______________ ZimounVarious, 2015 – 2020 ‘The collision of the boxes and the friction caused when they collide gives rise to a multitude of sounds and noises,’ said Zimoun. ‘The acoustic perspective changes as the viewer moves along the exhibition space and can be experienced in constantly new ways.’
_______________ PhrancCombat Boots, 1999 ‘Although Phranc has been known as the “All American Jewish Lesbian Folksinger” since the 1980s (when she toured with such acts as The Pogues and The Smiths), she has been involved in the arts since childhood. As a teenager she attended The Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, CA where she took courses in silk-screening and was shown in a 1978 group exhibition. Says Phranc, “From the time I sat in my first refrigerator box submarine I knew the cardboard sea was for me. I have been creating objects, food, toys, advertisements, shoes and underwear out of ‘found’ cardboard for many years.”’
_______________ Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan Another Country, 2015 ‘Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan work as a husband and wife team primarily in the medium of cardboard. Their soaring installations fill gallery spaces, reaching from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The duo’s massive sculptural works are comprised of miniature homes that have been piled and stacked, creating dizzying towers of comingled landscapes. For many of their installations the artists work with students and community members to collaboratively build the cardboard structures, inviting participants to reflect on and channel their own migratory experiences. The Aquilizans moved from the Philippines to Australia in 2006, and much of their work centers around the migrant experience, and having a foot in two worlds.’
______________ Heimo ZobernigUntitled, 2004 cardboard, glue, approx. 34.5 x 49 x 35 cm, on packing box, 80 x 60 x 40 cm
_____________ Martin CreedWork No. 876, 2008 cardboard boxes, 42.4 x 23.9 x 18.5 inches
_____________ Danful YangPacking me softly, 2020 Handmade embroidery on canvas, foam
_______________ Ralph RoosenPortraying a cardboard box Sculpture, 2018 ‘The silicone that I use for my molds looks like rubber. If you pour it out over a surface, it will fill all the gaps and cracks. Thanks to its flexibility in solid form, you can still pull it out of the cracks. Silicone is therefore used when the elasticity of the material is required; when you desire to achieve a human approach in the reproduction of the object. I therefore cannot escape the idea that I am looking at a torso.’
______________ Cyprien GaillardThe Recovery of Discovery (The Beer Pyramid), 2011 ‘In 2011, Gaillard created the Recovery of Discovery – an installation of a pyramid-like sculpture made of 72,000 beer bottles in cardboard casings that he imported from Turkey. In this installation, Gaillard denounces the barbaric act of tourist colonialism. Recovery of Discovery was meant to be interactive as well as self-destructive as viewers were invited to climb up the pyramid and drink the beers in them.’
______________ Tom BurckhardtArtists Studio, 2005 ‘The artist Tom Burckhardt built a lifesize artists studio and workshop entirely out of cardboard. Tom only used some additional hot glue and black paint to create a floor, roof and various workstations.’
________________ Florian BaudrexelVarious, 2016 – 2020 cardboard on wooden frame
______________ May TveitVarious, 2017 ‘An associate professor of design, Tveit said she obtained the cooperation of the local factory soon after she arrived at KU in 1999. The Lawrence Paper Co. makes corrugated cardboard, boxes and packaging products. “I said I would really like, initially, to just come in and be an observer. I’d like to be able to walk around and take photographs and video and to think and sketch and take notes. For almost two years I would periodically go to the factory to wander around. I have a little nomadic desk in the design department, in the prototyping area.” Tveit was afforded the use of the prototype-cutting table and the corrugated material to make the artworks in “Universal Boxes.” She stacked layers of precisely cut cardboard and glued them together – using factory glue – by hand.’
_____________ Alex UribeUntitled, 2010 recycled, corrugated cardboard
______________ ChristoWrapped Box, 1966 Cardboard box, brown paper, and twine
______________ Alexander SychovCreating cardboard boxes in Unreal, 2017 ‘Creating a diffuse texture was a bit of a process. I admit that I was thinking of using simple cardboard textures from the internet, but after a few tries, I gave up on that idea. Who uses photo textures these days anyway? Not me, thanks. I decided to find some basic free substance materials on the internet and then improve them to my particular specifications. I definitely made the right decision, since this gave me possibilities to control dirtiness, alter the internal structure of the edges of the cardboard, and explore other procedural options. Procedural materials for everyone! Hell yeah!’
______________ Dylan ShieldsSacrifice of Isaac, 2016 ‘British artist Dylan Shields challenges our perception of high art by creating sculpture from cardboard, a seemingly throwaway material, to reconstruct biblical scenes or those from classical mythology, usually associated with the Old Masters.’
_______________ Andy WarholTime Capsule 262, 1981 ‘Warhol’s ‘Time Capsules’ comprise more than 600 boxes filled with photos, letters, as well as some truly unique memorabilia – a plastic inflatable birthday cake signed by Yoko Ono, an invitation to Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ party, and the original stencils for some of his most innovate pop artwork.’
_____________ James CastleVarious, (dates unknown) ‘Born deaf in rural Idaho, James Castle (1899–1977) never learned to speak, sign, read, or write. He spent most of his seven decades—often all day, every day—making art. Shunning conventional artist’s materials, Castle drew with a concoction of spit and soot collected from his woodburning stove, applied with sharpened sticks. His “canvases” and constructions were made from bits of ephemera found in the general store/post office run by his parents and connected to their home. He disassembled packaging, and used discarded mail, cardboard, and twine.’
