Kill

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Alias Kill All Artists, 2019
‘Every piece will be delivered with one pair of protective gloves made out of cotton and a certificate of authenticity singed by the artist and gallery owner. The certificate ensures originality and limitation of the series. Artworks will be unframed.’

 

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Sturtevant Kill (wallpaper), 2003
‘Sturtevant’s repetitions of Andy Warhol’s ‘Marilyn’ against her ‘Kill’ wallpaper (based on the Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill, 2003).’

 

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Chenchenchen The Mercy of Not Killing 2.0, 2018
‘In The Mercy of Not Killing 2.0, an unsettling performance piece by 30-year-old Chinese conceptual artist Chenchenchen (CCC), 10 construction workers hang by their hands from a 111-foot-tall tower in the Chinese city of Wuxi. The workers wriggle and shift desperately as they try to maintain their grip and keep from plummeting—presumably—to their death. In a video of this performance, captured by drone, as a camera hovers above the dangling men, we see that they are actually connected by rope. Thus, if one person falls, they all fall.’

 

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Tim Silver Untitled (Oneirophrenia), 2015-2016
‘silver’s ‘oneirophrenia’ series is made from atypical sculptural materials that resist immutability and instead strive towards mutation and modification. for this body of work, the artist has filled busts with raw bread dough which, as it rises, breaks through the figures’ plaster skin.’

 

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Uwe Lausen Kill the colour, 1967
‘In only nine years of art production, autodidact Uwe Lausen created a provocative and stylistically hybrid body of paintings that translate the tensions and contradictions inherent in postwar Germany. From 1960, in reaction to the middle-class milieu where he grew up and the socio-political context of West Germany, Lausen developed a personal vocabulary. His exploration of the human figure is haunted by the cohabitation of younger and older generations, the latter held responsible for Third Reich politics. His paintings conflate many influences, from Francis Bacon to British pop artists Peter Blake and Allen Jones. Close to the SPUR group of artists based in Munich, Lausen lived in Hans-Peter Zimmer’s studio and met the revolutionary Situationist International group in Paris in 1961, taking part in their activities until his eviction in 1965. In an effort to reflect on and extract from the socio-cultural and political establishment of his time, Lausen created a singular pictorial language marked by his resolutely rebellious character and experimentation with drugs.’

 

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Carsten Höller Killing Children III (Kinderfalle), 1993
‘Höller came to fame in 1990-93 with an exhibition of devices for catching and killing children; one, for instance, was a swing fixed to the roof edge of a high-rise building. Was he really such a paedophobe? ‘Well, now I have a daughter I’ve changed my mind! I never hated children, but I hated the idea of making children, the whole reproductive process. There’s no freedom if you cannot get rid of the biological machinery that makes us decide to do this thing and not that thing. I thought very much about how you could break that chain. I was determined and convinced that I would not have children.’

 

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Joseph Delappe Elegy: GTA USA Gun Homicides, 2018
‘Joseph Delappe’s new project – developed in collaboration with Albert Elwin (coding) and James Wood (consultant), Elegy: GTA USA Gun Homicides, is a self-playing version of Grand Theft Auto V that – starting each midnight CST (Central Standard Time) – reenacts/ recounts/ represents the entire body count to date from January 1st 2018 in-game. In other words, the project visualizes real life gun-related homicides in the United States of America though the filter of a video game. (As NRA fanatics love to say, “Guns don’t kill people, video games do.”) Each daily update represents – in a graphic, literal way – the body count reported by a gun violence website. The next day, the program scrapes the new data and starts again, in a perverse Groundhog Day-sort of way, while “God Bless America” – both the original version by Irving Berlin (1918) as well as Kate Smith’s iteration (1938) – plays in the background.’

 

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Hema Upadhyay Killing Site, 2008
‘Baroda born and Mumbai based Hema Upadhyay uses photography and sculptural installations to explore notions of personal identity, dislocation, nostalgia and gender. Upadhyay’s work Killing Site draws on the theme of migration and human displacement across Asia. The top of the work is based on Mumbai’s dilapidated shanty towns, here appearing upside down and protruding out like a canopy over Upadhyay’s decorated montage.’

