good, fun to be there, mixed bag on the performers, but a great set by William Basinski and Lawrence English, which made it fully worthwhile. ‘School brain’, yeah. Oh, man, if someone(s) had started a film series like you guys are doing when I was in college I would have lost my mind. Heck, even if you guys did it right now in Paris, same deal. That’s so fantastic! I’ve curated screenings a little, usually as part of a large art-related show, mostly recently at the Pompidou maybe 6 years ago. It was a blast to do. ** Dominik, Hey, D!! Very cool, I’m glad it excited you. Yeah, I don’t think you need to stuff the SCAB feed with things, but it’s not a bad idea to occasionally post things related to SCAB or not, or related to your/its interests. It’s only a boon for followers of the page, to discover things. So just once in a while is probably enough. If you decide to activate it. Yes, the funding thing should be similar. As with PGL, we start with some funding we got from a US foundation, so that’s good, but then we have to apply for whatever grants are possible and hope we get accepted. Since the new film will cost a bit more than PGL, we’ll probably need to get two or three grants, whereas with PGL we were able to make the film with just one grant plus the foundation money. We’ll see. It’s time to be diligent and patient, which is hard. Me too, about the 16+ rating. It’s not looking too good, but we’re trying. If we can’t overturn it, it will really hurt us. So cool about the great weekend with Anita! What are you up to this week? Have the best one possible. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool. Yeah, hard to tell based on that photo of the show. It doesn’t look wildly interesting, but … ** Misanthrope, Hi. I fall back on ‘great’ constantly. The word ‘great’ is like breathing. Very American lazy but enthusiastic use of language. Good luck with your non-shitty novel. And thank about the post, man. ** Jeff J, Yeah, it’s truly horrible and really out of the blue. Obviously, I too am thinking about the almost opera project we were going to do — and would have not been able to do in any case, I guess — with him. No news on what happened with him. Stephen might know something, but he’s on tour. If I hear anything before the media does, I’ll let you know. A week from today! Holy shit! Eyes on the prize, man. Can’t wait. ** Steve Erickson, Hm, I see. I hope your ruminating coalesces. I don’t think there’s transparency in the sense that you’re saying. If they decree something, that’s it. No bucking the decree by theaters, etc. I’m hoping to find out what if anything has happened today. ** Joshua Dalton, Even I, Mr. Transgressive, used to get queasy at Bob and Sheree’s shows. Man, yeah, three acceptances so far is really good! Keep your confidence and drive up as best you can. Thanks about the ratings board. I don’t know. Looking bad, but it’s not over yet. Or I don’t think it is. Take it easy, Josh. ** chris dankland, Ha ha, they are, right? Yeah, they were actually pretty famous for a while, or certainly as performance artists go. The LA art scene definitely began its transformation from sleepy art outpost to its current status as a major art center in the 80s, but it took until the 00s for it to become a total hot spot. No, I wouldn’t say the influx of money, power, attention had much or any impact on the performance artists there. Mike and Paul’s growing fame was around their visual art, and their performances were just considered the ‘live’, less saleable part of that work. There really isn’t any way to make performance art a commodity unless the performer decides to make their work more conventional and/or spectacular and recontextualize it for large theater spaces. It sounds really pretty where you are, yeah. Nice. I still really love Paris. Who knows longterm, but for now I have no interest in living anywhere else really. Have a great Monday morning, afternoon, and evening! ** tyler murphy, Hi, Tyler. Yeah, when I was just in LA, almost everyone I know was bemoaning the encroachment of the blue chip. Of course Frieze was happening at the time, which probably pushed that to people’s frontal lodes. Wow, great on your friend Eric. Human Resources is a really crucial place. Oh, right, about Provincetown. You didn’t bug me at all. I apologise for my spaceyness and whatever else on my end. I have a bad email/ tangent focus problem. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi. Vaginal is a genius. Great, great about the positive noises from the university! Fingers heavily crossed on my end if needed. That Katy Perry cover is terrifying. Oh, well, that’s cool about your attraction to women. If it’s happening, that’s that. Self-identification should always be fluid, I think. I had a serious girlfriend years ago, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It just didn’t stick for me. So, yeah, see what happens. ** Okay. Today I offer you the great pleasure of watching some short films by the wonderful Martin Arnold if you so choose. See you tomorrow.