______________ Anila RubikuCasa all’italiana Superleggera, 2008 Sewn and perforated cardboard paper, light implant, cotton and silk thread,
_____________ Walead BeshtyFed Ex, 2005 – 2014 ‘LA-based artist Walead Beshty packaged his artworks in FedEx boxes and shipped them across the country to exhibitions and galleries. But unlike most artists who utilize every bit of care to protect and pad their artwork from the inevitable rough handling of mail carriers, Beshty designed his pieces to break. For his famous FedEx works he constructed laminate glass objects that fit seamlessly within the dimensions of standard size shipping boxes. Through the “normal” handling the objects would inevitably crack and shatter and it was up to curators and gallerists to carefully remove each piece for display. The fragile volumes were then given titles that specifically mention the date, tracking number, and box size of shipment.’
_____________ David SleethSculpture, 2012 ‘I hope that by elevating a culturally or structurally familiar object to a state of uselessness I can elevate it’s aesthetic significance. I want to create work that alludes to the beautiful qualities I recognize in historical objects without replicating them.’
_______________ Tom SachsPrada Death Camp, 1998 cardboard, ink and adhesive
_______________ Robert RauschenbergCardbird Boxes, 1971 paper and cardboard with photo offset lithograph
_____________ Merlin CarpenterPaint-It-Yourself, 1967. Eight primed canvases and a box placed in the middle of the room full of ready-to-use oil paint tubes, and protected by plexiglass.
_____________ Christian BoltanskiReserve Detective III, 1987 shelves containing cardboard boxes affixed with captionless mugshots, anonymously merging perpetrators and victims of violent crimes.
_______________ Gavin Turk Brillo 2, 2001 Painted bronze
________________ Scott FifeVarious, 2017 – 2020 ‘Created entirely from archival cardboard, artist Scott Fife conjures life-like busts of people building up layers of cardboard with glue and a screws, including a variety of texture and color, culminating in the expressive features of celebrities.’
______________ Rachel Harrison Sculptures with Boots, 2017 cardboard, burlap, cement, acrylic, polystyrene, chicken wire, and framed pigmented inkjet prints
______________ Jake & Dinos ChapmanDeath, 2009 ‘Death is a depiction of a couple in a 69 position performed on an inflatable floating device. The model shows two crudely cut and pasted cardboard figures placed on top of each other, their flattened bodies contrasted by the roundness of the floating mattress. The cardboard bodies are faded, flattened, and lifeless – closer to death.’
_____________ Ben VautierMystery Box, 1964 Sealed cardboard box with screenprint, containing unknown contents
_____________ Bernard LagneauMoving cardboard scenery (Lieu mecanise), 2011 Monumental kinetic sculpture built almost entirely from corrugated paper and cardboard tubes at ‘Arkady Pankrac’ shopping mall, Prague, CZ, September 2011.’
_____________ Gabriel OrozcoEmpty Shoebox, 1993 ‘Empty Shoebox (1993), is simply that. A plain, white, unadorned and unlabeled shoebox, sitting in its lid, open and on the floor. Before I had learned anything about Orozco and his work, I likely would have felt the same bewilderment and disappointment at this unremarkable object placed within a context that insists all of its objects are extraordinary. In studying Orozco, I came to understand that the object, this shoebox, was not the actual artwork. In fact, in a number of lectures given and conversations had, Orozco has stated that the shoebox’s purpose is to create confusion, to be picked up and puzzled over, to be moved, to be kicked across the room, to be ignored. Its rather obvious placement in a gallery in MoMA makes it impossible to ignore–really, what the hell is that thing doing there, is this a joke? This is all very well and good, but to get to the point, I kicked the shoebox.’
_______________ Bernard AubertinDessin de Feu, 1974 Application of burnt matches on cardboard, surmounted by painted burn marks
_____________ Louise WinterUntitled, 2015 Cardboard box, styrofoam and battery fan
_____________ Noah LoesbergSewer Pipe Delivery, 2008 A set of 8” sewer pipe, rendered in heavy duty cardboard, bundled in two ‘palletized’ stacks.
_____________ EVOLVarious, 2017 – 2020 Spray paint on cardboard
________________ Bill BarminskiSecurity Entrance/ Banksy’s Dismaland, 2015 ‘Bill Barminski has a long history of playing with cardboard. It was the most natural fit ever when Banksy tapped Barminski for Dismaland, where, among other things, Barminski created the entire security entrance set-up with metal detectors, body-search wands and everything at the entrance to the park. “People went through it!” marvels Barminski. “I don’t know if they thought it was real or if they were just playing along or what—but they did it.”’