 

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littlewhitehead It All Depends On One’s Fantasies As A Child, 2008
Sculpture, Plaster, wax, foam, hair, clothes, binbags, rubbish

 

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Nicholas Galanin Inert, 2009
‘By combining two pre-taxidermied wolves into one, artist Nicholas Galanin has created a startling piece. Called Inert, it was made for a traveling group exhibition that deals with humanity’s impact on the environment. “The inability to progress or move forward was the basic concept,” he tells us. “It was created so that we could focus on those that are “affected by societies’ sprawl. Inert deserves to be seen in person; it generates a strong emotional response, viewers have cried.“’

 

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Walter Richard Sickert L’Affaire de Camden Town, 1909
‘It is said that we are a great literary nation but we really don’t care about literature, we like films and we like a good murder. If there is not a murder about every day they put one in. They have put in every murder which has occurred during the past ten years again, even the Camden Town murder. Not that I am against that because I once painted a whole series about the Camden Town murder, and after all murder is as good a subject as any other.’ — Walter Sickert

 

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Mark Flood Various, 2012
‘Many significant events took place in the United States in 1992. Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison, Jay Leno took over as the host of The Tonight Show, Southern California bore the brunt of many major earthquakes, and hurricanes hit the tropics of Hawaii and Florida. Additionally, Bill Clinton defeated incumbent George Bush in the presidential election, breaking a 12-year Republican grip on the White House. Just a few months before the election, protesters flooded the Republican National Conven- tion, brandishing signs of protest. Among them was Mark Flood, supplying the crowd with signs of his own making.’

 

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Stine Marie Jacobsen Do you have time to kill me today?, 2007
‘An important aspect of Stine Marie Jacobsen’s artistic praxis is challenging the stereotypical behavior of female and male actors. In the video Do you have time to kill me today? shot in L.A., the artist acts the part of a blonde driver who is constantly attacked by an elderly man (in reality her neighbor) from the backseat. However she is oblivious to his – clearly staged – attempts to cut her throat. She keeps driving and the fake blood just drips down her throat.’

 

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Jon Sasaki Improvised Travel Adapters, 2018 ->
‘Improvised Travel Adapters documents an ongoing series of temporary sculptures comprised of repurposed objects, jury-rigged to serve as adapters for international electric sockets. Well-intentioned warnings placed in hotel rooms urging travellers to avoid using multiple devices at once are scorned as Sasaki engineers travel adapters by jamming safety pins, paper clips, or nail files between a plug and a socket. Through this flirtation with failure – and possible fatal electric shock – Sasaki evokes the disorientation of arriving somewhere new and being confronted with the need to improvise and make do, heightened by our intense dependence on electronic devices.’

 

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Eugenio Merino For the Love of Gold, 2009
‘A statue of British artist Damien Hirst pointing a gun at his head has caused a stir at the 28th Madrid International Contemporary Art Fair, known as ARCO. Sculptor Eugenio Merino’s piece puts Hirst in a suicidal pose with blood pouring from a bullet wound to his head. It was unveiled at ARCO’s launch over the weekend. “If he killed himself, then the value of his art would increase a lot.” Called For the Love of Gold, the work of parody was produced over a two-month period and refers to Hirst’s For the Love of God — a diamond-encrusted platinum skull that was reportedly sold in the summer of 2007 for more than $100 million to a group of investors. The life-size silicone sculpture uses real human hair and glass eyes. Hirst is posed on his knees with a Colt 45 in his right hand pressed against his temple wearing a skull T-shirt.’

 

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Forensic Architecture The Killing of Mark Duggan, 2020
‘On 4 August 2011, Mark Duggan was shot to death by police in Tottenham, north London, after undercover officers forced the minicab in which he was travelling to pull over.

‘As the vehicle came to a stop, Duggan opened the rear door, and leapt out. Within seconds, an advancing officer known only by his codename, V53, had fired twice. The first shot passed through Duggan’s arm, and struck a second officer, known as W42, in his underarm radio. The second, fatal shot hit Duggan in his chest.