 

‘In performance art, usually one or more people perform in front of an audience. Performance artists often challenge the audience to think in new and unconventional ways about theater and performing, break conventions of traditional performing arts, and break down conventional ideas about “what art is,” a preoccupation of modernist experimental theater and of postmodernism. Thus, even though in most cases the performance is in front of an audience, in some cases, notably in the later works of Allan Kaprow, the audience members become the performers.

‘The performance may be scripted, unscripted, or improvisational. It may incorporate music, dance, song, or complete silence. Art-world performance has often been an intimate set of gestures or actions, lasting from a few minutes to many hours, and may rely on props or avoid them completely. Performance may occur in transient spaces or in galleries, room, theaters or auditoriums.

‘Despite the fact that many performances are held within the circle of a small art-world group, RoseLee Goldberg notes, in Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present that “performance has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, as well as shocking audiences into reassessing their own notions of art and its relation to culture. Conversely, public interest in the medium, especially in the 1980s, stemmed from an apparent desire of that public to gain access to the art world, to be a spectator of its ritual and its distinct community, and to be surprised by the unexpected, always unorthodox presentations that the artists devise.”’ — John Stockwell

 

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Select Venues

LACE
Llhasa Club
The Woman’s Building
Highways
Human Resources Los Angeles
Anti-Club
LAICA
Beyond Baroque
Los Angeles Theater Center
SPARC

 

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Stories

Fred Tomaselli, painter, multimedia artist: “Mark Pauline did a performance on one of the bridges going into East L.A. There was a lot going on down there. There was this performance artist Stelarc, he hung himself with fish hooks off of one of the bridges just long enough to get a photo. He started hanging out at Gorky’s Cafe [where I was the manager] and I remember I booked him to do a performance at Gorky’s. It was this thing with this robotic third hand. That was very alienating to the customers.”

Brett Goldstone, multimedia artist: “I remember we were all in the Cotton Exchange show organized by LACE in 1984. Fred Tomaselli did a great kinetic piece. It was these animatronic legs in a dark room. When you walked in there was a mat that had a switch built in and it made the legs jump. It was kinda funhouse — scary, too.

“Chico MacMurtrie did a huge performance up in the ceiling that you saw as you entered the building. It was a kind of this enormous spider web made out of masking tape, I think. It was growing all through the opening. There was so much stuff in the show. I did a kinetic piece of a guy sitting at a table stuffing himself with fast food, arms flailing. Kathy Norklun did a spread in Spectacle magazine about all of the kinetic stuff.

“I did another piece under my nom de guerre, Art Attack, which I used at the time for all of my guerrilla pieces. It was a big banner (30′ x 20′) that I hung on the building the night before by breaking into the upper floors that were locked. It was a rather emotional response to a scene I had witnessed walking home to Chinatown from my friend’s studio on Broadway and 5th Street.

“There was a drunk, homeless guy on the ground at a hot dog stand and there were three or four cops standing around laughing at him as they whacked him with their batons, goading him to stand up. It went on for a few minutes and I wanted I to say something but I had learned that this was a good way to get whacked myself. I was furious. So I went on home and painted this big scene of what I had seen in very simple cartoonish style so as to be read at a large distance.

“It was hanging on the building for a few days when I got a call from [LACE Director] Joy Silverman telling me I had better take it down as the police had come and closed down the show. They had claimed it was for a paperwork issue but it was understood that the banner was the problem. I removed it and the show opened again. I rehung it the night of the closing party just to show the LAPD that we were still on to their brutality toward the homeless in the downtown area.”

Stephen Seemayer, artist, filmmaker: “It was very bleak. There wasn’t crack yet. There wasn’t AIDS. But there was a sense of desolation. It was so desolate that even the cops didn’t really want to deal with you. I was 3 to 4 blocks away from the Newton Division and it’s famous in the LAPD. They were called the ‘Shootin’ Newton.’ I was like 22 at the time. I would be there at my studio and they’d see me out of my car and they’d roust me and said, ‘What are you doing in this neighborhood?’ And I’d say, ‘I live here.’ And they’d say, ‘Get out!'”

Marnie Weber, artist: “We decided we would have an art show in our building. It was just ourselves on Spring St. We invited everyone we knew to submit a piece. I was taking a class with Chris Burden and I said, ‘Do you want to show a piece?’ And he said, ‘Sure.’ And he shot bottle rockets across the street from our roof. And the cops didn’t care. That was just the kind of thing that would happen.