*
p.s. Hey. ** Travis (fka Cal), Hey, Travis! Awesome list, thanks! That Magma and that Dr. John, yes! Lots of exciting stuff. I’ve noted the unknowns in hopes of making them knowns. How are you today and in general at the moment? ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, thank you! I’ll imbibe the vid/tune as soon as my p.s. duties are over. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Oh, wow, you listened to the Branca and liked it, that’s so cool. Ha ha, I wish I was a language analyst and could explain your visual mishap. I used to be good at handwriting analysis when I was younger, but that wouldn’t help. Love explaining to me why anyone in the world cares whether Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine or not, G. ** T, Hi, T. Yeah, I like other BSS too, but for me that record set a standard and high hopes that were never quite met again, I guess. Absolutely true about Coil. Hm, I think ‘Horse Rotorvator’ was my entree into them too. What’s up, man? Let’s hang. ** Misanthrope, Hi, G. Yeah, sorry I’m such a Doors bitch. I’ll try to be better. Yesterday a friend of mine who saw the fave albums post tried to torture me by pretending me his all-time fave album was ‘LA Woman’, ha ha. Headache has vamoosed! Awesome! I bet your mom unknowingly learned things during those 45 minutes that will make her life in finitely more exciting from then on. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Yes, I thought so too. Well, obviously, I guess. I think there might be a bio on her in German, no help. That’s fascinating about your grandmother. You should write more about that, no? I will make a beeline to your blog whence your list is up. Alert please. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yay! The blog did its job. Next week? Oh, man, so hoping no obstacles unexpectedly appear. That’s super exciting! ** Brendan, Hi. You’re the blog’s Metal dude. It’s official. Put it in your CV. Yes, yes, about the photos! I’m in the midst of yet another taxing and consuming moment in the film’s longed-for life, but I will respond in a minute. In a word, amazing! ** Bill, Yeah, right? Me too: I’m fighting off the urge to go back and update my list already. Oh, man, that first Specials album. What an amazing thing. I saw them live on their first tour, and it was crazy. Even I was kind of dancing sort of. ** Sypha, ‘Melt!’ is great, gotcha. Who’s Budge? I was half-wake when I saw your comment, and you’d just mentioned Siouxie, so I thought you were saying Budgie translated that book, which blew my mind until I finally woke up. Nice bookstore scores, especially the Slayer in my book, obvs. Keep having fun while you can. ** politekid, Hi! I’m doing the kicking myself thing too big time, so you are not alone. I am going to revisit that Weather Report. I saw them live a few times back in the day, and their live show was, you know, exciting. Oh, man, hugs and thorough mind and body commiseration about your grandma. I went through that kind of thing with mine, and, oh, it was so dark. Very awesome about the PhD sorting. I loved ‘The Magic Mountain’ a lot. It’s been ages. He’s real good. If you have the engine, that’s really, really important and probably puts you further along than you even realise, based on my experiences. Whenever I’ve figured out the engine, the project always ends up panning out, even if the original engine ends up being the sketch of the engine eventually. Exciting! So much encouragement you cant even imagine! My end is still all about trying to get to the point where Zac and I can make our film. And we will, and we even have a start date, but there’s so much fucking stuff and problems to sort out before we do. Otherwise, fiddling with some short fiction and celebrating what appears to be the end of that miserable summer at long last. Cool, cool. I hope to see you again very soon! ** Right. When’s the last time you spent quality time thinking about cardboard? Blog at your service. See you tomorrow.
‘More than 30 years after her death, admirers pay tribute to one of Germany’s most enigmatic – and overlooked – artists, dancer and actress Valeska Gert. She’s said to have laid the foundations for the punk movement.
‘”I saw her on television in 1977 when she was 86 and I thought, she has short hair, a colorful dress, she’s tough and living in the present, she’s a real punk because she doesn’t care about her image,” said artist and musician Wolfgang Mueller at the opening night of a new exhibition dedicated to Valeska Gert. The show in Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof coincides with the launch of a Mueller’s new biography on the performer. “When she died in 1978 people took care of her letters and found correspondence from punks who said, we would like to know you and to meet you,” he said.
‘Indeed, Valeska Gert’s appearance on a TV talk show in the late 1970’s re-ignited interest in one of Germany’s most enigmatic artistic figures. Her acceptance, at the age of 86, by the burgeoning punk movement is as much a testament to her brash, no-nonsense energy as it is to her artistic achievements. Since then she has remained a marginal curio.
‘Gert was born Gertrud Valesca Samosch to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1892. Showing no interest in academia, Gert began taking dance lessons at the age of nine, and by 1915 was studying acting with Alexander Moissi. Her leanings toward the performing arts, combined with the detrimental effects of World War I on her father’s finances, led her to seek employment and she soon made appearances at the Munich Kammerspiele, the Deutsches Theater and the Berliner Tribuene.
‘As the 1920’s progressed, she also began appearing in silent cinema, performing in The Threepenny Opera, Diary of a Lost Girl with iconic flapper Louise Brooks, and G. W. Pabst’s Joyless Street.
‘It was around this time that Gert unveiled one of her most enduring performance works. Entitled “Pause,” it was an interpretative anti-dance performed between reels in cinemas, designed to draw attention to stillness and serenity. “It was so radical just to go on stage in the cinema stand there and do nothing,” said Wolfgang Mueller, “She did this in the 20’s where the convention was speed, business, activity and you see this in the films of the 20’s: big cities, traffic, nervosity. To go out there and do the complete opposite was very, very modern.”
‘By 1933, with the Nazis in power, Gert suffered a ban from the German stage due to her Jewish heritage. She moved to London where she continued to perform on stage and appeared in the experimental short film Pett and Pot directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It would be her last film work until her triumphant return to the cinema in the mid-1960’s.
