by Terry Burton, Digital Media Coordinator

Maria Mortati  posted  a great piece yesterday in the “Museums Now” blog about the process we’re going through to bring science and history together in our new museum. Maria is one of team members at Gyroscope, Inc., the group that’s designing the exhibit experiences that will, I guarantee you, knock people’s socks off when our new museum opens. If you’d like to see some of the very interesting and multi-layered thinking that’s going on as we design this new facility, see “Relevance and Wonder, Science and History” in Museums Now.

What I saw last night. Jonah Bokaer & Judith Sanchez Ruiz at the New Museum. Well this is essentially the same show I saw in July at One Chase Center except this time there was video added and maybe some other small changes. Like the titled changed. At this rate I am destine to become an expert.

Elements: corner of what would be a cube, video
Title: “Replica”
Cover:

Hola

Como había prometido, hoy se trata de Urs Fischer y Ryan Trecartin, dos artistas muy reconocidos y muy jóvenes, Fischer de 36 y Trecartin de 28. Uno hyper-actual y suizo y el otro texano y comenzando su carrera. Los dos con construcciones de significados en un cuerpo de obra extremadamente distino.

Urs Fischer  ha tenido solo-shows en el Pompidou en Paris, en el Kunsthaus en Zurich, en el ICA en Londres y en el Nicola Trussardi Foundation en Milán; más recientemente y de manera muy notoria acaba de tener su primer solo-show en América, ‘Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty‘ en el New Museum de Manhattan, para el que las reseñas han sido muy variadas. Y es que Fischer se ha construido -¿ó ganado?- la imagen de enfant terrible del art scene, y después de haber cavado en el 2007 un hoyo/cráter de 8 pies en su prestigiada galería Gavin Brown como única obra en exposición, denominada ‘You‘, ¿Qué puede hacer un bad boy cuando le dan un museo entero?

'You' de Urs Fischer, 2007. Galería Gavin Brown.

Este nuevo show de Urs Fischer dejó al público ligeramente anhelante de aquella famosa intervención. Todo comenzó con los rumores del humor mercurial del artista y sus demandas, exigiendo que la altura del techo fuera reducida por 2 pies, y las declaraciones del curador Massimilianio Gioni quien llegó a decir que pudo haber matado a Fischer varias ocasiones durante la materialización del proyecto. 

Al final, dentro de la exposición, se encontraba la serie de monstruosamente grandes esculturas de metal llamadas Marguerite de Ponty que fueron creadas a partir de pequeñas masas de plastilina moldeadas con los dedos, agrandadas digitalmente y después construidas en aluminio. Puede distinguirse en ellas las huellas digitales del artista y con sus informes y descomunales estructuras originan sentimientos de inseguridad y paranoia. La unión de la construcción manual/metal con una escala tan inmensa, provoca dudas sobre su procedencia y su creación, pero no demasiado más allá de eso.

Otros éxitos incluyen Noisette, una lengua prostética que emerge de un hoyo en la pared cada vez que alguien se acerca; Violent Capuccino, un esqueleto humano con un pie dentro de una caja (¿está entrando? ¿está saliendo? ¿está atrapado? ¿está atacando?); Cupadre un croissant colgando del techo con una mariposa posada en él (¿Hirst?); y el piso que seguramente se convertirá en souvenirs de los coleccionistas: Service à la Française, se trata de decenas de imágenes digitales de objetos com-ple-ta-men-te diversos impresos en las 5 superficies de cajas hechas con aluminio reflejante. Cuando se le preguntó a Fischer si se trataba de un ejercicio sobre lo “comunmente aceptado como buen gusto” replicó que “no, simplemente tiene que verse bien”. Los objetos incluyen un zapato de TopShop, Piolín, Ashanti, un encendedor y la Torre Eiffel. Casi como portarretratos muy muy caros y estética/físicamente pesados.

El piso de la exposición que más ha sido celebrado, probablemente por su relación mucho más precisa y directa con el manejo de la percepción y el espacio que caracteriza a Urs Fischer, se trata de ‘Last Call Lascaux’ en donde retomó su ejercicio del 2007 en el que co-curó con su galerista Gavin Brown la exposición ‘Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?‘. Fotografiaron cada centímetro de la galería con la exposición previa montada, y colgaron las obras de la nueva sobre las paredes forradas con las impresiones exactas de la anterior. En esta ocasión en el New Museum, Fischer fotografió cada centímetro de una galería vacía con todo y los switches de electricidad, imprimió las fotografías  y tapizó las paredes con ellas; el twist era el efecto que la luz causaba en el papel de las fotografías generando diferentes matices ligeramente tornasoleados. La sala está casi vacía salvo por la escultura ‘Tipsy Piano’, un piano rosa derritiéndose que se presenta como un comentario un poco blando sobre el surrealismo de Dalí.