“I remember our first gig [as the Party Boys]. We said, ‘Where is the least likely place you’d play?’ So we picked a gas station at midnight on a Wednesday. Then we had to change location. So we moved to a parking lot that had been painted turquoise. We rented generators and did play Wednesday at midnight. And there was quite a few people — like 25. In those days, you were happy if 25 people showed up.

“Then we played at a bar across the street called Jacaranda’s. We walked in and offered to play for free. We would play for beer. We got a fair amount of people coming to our shows, from downtown, from Hollywood, East L.A. We started inviting other bands like the Minutemen and punk bands from the period.

“Then Marc Kreisel bought the American Hotel [home to Al’s Bar] and we said, ‘Why don’t you have a show?’ He said, ‘If you build a stage I’ll do it.’ So we built a stage.”

 

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Extras

The Lhasa Club Tapes – Hollywood 1985

A Hole in Space LA-NY, 1980

Historic Places in L.A.: The Woman’s Building

 

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15

Johanna Went

‘Johanna Went is a pioneering performance artist who began performing as part of a street theater troupe that travelled America and Europe in the 1970’s. Combining a wild, chaotic performing style packed with visual excitement, gallons of blood, streams of multicolored liquids, giant bloody tampons, enormous sewn fabric sculptures, wacky scary costumes and enough Styrofoam and found film stock to fill a room, Johanna packed the clubs in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix and New York. For more than ten years she was known as an innovative performance artist, particularly for the visual richness of her on-stage characters. She was equally renowned for her use of live improvised music that crossed over from jazzy rock grooves and jungle beats to electronic soundscapes and industrial noise. And always, above all the wild, driving music: Johanna’s completely stream of conscience vocals.’

(more)

Johanna Went: Ablutions of a Nefarious Nature

 

 

 

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

‘Born in 1955 and raised in Mexico City, Guillermo Gómez-Peña came to the United States in 1978. His artistic production has centered around his life mission: to make experimental yet accessible art; to work in politically and emotionally charged sites for diverse audiences; and to collaborate across racial, gender, and age boundaries as a gesture of citizen-diplomacy. As founding member of the bi-national arts collective Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo (1985-1990), Gómez-Peña was featured in the 1990 Biennale di Venezia. He has participated in a vast number of exhibitions, biennials and festivals including the Sydney Biennial (1992) the Whitney Biennial (1993), Sonart (1999), and Made in California at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (2000). In 1991, he became the first Chicano/Mexicano artist to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. He has also won a number of awards including: the New York Bessie Award (1989), the Viva Los Artists Award (1993) and the Cineaste Lifetime Achievement Award at Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival (2000). Gómez-Peña’s performance and installation work has been presented at more than five hundred venues across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, the former Soviet Union, Columbia, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil and Argentina.’

(more)

BORDER INTEROGATION; LA POCHA NOSTRA (Excerpt)

 

 

 

Linda Montano

‘Linda Mary Montano is a seminal figure in contemporary feminist performance art, Linda Montano’s work since the mid 1960s has been critical in the development of video by, for, and about women. Attempting to dissolve the boundaries between art and life, Montano continues to actively explore her art/life through shared experience, role adoption, and intricate life altering ceremonies, some of which last for seven or more years. Her artwork is starkly autobiographical and often concerned with personal and spiritual transformation. Montano’s influence is wide ranging. She has been featured at museums including The New Museum in New York, MOCA San Francisco, and the ICA in London. Montano has taught Performance Art, published five books, and has over fifty free videos on YouTube.’

(more)

You Look Marvelous!!! The Performance of Aging and Death

 

 

 

Bob & Bob

‘BOB & BOB is written like a long, meaty press release, which is in keeping with these two artists’ general tactics. I have never seen one of their live performances, but I like the way they tread the thin line between silly-smart and silly-stupid in this book. It tells the who (Francis Shishim and Paul Velick), what (music, performance, public action, drawing, self-advertising, film, photography and whatever else was at hand), and where (California) of the first five years of this team’s collaboration. Texts of songs, interviews and routines are included. Two of the worst art jokes ever put into print came from Bob & Bob’s early school days at the Art Center in Los Angeles: “I went to the dentist to get Matisse fixed”; and “Hey Bob, who’s your favorite Artist?” “Lautrec!” “Well, I think his work is Too-loose!” With a beginning like that, anything is possible.’