‘By 1938, in her late 40’s and living in New York but, Gert found it virtually impossible to revive her previous career. She lived on the welfare of a Jewish refugee community, washed dishes and posed as a nude model. In 1941, she opened the Bettlerbar (Beggar’s Bar), a ramshackle cabaret/restaurant filled with mismatched furniture and staffed by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Tennessee Williams, the latter being fired by Gert for being “too sloppy.”
‘Although licensing requirements forced the New York bar to close, Gert introduced the concept to Germany upon her return in 1950. It has proved perhaps her most enduring legacy; tumbledown bars furnished with random pieces of flea-market chic and junk store accessories have since become legion in Berlin, a fad started by Gert which Wolfgang Mueller terms “freedom from taste.”
‘Back in post-war Berlin, she once again had to start from scratch. In the same 1977 television show, the interviewer tactfully suggested that by the dawn of the 1950’s Gert was perhaps not so well remembered as before. With typical self-depricating humor and bluntness typical for Berliners, she exclaimed, “Not so well remembered? I was totally forgotten!”
‘She opened the Hexenkueche (Witch’s Kitchen) cabaret and made a triumphant return to the silver screen with an appearance in the 1965 surrealist drama Juliet of the Spirits, directed by Frederico Fellini. She was soon cast in other high profile projects by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s and Volker Schloendorff.
‘While Valeska Gert has had a small but solid fan base, widespread fame always eluded her and, especially in the intervening years, she has become very much a marginalized character. “I think she is a bit invisible,” said Wolfgang Mueller, “She is not known because she always ignored borders. She was always far away from these boxes that the art scene puts people in.”‘ — Gavin Blackburn, DW
_________ Curating Valeska Gert: Ana Isabel Keilson in conversation with Wolfgang Muller and An Paenhuysen
Ana Isabel Keilson: Today is the 14th of July 2011. Can you both introduce yourselves? Say how you met and then we can just kind of go from there. An Paenhuysen: My name is An Paenhuysen. I’m from Belgium. I’ve been living in Berlin for a while now. I’m a curator and historian. I met Wolfgang his show, Séance Vocibus Avium. Then we curated the show of Valeska Gert together, and now we’re working on a new project. Wolfgang Müller : Yes. We fell in love. (All laugh). An: Love at first sight. Wolfgang: Mental love. Sounds horrible! Ana: Why Wolfgang? (They are interrupted by a phone call) Ana: [Wolfgang] You can introduce yourself too. Wolfgang: I grew up in a small village in Wolfsburg in this city where you don’t get an identity by birth, or some kind of no-identity. I saw it after awhile as a chance to look at where something like identity, or personality is built on. [To see] what is there, and what you can create. This is a theme I was always interested in: cognition. When I was kicked out of school, I moved to Berlin, and then to West Berlin, which was a very nice place. Ana: When was this? Wolfgang: 1979. West Berlin was a very interesting place because a wall surrounded it, and it was only reachable from West Germany. You had to cross East Germany, the Communist part of the country. In West Berlin, you had a half-city with coal heating, toilet outside upstairs. It was really not so modern. But this means that you could live very cheap. And you didn’t have to go to the army if you went to West Berlin. This was a very good area to create something where you didn’t have to think of how you can make a profit out of it. Just create an idea, a concept. When you’re 20, you’re not a professor. You’re not somebody who is in an institution who has ten years time for making a research towards a master or post, or something like that. Time is money in that way. Here was a kind of free space because money was not so important. This is changing now. An: Yeah. But it still has this a little bit, no? People are always at the cafes. People seem to have more time here, or are taking more time. Not this work pressure. In Belgium you have to make a career, and it goes very fast. Ana: Same in New York. There’s a lot of pressure. So then I’m curious. What do you perceive as things that happened as a result of that? In the seventies, moving into the 80’s–and maybe trying to bring Veleska Gert into this–did you feel like there was an awareness among the people here that this was a special place to be? Wolfgang: Don’t forget that she was an outsider. She came back after the war, and had a little flat in West Berlin. I have a magazine from ’66, a video I can show you, where hippies, freaks and Gert are part of it. She was really part of a subculture. There were a lot of gay people there, like Herbert Tobias, a photographer who photographed Nico, and also Gert. He was together with her. There were a lot of outsiders in West Berlin. West Berlin was till the end of the wall, attracting just these people from all over the world. There were Americans, people who can’t stand America for some reason, they moved to West Berlin. Also Italians and French people and English people from everywhere. The art business wasn’t interesting. The galleries and so on were very conservative, but the atmosphere was very open-minded. The city, the general life was open. An: But in the case of Valeska Gert. It’s not just about the outsider or about recovering strange people and freaks. Ana: People know about Mary Wigman who very much is able to fit into those categories, and people don’t know about Gert. There is any number of artists, things that happen, events that take place. People don’t hear about it because they’re very particular or they happen in a specific place with a specific group of people, and it can’t get broadcast in the same way. As a historian, my interest in some ways is not saying, for example, “these people are deaf. Let’s fetishize them. Or, aren’t they crazy and weird?” But it’s that they have a certain kind of knowledge that most people don’t know about. So what’s