‘V53 would later tell investigators that he saw a gun in Duggan’s hand, and felt his life to be in danger. Duggan was being monitored by Operation Trident, a controversial unit of the Metropolitan Police focused on gun crime in London’s Black communities; firearms officers had followed him from a nearby meeting, at which he had reportedly collected a gun. But following the shooting, the gun in question was found around seven metres away from where Duggan had been shot, on a nearby patch of grass. But no officers reported that they saw Duggan throw the gun, or make any kind of throwing motion.’

 

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Alexander Mir Various, 1988 – 1997
‘In research for the show at the Mary Boone gallery in September-October 2007, three assistants and myself spent months in the NYC Public Library copying 10,000 covers of two tabloids – the outcome of their combined cover stories of 15 years. From these, I selected around 200 that were particularly poignant, or which formed an ongoing narrative, but most importantly, that made me smile with recognition.’ — AM

 

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Jake Francis Chum, 2019
‘Yes he’s real, and no I didn’t kill him…stop asking.’

 

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John Wayne Gacy Sex Skull, 1980
‘John Wayne Gacy used to dress up as pogo the clown and work at fund-raising events, hospitals and kids birthdays. Ted Bundy would seduce women with his charisma and charm or Dennis Rader, also known as BTK, who was the president of the congregation council of his church and a cub scout leader. Many forms of art are inspired by the infamous serial killers of history, depicting an extreme way of life only understandable by the actual killers themselves. After exploring these sociopaths and trying to understand the way they think, makes the art they make themselves- art that comes from a mind of a certain thinking pattern, or a lack of emotion- much more intriguing and fascinating. Gacy after being arrested and charged with 33 murders and was sentenced to death. While he was in prison he started painting as a hobby and later for a way of income. Many people bought the paintings who are interested in his life or horrified by what he had done, also many people bought the paintings only to destroy them.’

 

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Biquini Wax Orca, 2019
‘Using the 1993 ‘Free Willy’ film which starred an orca whale, known in Mexico as Keiko, the name of the real whale, they look back to try to grasp what underlies issues that Mexico and the US face today. Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, a member of the Biquini Wax Collective says that in Willy-Keiko’s fate they saw a mirror of the Mexican economy. “After it was liberalised, it couldn’t survive”.’

 

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Unknown Slave Killer Club, mid-19th century
‘Also referred to as a war club, the head is a large elongated rectangular stone that is inserted into a carved wooden handle. The handle has three faces, one on the top and the second and third on either side of the ax head. These faces have three rows of hair in small “ponytails” protruding from the ridge above the eyebrows. One of the hair “ponytails” has been cut off, leaving a stump of frayed hair sticking up on the proper left top side of the face. The underside of the handle has a carved seal and midway along the handle is a filled break. The club is painted black with white and red accents. There are inlayed areas of abalone shell around the base of the handle, the sides of the head, and in the eyes and teeth of the faces.’

 

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Cady Noland Oozewald, 1989
‘Take Lee Harvey Oswald. In Oozewald, Noland transforms his image—that photo in which Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby’s fatal gunshots find their target—into a larger-than-life silkscreen printed on an aluminum sheet held upright by a metal stand; the portrait bears eight large holes, an American flag stuffed in Oswald’s grimace, the expression by which we best know him.’

 

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Krzysztof Wodiczko Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, 2012
‘For thirty two days, voices of veterans of the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars animated a bronze commemorative statue of Abraham Lincoln that has stood silently in Union Square Park since 1870. The memories and feelings of ordinary Americans spoke through Lincoln as part of an outdoor public art installation by Krzysztof Wodiczko, an artist renowned for his large-scale light projections on architectural facades and monuments.’

 

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Luis Jiménez Mustang, 2006

 

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Bai Yiluo Civilization, 2007
‘Made from terracotta, classical busts pose as emperors and slaves, pierced through and defined by agricultural tools, a life force and bane.’