(more)

BOB & BOB – Who Are Bob and Bob? 8mm film

 

 

Reza Abdoh

‘Though he was only 32 at the time of his passing, the Iranian-American theater director Reza Abdoh’s (1963–95) mark on the world of theater was unmistakable. Relentlessly inventive, he pushed his actors—and audiences—to their limits amid ambitious, unusual, disorienting stage sets. Abdoh’s aesthetic language borrowed from fairy tales, BDSM, talk shows, raves, video art, and the history of avant-garde theater. This exhibition, the first large-scale retrospective of Abdoh’s work, will highlight the diverse video works that Abdoh produced for his performances and an installation based on his 1991 production Bogeyman. The exhibition also includes contextual materials reflecting the club scenes in both Los Angeles and New York, the culture wars of the Reagan era, and the AIDS crisis. Abdoh died of AIDS in 1995.’

(more)

Reza Abdoh: Theater Visionary, Documentary Film (Trailer)

 

 

 

Vaginal Davis

‘Davis got her start in L.A.’s predominately white punk scene as the front woman of an art-punk band called the Afro Sisters, where she referenced and drew inspiration from iconic black radicals like Angela Davis, after whom she named herself. Throughout the eighties, Vaginal Davis developed multiple personas and performed incongruous identities. She was a black revolutionary drag queen, a teen-age Chicana pop star, a white-supremacist militiaman. These characters often referred to one another: against her better judgment, Vaginal Davis pined for Clarence, a rabid white supremacist; Clarence, too, harbored secret affections. Their dynamic caricatured that illicit desire that exists despite—or, perhaps, because of—racism. This kind of political critique, simultaneously absurd and hyper-real, made Davis a muse to a generation of queer writers and critics, like the late José Esteban Muñoz, who died in 2013.’

(more)

Cholita! En No Controles

 

 

 

Bob Flanagan & Sheree Rose

‘Sheree Rose and Bob Flanagan (1952-1996) are most known for their intensive bodily performances that explored love, sex, pleasure, sadism, masochism, and Flanagan’s long-term battle with cystic fibrosis. Rose and Flanagan’s history is worth knowing not for what they did to art, but for what they did to love and sex. This is where Rose’s relationship to her practice is quite different from that of the people mentioned above. It was an already-existing active engagement with sex politics as lived and felt that brought Rose and Flanagan into galleries and museums. They were together for years before that relationship morphed into an art practice, and their activism was, at first, an explicitly sexual activism localized to their personal lives and to their activism within and on behalf of the BDSM community.’

(more)

Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose video J Pompei

 

 

 

Linda J Albertano

‘Linda J. Albertano skeins surrealism and lyricism into eight pieces. The warped reality of David Lynch is an apt reference point, for Albertano’s university degree is in film making: vivid images splash colour into her tales. Lush language and carefully chosen aural bites cultivate texture in a world seeping with heat and saturated with history, a world unburdened by chronology. Sexual and political power relations form Albertano’s stomping ground. With satire and simile as her tools, she unravels scenarios, attempting to uncover their subtexts… A commentary that entertains and educates as it inquires.’

(more)

Linda J Albertano – Lhasa Club – Hollywood 1985

 

 

 

Mike Kelley

‘Starting out in the late 1970s with solo performances, image/text paintings, and gallery and site-specific installations, Kelley came to prominence in the 1980s with a series of sculptures composed of common craft materials. Featuring repurposed thrift store toys, blankets, and worn stuffed animals, the Half a Man series focused Kelley’s career-long investigation of memory, trauma, and repression, predicated on what the artist described as a “shared culture of abuse.”’

(more)

Pansy Metal Clovered Hoof – Mike Kelley and Anita Pace

 

 

 

Suzanne Lacy

‘Suzanne Lacy is an American social practice artist, who coined the term new genre public art. Her work spans from visual art, film and performance art to installation, public practice and writing. All her work is linked by its engagement with social themes and urban issues, through conversation within communities of people. She has addressed issues such as rape, violence, feminism, aging and incarceration. Lacy is concerned with bringing both social and aesthetic purpose to her work, making her, in many people’s eyes, both an artist and an activist.’