the act of recovery that has to happen in other forms of communication or with other kinds of interested parties that share this information in a different way? I think that was more my point. I think that your interest in Gert isn’t because you want to make a discovery of this lost artist. Wolfgang: I think Valeska, she did really an art which is still not dead because she works just between the schools. She doesn’t solve things. When she performed “Baby”, and she has the old face, of course she knows that it’s grotesque. You see it when she’s performing and afterward, when she’s finished, you see this old woman, 75 years old who just did a performance. She makes a cut, a border, a wall. It’s very important. People assume she is that way [and not performing]. If she performed in the 20’s as a prostitute having an orgasm, then people think, “Oh, she must be very open-minded.” Of course she was, but it doesn’t mean that she had sex with everybody. This is a big misunderstanding. Ana: Right. But there’s a practical level to it too, which is the art that we have of Gert’s. We have these fragments, a couple videos, some visual images, letters and other kinds of things. But if people don’t get to see these videos, then they don’t know what you’re talking about. Wolfgang: That’s why we publish it. An: It’s also a way of presenting. You can dig up all this stuff from the 80’s and present it in many ways. With Valeska Gert. It was very important for us the way that we presented her work. It was about concepts. Wolfgang: Not [only] historical. An: It’s in the vein of contemporary art. It’s not about her life that’s about [being] a baby, young, and then old. Wolfgang: It had nothing to do with the time, in fact. If a young performer would do the same now, it would be also good. An : But it would be easy for Valeska Gert to be shown as a prostitute and then an older grotesque dancer, or as a woman dancer. We had to discuss lots how we present her, because still today this was in one room and it was “Works made by Women” from the collection. Still today, the way we perceive art–we act as if the contemporary art world is free of hierarchies. If we go inside and we see a woman who works with the body and does the prostitute thing, we have right away this frame. So we tried to have another frame there for how people watch her work and to see the concept of her work. She happened to use her body, but that was not the main thing for us. Wolfgang: I mean everyone has a body, but she used the body as an instrument. This is something that people don’t notice. They think you are the body. They couldn’t imagine that somebody would make a performance and stay behind or next to this body. She doubled it in a way. This doubling is so interesting. She is not like Mary Wigman, who found a form and then built it to become a Gesamtkunstwerk. This is something else. Valeska makes deconstruction a big key of the work. It’s not deconstruction. It’s deconstruction–with construction. Very important. For instance, it’s not like Einsturzende Neubauten. The punk world was such that we destroyed the stages. I think this is déconstruction, word by word taken. For me it was always interesting to imagine Neubauten would play on stage, destroying and playing the big evil man, and then in the background you see a recommendation from the Berlin Senate, “please support for our American tour.” This is how this band from Germany made high art. Ana: But I think that also takes a certain kind of self-reflexivity, or a self-awareness or self-consciousness. Like with everything you’re saying about Gert. She’s not stupid. She gets what she’s doing. One minute she’s this baby that’s–call it grotesque, call it disarming, and then she makes a break and is this old woman. She gets that she’s in control. She gets that that juxtaposition of the two is part of what she’s channeling in the work. I’m curious to hear you both speak a little more about the curatorial aspect and also the scholarship side because you’re both scholars. Scholarship has it’s own position in this kind of cultural landscape. [Scholars] as participants, viewers, audience and activists. I believe that scholars are activists, and maybe that’s why I keep going back to this idea of recovery, historical recovery. You’re saying that you didn’t want the Hamburger Bahnhof exhibition to be historical, and that it was more about ideas in her work as a female artist. How do you structure a situation in which that can happen, because I think that from my perspective, it’s hard to say that an exhibition at a museum about someone like Valeska Gert isn’t historical to some extent. An: Is it historical? Ana: It is historical in the sense that she’s dead, she’s not living. She’s not very well known. Part of it is just about giving access to what she did. She worked with very famous people. She was an important actor in a moment to groups of people. Wolfgang: Historical in that way, I would say. We plan not to make some kind of “This was Valeska, she’s grown up there and there.” There is an introduction to her work in a historical context at the front of the exhibition. But within the exhibition, we displayed in a way that was more about concepts than a timeline. We put her work in communication with Marcel Duchamp’s work, or Marcel Broodthaers or VALIE EXPORT. VALIE EXPORT is still alive, but all these other artists are dead, and are/were more or less her generation. One of the Viennese Aktionists, Gunter Brus, met her in a cafe and described her in the book, Old West Berlin. It was published a year and a half ago. Valeska was performing and acting in the same moment. In that way, she opened a space between these roles. We sought to show a wave of time and development where she was making many different kinds of work. An: And to break conventions also. That’s what people talk about all the time. In 1975 she had this interview on T.V., on a talk show, and she talked about sexual education for kids. She said, “I don’t agree with [the way] sexual education [is taught],” As an artist, she performed an orgasm in the 20’s. She knows that people are shocked by her.