Finalmente, con las enormes expectativas generadas por la institución y el artista meses antes de la apertura del show y con las posibilidades abiertas por Fischer en su obra pasada, la exposición dejó una sensación de aburrimiento en el público expectante de los trucos y piruetas a los que Fischer nos tiene acostumbrados.

Ahora ¡Ryan Trecartin! Recientemente ganador del Premio Wolzin de la Tyler School of Art de Filadelfia, también ganó el ‘Calvin Klein Collection New Artist of the Year Award’, estuvo en la Whitney Biennial del 2006, en el Getty Museum en Los Angeles, en la colección Saatchi en Londres, en la exposición ‘USA Today‘ en la Royal Academy también en Londres y en la trienial del New Museum The Generational que en su primera edición en Abril de este año se tituló Younger than Jesus. Y apenas tiene vein-ti-o-cho-a-ños.

La parte principal de su cuerpo de obra consiste en kaleidoscópicos, coloridísimo, ultra-complejos, cybernéticos y aceleradísimos videos que producía para él y sus amigos mientras estudiaba en la Rhode Island School of Design. Un día en el 2005, fueron vistos por la artista Sue de Beer quién los dirigió a los curadores del New Museum y desde entonces se convirtieron en el proyecto de tres partes (dos partes video, una performance) ‘I-Be Area‘, 2007.

La mejor noticia de todo esto, es que desde hace varios años, Trecartin tiene un canal en Youtube, donde se pueden encontrar todos los videos de ‘I-Be Area‘ así como proyectos anteriores, donde las características de la obra de Trecartin permanecen. Una acidísima -en todos los aspectos- crítica/narración de la sociedad en la era de la tecnología, la información y las imágenes. La creación y percepción de la identidad a través del filtro del networking, el espejo de la Reality TV, el debate de géneros y la velocidad de nuestros medios masivos. Amalgamando todos estos elementos tan cercanos entre sí en la actualidad, crea una realidad denominada “Hysterical Reality” por el curador Massimiliano Gioni. Donde los personajes se permiten salir de los límites de la realidad y la ficción, generando muchísimas preguntas sobre la misma obra y sobre las pantallas/imágenes que nos rodean y las estructuras de ficción que generan para nosotros. ¿Será la veloz y desencajada narrativa Trecartin el futuro de nuestros medios? Juzgando por ‘I Love Money 2′, podría no estar tan lejos.

I-Be / Pasta / Ryan Trecartin

En los videos, se darán cuenta de que I-Be/Pasta, el amarillo y rubio personaje principal, se trata en realidad del mismo Trecartin llevando a los más absurdos extremos la actitud, ‘conocimiento’ y condescendencia de los personajes de la televisión, y encarnando a un sinfín de otros bastiones de la actualidad digital.

Aquí, uno de los mejores episodios de I-Be Area:

Chau!

P.D. El ganador del Turner Prize de éste año resultó ser el inesperado ¡Richard Wright! y no el avión pulverizado de Roger Hiorns.

by Terry Burton, Digital Media Coordinator

If you’re keeping up with our blog, you now know that we’ve selected the design/build team which will create the physical home for our new museum. We’ve been working for over a year with our exhibit design firm, Gyroscope, to create the experiences that will reside inside that building. A tremendous amount of work has already gone into the process of creating a brand-new museum from the ground up, and we’ve still got a lot of challenging and exciting work ahead of us.

But creating a new museum isn’t about us — it’s about you. You may live in Fort Collins or the surrounding area and plan to visit us often; you may be an out-of-town guest who will come see us infrequently; or you may be someone who visits our website or blog but never steps foot inside the new building. Regardless, this museum is for you.

So we want to ask you to help us do some of the work to make this new museum a reality. Specifically, we’d like your thoughts on what we should call ourselves.

Let me back up for a moment and give you a refresher: the Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center, as we are known now, came from the partnership of two leading Fort Collins institutions: Discovery Science Center, and the Fort Collins Museum. We entered into a public/private partnership to build a new museum, one that would combine hands-on science and the culture and history of our region.

Here are a couple of other tidbits to help you think of the perfect name for our new museum: our mission is to “create meaningful opportunities for people of all ages to learn, reflect and have fun through hands-on and collections based explorations in science and culture.” Our vision is “to inspire inquisitive thinkers and encourage responsible stewardship of the past, present, and future.”