(more)

Between the Door and the Street: A Performance Initiated by Suzanne Lacy

 

 

 

Ron Athey

‘It’s not easy to comprehend why someone would want to penetrate their scalp with a metal hook, infuse their scrotum with saline solution and invite a live audience to watch. But Ron Athey’s not a simple guy. Over the last 20 years the experimental body artist has been dubbed a masochist and a sensationalist for his extreme practice – a kind of queer performance art that deals with themes of trauma, ritual and resistance through the mutilation of the body. Always challenging, always underground, his work has been heavily influenced by his upbringing in a Pentecostal household and by living the past 28 years of his life as HIV positive.’

(more)

Solar Anus

 

 

 

Donald Krieger

‘Donald Krieger passed away peacefully on May 3, 2010 after a short illness. Throughout his life and at the time of his passing, Donald was surrounded by love. He was 57 years old. Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and raised in southern California, he called Los Angeles home. Donald began an eclectic career in art with seminal performance pieces known for their originality, innovative use of media and anthropological subject matter. “The Story of Aviation”, “All Electric”, “The Tesla Project” and “Boy’s Life”, to name a few, established Donald as an important voice in the Los Angeles performance art community. Also recognized for his installation pieces, paintings and drawings in his later career, Donald created a one-man show based on the work of Thomas Edison at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 1995. He continued to explore science and nature in his art and writings.’

(more)

‘Island’. Performance by Donald Krieger, featuring Kristian Hoffman and Lance Loud.

 

 

 

Los Angeles Poverty Department

‘The Los Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD) is a Los Angeles-based performance group closely tied to the city’s Skid Row neighborhood. Founded in 1985 by director and activist John Malpede, LAPD members are mostly homeless or formerly homeless people who collaborate with advocates, social service professionals and community members to create performances and multimedia art that highlight connections between their lived experiences and external forces that impact their lives.’

(more)

4 excerpts from Los Angeles Poverty Department’s performances

 

 

 

Paul McCarthy

‘Painter (1995) is a single-channel colour video with sound that is shown in a darkened room either as a projection or on a monitor. The video depicts the American artist Paul McCarthy performing as the eponymous painter inside a wooden set that is dressed as an artist’s studio, containing several large canvases as well as over-sized brushes and tubes of paint, along with an adjacent bedroom. Dressed in a blue smock, McCarthy wears a blonde wig and a number of prosthetics, including a bulbous nose, flapping ears and large rubber hands. During the fifty-minute video, he talks and acts in an exaggerated and comic fashion, sometimes behaving violently and at other times more childlike, as he struggles to paint. Midway through the work McCarthy sits at a table and repeatedly hits his rubber hand with a meat cleaver, eventually cutting off the index finger. Interspersed with the sequences in the studio and bedroom are four brief scenes featuring additional characters, all of whom also wear bulbous prosthetic noses. Two of these scenes are set in an office, where McCarthy visits a female gallery owner whom he claims owes him money, and the other two are based around a talk show, in which McCarthy appears alongside the host and an art collector couple. The video concludes with a scene in which a group of collectors line up to see McCarthy, with one sniffing the artist’s bare bottom as if assessing it as an artwork. Painter was shot on digital betacam and is displayed as standard definition video.’

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Paul McCarthy: “Painter”

 

 

 

Kipper Kids

‘The fair-enough question might be “Who the hell are the Kipper Kids?”. But for those who know of them it’s more likely, “Do we really have to talk about the Kipper Kids?” This duo who came to attention in America in the late Seventies/early Eighties opened for the Rolling Stones and Public Image Ltd, performed at the Munich Olympics and got their first big break on US television in a CBS show No Holds Barred. And what did they do? Imagine the sadistic end of the Three Stooges coupled with anarchic French clowns, a more flatulent spin-off from the surrealism of Monty Python, plus silly voices, protracted skits which seem to have no end or even a point and . . .’