_________ 13 of Valeska Gert’s 15 roles
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Volker Schlöndorff Coup de grace (1976) ‘Despite its modest claims, Volker Schlöndorff’s twelfth film, Coup de Grâce (Der Fangschuss, 1976), can be considered a jewel among his creations. Adapted from Marguerite Yourcenar’s novel by the same title, this film brings the 1920s heritage to life, thanks to quilted jackets, frozen landscapes, impersonal firing squads, uniformed soldiers folk dancing at war-ravaged estates: images, sound, and texture evocative of revolutionary Russia. In addition, actress Valeska Gert, 1920s exponent of avant-garde pantomime, expressionist dance, and women’s liberation, graces the screen in one of her final performances, as Aunt Praskovia. It marks, at the same time, Schlöndorff’s return to and recapitulation of his own cinematic methods from Young Törless (1966) and The Sudden Wealth of Poor People of Kombach (1971). It presents Margarethe von Trotta, here also Schlöndorff’s screenwriter, in some of her most convincing scenes as an actress. It carries on the portrayal of rebel women in the line of A Free Woman (1972) and The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975), though in more spartan visual style. In all its simplicity, this is a key work by a pivotal literary filmmaker of Young and New German cinemas.’— Hans-Bernhard Moeller and George Lellis
Excerpt
Excerpt
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Tabea Blumenschein & Ulrike Ottinger The Enchantment of the Blue Sailors (1975) ‘In collage sequences, the surrogate of synthetic sensuality takes form and seduces the sailors in the guise of a Hawaiian girl. In ritual punctuation, she distributes deaths which seemingly only the hardy siren Fatality can survive. But beyond the apparent and real rigidity of expressive forms, the film imparts a new life, which although not reversing its loss, breaks it in irony and repeats it in ritual, making visible other means of survival:
Mais ce sont de petits secrets Il en est d’autres plus profonds Qui se dévoileront bientôt Et feront de vous cent morceaux A la pensée toujours unique Apollinaire
‘The film is constructed in such a way that the alternation between collage sequences and the continually repeated rhythmic sequences of images correspond to the confrontation between the organic and synthetic worlds allegorized in the film. Transformations or metamorphoses are here depicted as the means to escape fatality.’— UO
No excerpts available
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder Eight Hours Are Not a Day (1973) ‘On October 29, 1972, the first part of Fassbinder’s five-part family series flickered across West German TV screens. Over the next months, the public broadcaster ARD showed all five episodes, in each case on a Saturday evening in the prime-time slot: I. Jochen and Marion, (October 29, 1972), II. Grandma and Gregor (December 17, 1972), III. Franz and Ernst (January 2, 1973), IV. Harald and Monika (February 18, 1973), and V. Irmgard and Rolf (March 18, 1973). In EIGHT HOURS ARE NOT A DAY Fassbinder melded the popular genre of the middle-class family series with the themes and milieu of the so-called worker film. He himself said of the series he made for WDR: “What distinguishes Jochen und Marion and Grandma and Gregor and a few of the others from what people imagine workers to be like and from the image sold on TV and elsewhere is the fact that these characters have still not been beaten down.”’— The Fassbinder Foundation
Trailer
The Politics of EIGHT HOURS DON’T MAKE A DAY
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Pierre Philippe La Bonne Dame (1966) A kind old lady is not all that she seems to be, and gets more than she bargained for when she rents out a room to a handsome young student and inds a vampire worse than her.’— Unifrance
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Federico Fellini Juliet of the Spirits (1965) ‘Federico Fellini’s 1965 Juliet of the Spirits remains a timeless, major work of a master, a portrait of a dutiful wife plunged into crisis that triggers her spiritual awakening. With Fellini’s own wife, the great Giulietta Masina, as Juliet, and with his unique command of fantasy and spectacle in full force, Juliet of the Spirits, Fellini’s first film in color, is at once an eye-popping display of bravura and a work of compassionate insight. … As various gurus, including an androgynous Eastern mystic (played by pioneering performance artist Valeska Gert) are telling Juliet what to do, she is at once flooded with childhood memories and drawn to the hospitality of her gorgeous blond neighbor Suzy (Sandra Milo), who lives in an Art Nouveau-ish palace with her Greek tycoon lover and whose parties would not be inappropriate for a bordello.’— Kevin Thomas
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Alberto Cavalcanti Pett And Pott: A Fairy Story Of The Suburbs (1934) ‘The film, made to advertise domestic telephone sets, is based around two very different families. The Petts are conventional, happy and have children; the Potts are unconventional and unhappy, without children. The Brazilian-born experimental filmmaker Alberto Cavalcanti cast fellow émigré Valeska Gert as a wildly impertinent house servant in this plug for telephones, the first movie he made for British documentarian John Grierson’s General Post Office unit.’— NYJFF