Most of all, we want our new Museum to be a place where people not only come away with understanding, but are inspired to action.

That’s who we want to be. Now, can you help us figure out what to call ourselves? Just leave a comment to this post with your ideas, and read other people’s ideas too. And stay tuned — developments with the new Museum are really going to take off in 2010. It’s going to be a great journey.

The New Museum conflict of interest continues to be talked about. The post over at Art Fag City “I don’t like that the art world is unregulated” I think brings the debate to a place where it belongs. The comments posted there start to address problems outside of the New Museum and more with the art world at large. I do agree that the New Museum’s decision is a conflict of interest, but the problem here is the bigger picture.

Collin Lafleche gets to the heart of the overarching issue: “there really is so little New work being shown right now, and when even a place called the New Museum can’t go against that, where else do we have to turn for good, new work? People have seized on this just because it’s happening right now, not because it’s particularly inflammatory.” Conflict of interest do raise eyebrows and cause outrage, but we have a bigger problem with new art’s place in the art world.

by Beth Higgins, Public Relations/Development Coordinator

The Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center is pleased to announce the selection of Hensel Phelps Construction Company with OZ Architecture as the Design/Build Team for the new Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center facility.  Plans for the new facility, located on the corner of Cherry and Mason Streets, include a Digital Dome for presentations, a Learning Lounge, a seamless experience combining science and culture, and plenty of outdoor spaces to take advantage of the prime location along the Poudre River and the bike trail. The project is scheduled to break ground in late 2010.

The selection of the architect has been a long-anticipated milestone in the development of our new facility. In 2002, the Museum and Science Center began conversations about how to better serve the Fort Collins and Northern Colorado community. The Partnership was formed, and in 2005 voters approved Ballot Issue 2A, Building on Basics, providing $6 million in tax revenue to partially fund construction and seven years of operations and maintenance of the new facility. This past summer, the Discovery Science Center relocated to the current Museum building, and science and history exhibits were combined as we began developing content and themes for the new facility. The new Museum will focus on the mission to create meaningful opportunities for people of all ages to learn, reflect and have fun through hands-on and collections-based explorations in science and culture. Visitors to the new Museum will experience hands-on science and culture exhibits; artifact exhibits; narrative experiences; play and discovery opportunities; learning lounge, workshops, and archive experiences; guided nature, cultural, and integrated site tours; Science + Culture Cafes, lectures, workshops; archive & collections training; and visitor-contributed exhibits.

To date, the project has secured over $19 million through grants, donations, community support and corporate support. “We still have a way to go in fund raising,” adds Steve VanderMeer, Board President of the partnership’s Non-Profit Corporation. “Our goal is about $24 million, which we hope to secure by the time we break ground.”  Grants awarded by the Gates Family Foundation, the Downtown Development Authority, and the Boettcher Foundation have made a significant difference in funding and will help the partners reach this goal. “But we are still looking to the community to help us reach the full amount,” notes Mr. VanderMeer. “The support we have received so far is astounding; it is evident how important this project is to the Northern Colorado community.”

We hope to break ground in the second half of 2010, with construction completed in late 2011. The Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center plans to hold several public charrettes to collect input about the new facility. For more information about the project or how you can help, please call Annette Geiselman or Cheryl Donaldson at the Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center, (970) 221-6738.

Urs Fischer’s three-floor show, “Marguerite de Ponty” opened at the New Museum last week. To celebrate, the New Museum and Interview magazine hosted an after party at Civetta.


Massimiliano Gioni and Urs Fischer

Tony Shafrazi and guest

Cynthia Rowley, Bill Powers, and Meredith Darrow

Peter Brant and Sante D’Orazio

Fred Tomaselli and John O’Connor
Saturday, December 12th, 2009, at 3:00 pm
New Museum

New York, NY   November 4, 2009 – SkowheganTALKS, a lecture series organized by the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, features conversations between some of the most influential visual artists working today.  The first talk of the third season of the series will take place on Saturday, December 12th, with a conversation between artists Fred Tomaselli and John O’Connor.

SkowheganTALKS features recent alumni of the residency program of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in conversation with artists who have been faculty members at Skowhegan.  While the association with Skowhegan is
the common factor among the artists, the conversations are not intended to focus on the artists’ respective experiences at Skowhegan, but rather will address subjects of broader interest including the participating artists’ current and past work and the challenges and opportunities that are characteristic of working as an artist today.  An especially interesting aspect of SkowheganTALKS is that the conversations are also intended explore the mentor- student relationship, a model that is becoming increasingly important for young artists in New York and worldwide.