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Kipper Kids Mondo Beyondo

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Harry Dodge is also one of the principal actors in ‘Cecil B. Demented’, John Waters’ most overlooked great (in my opinion) film. Yes, RIP Larry Cohen. He did some cool stuff. Films by him have been in several posts here. ** Scunnard, Hi, Jared! I’m pretty good, a bit too busy as I guess I keep saying. How great if you can come see ‘PGL’ and me in Glasgow! Here’s hoping. Ugh, sorry about the book’s legs’ external impairment. It always seems like there’s more of those falling through things than the good things, at least in my history too. The next thing: great that you’re onto it! Like I said, I’m good. Lots of stuff in the works, almost all of it promising and seemingly worth the current hassles. ** Bill, Hi. They’re great, together and also separately. I didn’t find Hong Kong so mysterious in my short visit there. Well, a little. Parts. That is nice: ‘The Trek’. Thank you. How was the Strickland, if you’ve seen it? ** Joshua Dalton, Well, well, well, Josh! How sweet to see you! Thank you about ‘Try’. Oh, you know, I think of them as constructions, but they’re filled with real feelings, and readers don’t have to see them as clinically as I do. Oh, great, new work by you! And work by you towards which you have pride! Excited to read it. Everyone, excellent writer and very long-time blog contributor Joshua Dalton has a new short fiction piece online, and new work by Josh is a rarity, so I advise using your eyes on it via this portal. Oh, yeah, Blake was here. That was cool. I’d be interested to visit Dallas, not having been there since I was a little kid. I have no memory of it whatsoever other than seeing it up ahead though the windshield of the car I was riding in. I hope you’re doing great too, pal. Take good care. ** tyler murphy, Hi, Tyler, welcome to here! Oh, me too, big time! As artists and — do you know them personally? — as people too. Thanks a lot! ** Misanthrope, Hey. Well, you know my non-belief in the ultimate value of generalising terms, and ‘conservative’ is one of those. The ‘refresh’: that sounds so nice. I flashed a ‘v’ for victory sign when I read the word ‘sooner’. ** Robert Siek, Hi, Robert. Awesome, thank you! I’ll be over there ASAP. Everyone, the superb poet Robert Siek has some new poetry in a new and very cool looking online journal called BAD DOG edited by the Canadian poet Joshua Chris Bouchard. Go fete yourselves by reading Robert’s poetry, first and foremost, and also checking out the journal’s debut issue. Start here. Wow, I forgot that Stanya had work in ‘Userlands’ until just now. Her videos are wonderful, I can promise you. Thank you again, and take care, buddy. ** Wolf, Wolfie, god of the wolves! Hi! Uh, yeah, the 16+ thing is a fucking drag, and I just hope we can get it overturned. It’s ridiculous. I mean, as I probably told you, we had to make a short version of ‘PGL’ to satisfy our grant giver even though it was never going to be seen, and that version, which has exactly the same ‘problem’ as the long one, didn’t get a 16+ when it was reviewed, so … Ugh. How very cool that you just did that big sweep of the West Coast! Crazy, that’s a lot! If you haven’t, next time you’re in Seattle and have time, take the boat out to the islands ‘cos there are a shitload of them, and they’re beautiful and, yeah, soul magnetising in many instances. So great to see you! Tell me more! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Fellow Dodge/Kahn fan, yes! Joy is a really good word for their stuff’s effect. Super exciting to read about ‘The Call’s’ building eruption! ** Steve Erickson, Well, if it gave you ideas for your work, that’s all it needed to do, cool. Yes, if we get stuck with the 16+ rating, that could happen, but it will seriously screw us vis-a-vis the release, which then affects its VOD and DVD release, so do light a conceptual candle re: its overturning. ** chris dankland, Hi, Chris! So many old, good pals here today! I’m so glad you like Kahn and Dodge’s stuff. Yeah, it’s such good work. When Zac and I did the ‘PGL’ event at Lincoln Center, showing one of their videos was in the serious running for the carte blanche part of the event. Oh, I don’t know … I guess there must be a particular draw in their work for me. The tone, the way Stanya speaks and writes/uses language, how languid yet tight the structures are, how hilarious but dark they are, … How are you? How is the Southwest treating you this many months in? So fantastic to see you! ** JM, Hi! I’m glad you got back in. I hope you’re doing as well as you can be doing. How are you? What’s going on in your head/world? ** Corey Heiferman, My pleasure. I’m so glad you think it’s a trove. Very nice about your weekend and aces if my wish filtered all the way over there. Busyness is now mostly oriented around the TV script, which is my least favorite of my busyness’s magnets, but its will be done, etc. Happy Monday! ** Okay. Some or even all of you will remember that I did a two-part post here recently about performance art in NYC in the 80s and early 90s, and here, finally, is a similar two-part post focused on LA in its first instalment. I hope it does something good for you. See you tomorrow.