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Georg Wilhelm Pabst The Threepenny Opera (1931) ‘A little leeway is required here as this big screen adaptation of the famous musical drama written by Bertol Brecht with music by Kurt Weill features very little singing. This was largely due to director G.W Pabst being more interested in the actual story than the singing. He did though keep two of the more popular songs, including Die Moritat von Mackie Messer which you will recognise from its English translation Mack The Knife! Brecht’s 1928 play is actually a reworking of John Gay’s 18th century English opera The Beggar’s Opera yet the cynical look at how corruption exists at all levels of British society remains intact. The central figure, in this version, is well known crook Mackie Messer (Rudolf Forster), the king of the London underground living an amoral life yet is presented as an anti-hero. He marries Polly Peachman (Carola Neher), the daughter of Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (Fritz Rasp), the man who controls all the beggars in the capital. He and his wife (Valeska Gert) aren’t pleased by this news and when all efforts to make Polly change her mind fail, they resort to dirty tactics to break up the marriage. A fairly simple set-up and one which plays out with surprisingly few twists or turns – one of the most straightforward plots to be found in such a famous work. But that doesn’t stop a wry eye from being cast over its subject, coming through loud and clear regardless of the language it is presented in. As was the custom of the time Pabst shot versions in both German and French but a planned English version didn’t materialise.’— MB’s Instant Headache
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Carl Junghans Telle est la vie (1930) ‘Carl Junghans’ film captures the tragic story of an aging laundress, whose drudgery and toil support a licentious and abusive alcoholic husband. Following the wave of social realism in European cinema, the film tries to be true to life, refusing embellishment or sentimentalism. In this way, it distinguished itself from the other films produced during this period in Prague. German social cinema and the cinematic expression of Soviet cinema (some shots are only two frames long) influenced Carl Junghans and are not only present in the style of the film itself, but also in the casting which included personalities who had already played in decisive films that influenced its genesis. The choice of Vera Baranovskaja as the main character is a reference to the sacrifice and the moral integrity of Pudovkin’s Mother. The performance of Valeska Gert, who plays a waitress liberated from the usual confinement of female repertoire, is essential not only for the characterization of the waitress, but also to associate the film with avant-garde ideas and aesthetics and to set it apart from mainstream productions. A few weeks after its initial release in Berlin’s Ufa-Theater, some shots, considered too obviously sexually explicit and indecent, were censored in Czechoslovakia: a customer touching the manicurist’s knee, the lovers’ scene, a man carrying his bedpan, a doctor proposing a price for an abor- tion, a drunken husband heading to the toilet. So far, no original print of the silent version has been found in the world. A 1950’s print – made from a print dating most likely from the first release in Germany in 1930 that included all the censored sequences – was the best source available for the digitization. The Czech intertitles, produced in the 1950s probably for a sound version, are more concise than in the original Czech version that did not survive. All the other existing film materials have been made from this print.We were determined to preserve its integrity throughout the digitization process.’— Jeanne Pommeau
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G.W. Pabst Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) ‘In Diary of a Lost Girl, Louise Brooks plays Thymiane Henning, the innocent young daughter of a pharmacist (Josef Rovensky), who is seduced by her father’s lecherous assistant, Meinert (Fritz Rasp) and later gives birth to an illegitimate child. Reading Thymiane’s diary, her family discovers that Meinhert is the baby’s father, but neither Thymiane nor Meinhert want to marry each other. Thymiane is forced to leave her home, give her baby away to a midwife and is then sent to a strict girl’s reform school, where the school’s Director (Andrews Engelmann) and his wife (Valeska Gert) subject the girls to relentless, regimented, military-like discipline. Thymiane fights back against this oppressive regime and escapes from the school with her friend Erika (Edith Meinhard). Discovering that her baby has died, Thymiane wanders the streets in despair, until she eventually tracks down Erika, who is working in a brothel. Thymiane also ends up working at the brothel, where she begins to rebuild her life and regain her self-esteem. Diary of a Lost Girl is a compelling indictment of the society of the time and while the majority of the film successfully conveys this visually, some of this is conveyed in some rather heavy-handed moralising towards the film’s end. However, Pabst’s directorial skill is evident throughout Diary of a Lost Girl: his close-ups and his staging of the action draw the viewer into the drama, and make them identify with Thymiane throughout.’— Martyn Bamber
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Henrik Galeen Alraune (1928) ‘Hanns Heinz Ewers’ grim science-fiction novel Alraune has already been filmed twice when this version was assembled in 1928. In another of his “mad doctor” roles, Paul Wegener plays Professor Brinken, sociopathic scientist who combines the genes of an executed murderer with those of a prostitute. The result is a beautiful young woman named Alraune (Brigitte Helm), who is incapable of feeling any real emotions — least of all guilt or regret. Upon attaining adulthood, Alraune sets about to seduce and destroy every male who crosses her path. Ultimately, Professor Brinken is hoist on his own petard when he falls hopelessly in love with Alraune himself. Alraune was remade in 1930, with Brigitte Helm repeating her role, and again in 1951, with Hildegarde Knef as the “heroine” and Erich von Stroheim as her misguided mentor.’— H.O.W.