Ever the idiosyncratic collector, Fred Tomaselli amasses pills, herbs, and other drugs, along with a range of images— plants, flowers, birds, anatomical illustrations—to create multilayered baroque paintings that encompass elements of the real, the photographic, and the painterly. Drawing upon art historical sources and Eastern and Western decorative traditions, Tomaselli’s works explode in mesmerizing, psychedelic patterns that appear to grow organically across his compositions. Born in Santa Monica, California in 1956, and raised in Southern California, Tomaselli’s influences can be traced to both the manufactured unreality of theme parks and the music and drug counter-cultures of Los Angeles during the 1970s and 80s.

A major mid-career survey of his work premiered last summer at the Aspen Art Museum and will travel to the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (February 6 – June 6, 2010) and the Brooklyn Museum of Art (October 8, 2010 – January 2, 2011).  In conjunction with this touring exhibition, a major monograph of his work has been published by Prestel Publishing, available as of September 2009.

Tomaselli’s work has also been included in numerous international solo- and group-exhibitions, including the 2001 Berlin Biennale, the 2002 Liverpool Biennial, the 2004 SITE Santa Fe Biennial, the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and 2008
Prospect 1 New Orleans Biennial. Tomaselli’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Albright Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA, among others. He was a Resident Artist at Skowhegan in 2000.  He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

John O’Connor’s work is the result of his immersion in processes, systems, and subjects, both real and invented. He transforms seemingly unrelated and often idiosyncratic systems into highly intricate and nuanced visual manifestations; the result, quirky, complex, and often large-scale drawings on paper rendered primarily in colored pencil and graphite. Through idiosyncratic and entirely invented systems, he converts what is ordinarily invisible— spoken and written language, chance events, chaos theory—into visual representations that reveal patterns of speech and events. Ultimately, his use of such isomorphisms can convey the complexity and interconnectedness of everyday life, as well as the hierarchical processing of chance experiences. O’Connor cites antecedents as diverse as John Cage, Rube Goldberg and Alfred Jensen for his work. O’Connor studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2000 and received his MFA from Pratt Institute. His work has been exhibited recently in Copenhagen and in the 40th
Anniversary Art on Paper Exhibition at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and is included in the collections of The Whitney Museum of Art (NYC) and The Museum of Modern Art (NYC).

Urs Fischer + 3 floors of the New Museum =

Marguerite de Ponty

From The New York Times:

…these pieces have seemed to signal the end of installation art, like monochrome paintings sometimes seem to forewarn the end of painting. Add nothing, just use the space and the architecture, dummy. Boom.

The New Museum, seeking some heat of its own, has given Mr. Fischer the run of nearly all the exhibition space — three full floors — in its two-year-old building. It’s a smart move, even if those hoping for a sizable new aperture in one of the museum’s surfaces will be disappointed. The exhibition, titled “Urs Fischer: Marguerite de Ponty” (the subtitle referring to a character from the Symbolist poet Mallarmé), has been supervised by Massimiliano Gioni, a New Museum curator.

In the trifecta of sculpture surveys at major New York museums this fall — expect Roni Horn at the Whitney next week and Gabriel Orozco at the Museum of Modern Art in December — Mr. Fischer’s show started in the lead, with the most anticipation. It felt premature, presumptuous and unpredictable, even though Mr. Fischer, who was born in Switzerland in 1973, descends from a line of German-speaking bad boys that includes Sigmar Polke and Martin Kippenberger and that has been one of the strongest strains of postwar art. Anything could happen, the thinking went, given Mr. Fischer’s capricious, encompassing and, at best, fearless conception of sculpture…

Click here to continue reading

Urs Fischer is known for his crazy installations, which are usually destructive, huge, and barbaric. However, he has truly outdone himself this time.  For the artist’s newest exhibition, he lowered ceilings, added lights and closed off certain entrances/ exits in order to obtain an austere and cold exhibition space. Fischer’s three floor exhibit, while enchanting, is not a “drop-dead moment,” according to NY Magazine. The article states,

There’s bravura work but no drop-dead moment here. Each of Fischer’s three floors is beautiful, and each has an elfin elusiveness and deep material intelligence. They also have dead spots and duds. Fischer is weakest at smaller discrete sculptures and best when he’s taking over entire spaces or reacting to other artworks nearby. (Also, at a rumored $330,000 to stage, the show is another example of an art world that doesn’t know when to say no.) Had Fischer made a swashbuckling statement by (let’s say) demolishing the museum’s second and third floors, he would have wowed everyone. Instead, thankfully, he took the hard way, putting together multiple ideas: exploring the sculptural-philosophical-experiential qualities of fullness on the fourth floor, emptiness on the third, and a mixture of both on the second floor…