 

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Bjarne Melgaard Kill Me Before I Do It Myself, 2001
Installation with 5 sculptures in cold cast bronze. Height 122, 113, 100, 92 and 45 cm. 4 watercolours on paper 76 x 56 cm each, signed Melgaard and dated 2001. Boxes, plastic needles, string with glass bottle, jewellry etc. Live performance by Frost.

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Yeah, well, until the vaccine makes the rounds it’s all just a big experiment to try to trounce this thing, and there are only so many things one can do, and quarantine/lockdown is the only really big weapon that seems to be available, and just going for it and not pussy-footing around has logic on its side. We’ll find out tomorrow. I kind of look forward to the IDGAF part or rather  I’m wondering if a GAF guy like me will get there, and I’m thinking … not. I hope Friday works out on the appointment, or I hope she has a delicious dick. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, I had thought you might know them. But I understand that, even back then, the experimental film and video worlds were strangely separate. ** Damien Ark, Thank you, bud. ** _Black_Acrylic, I’m very happy their work intrigued you. Yes, assembling that post from what there is re: them turned out to be a lot of work. ** Brendan, That prejudice you speak of is quite bizarre. But, yes, I have hardcore film buff types who look down their noses at video art. Dumb. Well, I would absolutely love to have a ‘Safer at Home’ post, man. Killer. You can go ahead and curate it on your own, if you want, but I’m happy to weigh in if you need me to. Thanks a lot! That’ll be beautiful. So sorry about the nutsiness. Deeply understandable. My mind is still slightly above water for some weird reason. Love, me. ** wolf, Roar! I do always think of you when I do the Buche post. You and it are like soup and sandwich. I increasingly think the Gazette pot one is the one, if it’s not already sold out. But yes, the Herme is not only vegan but not at all bad looking. I still don’t get the general love for the Cyclops one. I still think it looks too much like one of those party cakes you see shrink-wrapped and on sale in supermarkets. The fox one winning your mental pageant is not even the slightest surprise, ha ha. They are less imaginative this year, you are correct. I think, yeah, the pandemic thing crunched the chefs’ ambitions even though it seems like it would have had the opposite effect given that most of them have had little else to do for most of this year than design their Buches. I’m good, yeah, not bad. Zac and I and our friend Sabrina got to go inside the soon-to-open Pinault Foundation, the new art museum inside the old Bourse de Commerce. Here. Man, it’s gonna be pretty great. We’re going to do a big presentation/talk about haunted house attractions there in March, so we got a tour. That was nice. I don’t know that Gregory Bateson book, but I will now educate myself, thanks! Totally: that nothing better you describe. Totally the best. Love from here to there, majority for you. ** Steve Erickson, We don’t even have outdoor dining, just take away, and even the might get taken away from us very soon. Bleah. Happy the images attracted you, and agreed. And, yes, RIP Harold Budd. He did some very beautiful work. Thanks for the Wilson link. I’ll check it out. And of course for the Julien Temple one. Everyone, Mr. Erickson has interviewed Julien Temple, director of such r&r classic docs as ‘The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle’, ‘The Filth and the Fury’, and ‘The Future Is Unwritten’ about his new one ‘Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds With Shane MacGowan’ right here. ** Bill, My pleasure, Bill. I think that whatever tightening we get, acquiring Buches will remain on the agenda by, yes, pick up or delivery. Enjoy your acquisition! ** Bzzt, Hi. Ever since I figured out that confusion is truth years ago, I’ve felt much more at peace with everything, so I hope it has a similar effect on you. It just makes sense. And it’s a nice antidote to the often poisoning effects of one’s ego. Or I think so. Just remember grad school applying and acceptances/rejections are subject to political forces that do not in fact take your worthiness into account unless you’re really lucky. I feel pretty sure you’ll get an excellent bite. My week isn’t too shabby under the circumstances so far. I’ll cheerlead yours if you cheerlead mine. Curious what you think of ‘Castle Faggot’, natch. ** Right. I feel pretty certain that today’s post is self-explanatory, so I’ll leave you to it, and I will see you tomorrow.