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Jean Renoir Nana (1926) ‘Renoir’s second work, Nana, is a silent film that tells the story of the rise and fall of a young actress. After trying unsuccessfully to make it big on the Parisian theater scene, Nana uses her powers of seduction to break into society, becoming a vicious courtesan supported by rich lovers.’ — collaged
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Georg Wilhelm Pabst The Joyless Street (1925) ‘Joyless Street (Die freudlose Gasse), a film based on the novel by Hugo Bettauer and directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in Germany, is one of the first films of the New Objectivity movement. Greta Garbo stars in her second major role. The film is often described as a morality story in which the ‘fallen woman’ suffers for her sins, while the more virtuous is rewarded. The film’s sets were designed by the art directors Otto Erdmann and Hans Sohnle.’— Lance Eaton
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Hans Neumann Wood Love (1925) ‘Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare’s classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.’— IMDb
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p.s. RIP Peter Straub ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. Ooh, that Dopplereffekt album, great call. ** T, Greetings, sire. I love that Broken Social Scene album. To me they never did anything else remotely as good, but, boy, it’s great. Same with that first Red House Painters album. I almost put ‘Horse Rotorvator’ on mine and probably should have. ‘As You Are’ … no, I don’t think so. Cool, I’ll find it. Thanks, buddy. ** politekid, Yay, Oscar! Howdy-doo! What an excellent list, no surprise. I haven’t listened to that Weather Report album in ages, wow. I’ll retry it. Your list is so eclectic = great. I thought about putting FSOL’s ‘Lifeforms’ on mine but I thought it might sound really dated now. Nice Fahey. ‘Bakesale’, interesting. I could go on and on. ‘Uncle Meat’! Why wasn’t ‘Tilt’ on mine, hm. Thanks so much, dude. How are you? What’s going on? xo. ** Sypha, Hi. Fascinating list. I would have put ‘Juju’ for Siouxie. ‘A Bell is a Cup’, interesting Wire pick. Thanks, James, Did you get to the bookstores? ** Jack Skelley, Hey, JJ. The Dickies are still playing? Wow, that’s kind of great. ‘Dawn of The Dickies’ is such a great record. I almost included it. About half+ of their first two albums was written by members of The Quick. Salut! ** Misanthrope, Sorry about the return of the horrible headaches. It’s probably because you typed the words The Doors. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you, David. I will find out what that Nic De Caro album is. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Thank you, thank you for your list. The first Placebo album is my favorite of theirs by a million miles. Trump and Putin it is. We have two feet, so we could snuff them simultaneously. I’m pretty sure that an amusement park called Blood Sugar Sex Magik would be a gigantic success. Oh, hm, I think I’d turn the Glenn Branca album into an amusement park, although it would be even better as a haunted house attraction. Ha ha, good love yesterday. Cheered me right up. Love playing the albums on everyone’s lists from yesterday at the same time, recording whatever that sounded like, and releasing it under his name as an album called ‘Love’, G. ** Dr. Kosten Koper, Well, hello! What a great thing to have you here and chime in with your favorites! Everyone, If you’re not already a listener of Kosten Koper’s amazing podcast/show L’Etranger, I so highly recommend you start being one for the sake of your everything. Here’s the newest episode. There’s a bunch on your list that I don’t know, at least by name, at least when insufficiently coffeed aka now, And I’ll investigate. Thank you so much! ** fervorxo, Hi, fervorxo. Thanks a bunch. Narrowing the GbV oeuvre to one album was very not easy, and I’m speaking as someone who knows every single one of their albums basically by heart. Freak! Fine list. I don’t know why I didn’t put that Xiu Xiu on mine. Interesting Liturgy pick. Great, thanks again! ** Tosh Berman, Hi. Oh, man, feel much better. It’s completely weird to me that we here have been wide open with no restrictions for ages now and the cases keep falling whereas in other countries the same policy has resulted in the opposite. What an excellent list. Happy to see Tom Recchion on there. I almost said, ‘No Sparks???!!!’, but then I saw your follow up. ‘Praying’ that your heatwave dies a sudden death. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. interesting list, with many surprises (to me). ‘Lorca’, nice. I almost put ‘Starsailor’ on mine. ‘Paid in Full!’ I came close to putting ‘Maggot Brain’ on mine. Picking one Chic album was tough. That Quick album is a compilation of demos and live tracks from their later years. They were an infinitely great band after ‘Mondo Deco’, and it’s an absolute crime that they never got to record their amazing later songs properly. Still, the album’s great. Re: Bow Wow Wow: The fact that that album is an act of puppetry and is entirely about that act of puppetry and its creepiness is why it’s such an incredible album to me. Annabella and her current faux-BWW backup band was performing that album in its entirety live as recently as two years ago, so I think she’s okay with it. ** Damien Ark, Hey, Damien! I meant, yes, the album that collects all the ‘Disintegration’ loops. Pretty impressive list there, dude. Quite a few I don’t know and am scribbling the names of for future study. Thanks so much! You good? ** Toniok, Hi, Tonio! Awesome to see you, pal! Super sweet stuff on your list. ‘Unhalfbricking’! And why I didn’t include ‘Then Play On’ on mine is a mystery. Or GP, although I would have put ‘Grievous Angel’. Etc. Thanks a ton, man, and I hope your world is treating you right. ** Nightcrawler, Hi! I don’t paint but painting in a heatwave is scary to think about for some reason. I’ve never heard of Tom Griesgraber, and I am definitely going to hunt that album. Or Golden Rain either actually. Cool, thanks for the feeding. ** Bill, Hi. I read that you guys broke records, but how does one trust things one reads anymore, I ask you. All kinds of goodies in your compendium. Art Bears! DNA! (I would put Arto Lindsay in a top 5 living guitarists list). That’s a great Fred Frith album. Biggest surprise on your list: English Beat (psst, I like that album too). ** OneTime, Hi, OneTime! Welcome to here! I love that your list ranged from Townes Van Zant to World’s End Girlfriend to Paris Hilton! Awesome, thanks so much. How’s stuff? ** Brendan, B-man! I think the word epic would also apply to your array, sir. Wow. It makes me realise my list was sorely lacking in Metal which surprises me. What’s wrong with me?! It would be too much greatness for one head if the head wasn’t yours. Awww. ** Robert, Hi, Robert! Fahey is great. It was a tough choice. I know most of yours, and dig them too. I’ve been avoiding King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, and I don’t know why. I think it’s their name. I’ll dig in. On the other hand, Microtonal Banana? I have to hear that, clearly. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, but the time consumed adds wonders to my future musical knowledge, so yay. ** Dalton, Hi, Dalton! Thanks a bunch for entering here and sharing your stuff. I don’t know a good half ofd the artists on your list, but I will pronto. Excellent day to you! ** Okay. I decided to restore this post about proto-punk acting icon Valeska Gert in case you don’t already know her. See you tomorrow.
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