…Step out of the elevator on four, and you’re in a gigantic otherworldly nursery. Five enormous molten-looking amorphous ectoplasmic excrescences fill the space, dwarfing viewers. Fischer makes these sculptures by squeezing clay, computer-scanning the shapes, making molds, and casting them in aluminum at monstrous proportions. They’re where de Kooning, Rodin, and Lynda Benglis meet Frankenstein, Warhol’s floating silver pillows, and the hatchery from Aliens. Gigantic fingerprints are visible; humongous thumbnails protrude…

As certain pieces stand out (for both good and bad reasons), the show is an eclectic mix of whimsical artwork that should not be missed.

I reviewed the Urs Fischer exhibition, currently at the New Museum, on the Creative Contact Blog. Please go read it. That’s all.

Urs Fischer makes sexy work, so I was surprised to find this photo of him in 2005. Maybe I have bad taste in men, but I had assumed that this “bad boy” Swede – as Roberta Smith referred to him in her review of his current exhibition at the New Museum – would at least have a flair for style. Next time, more leather, more hair, and don’t look like you’re going to a Hockey game.

Seriously, don’t hide your amazing tats, Urs. Don’t ever wear a scarf again, unless it’s linen or some other translucent fabric so that we can see your neck ink.

On the cover of the November 5th edition of  The Brooklyn Rail is a drawing by William Powhida, taking aim at New Museum over its plan to allow Dakis Joannou, a trustee, to exhibit his Jeff Koons collection next February.  New Museum’s arrangement has generated considerable criticism and is compounded by the fact that Koons himself will curate the exhibition.  The situation came to the attention of a wider public this week in a New York Times article that cited  Tyler Green among others for helping raise awareness of the issue on his blog (Modern Art Notes).

As a non-profit institution, New Museum is sanctioning a collector/artist collaboration to exhibit work that has already been validated in the marketplace and which only stands to bolster the market position of both.  Wouldn’t the institution be better served in returning to its stated mission of showing original work by unknown artists who take risks and deserve recognition?  It is time for New Museum to exercise better judgment.  Powhida’s humorous and critically insightful drawing with accompanying text, slamming curatorial cronyism, makes this point clear.

For a high resolution image: click here.

New Museum of Contemporary Art

From Modern Art Notes (Tyler Green’s Modern And Contemporary Art Blog):

This morning’s New York Times features a front-page Deborah Sontag and Robin Pogrebin article on a story that MAN has been aggressively covering for six weeks: The New Museum’s self-made ethical problems regarding its exhibition of a trustee’s collection. (Click here for a roundup of links to MAN’s coverage. Click here for an op-ed I wrote for the current issue of The Art Newspaper.).

For Tyler Green’s full post: click here

Name:Travis Chamberlain
Title: Public Programs Coordinator at the New Museum, member of The Fabulous Entourage, burgeoning video artist and dancemaker
URL: http//www.newmuseum.org/events and http://www.fabulousentourage.com

1. Where did you grow up and how did you end up where you are now?

I grew up in Fairmont, NC, about 10 minutes away from the tourist trap known as South of the Border–the first place south of the North Carolina border where you can buy fireworks. There’s a big tower there in the shape of a gigantic sombrero, and you can ride up in an elevator to the brim of the sombrero and almost see my house from the observation deck. (True story.)

2. Which performance, song, play, movie, painting or other work of art had the biggest influence on you and why?

I often think of my influences in the live arts in terms of communities of influence. When I first arrived in New York nine years ago as an aspiring director, I was drawn to the work of the Wooster Group and their immediate descendents (Radiohole, Elevator Repair Service, etc.). Radiohole, in particular, continue to inspire me with their combustible mixtures of high brow and low brow, personal and intellectual, pop and esoterica, high tech and low tech. They never play it safe. Sometimes they get hurt, literally. It’s a spectacle to behold, and I respect them deeply for their dauntless courage and goofiness. More recently, I have been inspired by New York City’s contemporary dance community, which I’m just beginning to discover, really. I am encouraged by the extremes of experimentation that I see coming out of that community, and I am impressed by its eagerness to collaborate and explore new dialogues across art forms (including theater, visual art, performance art, film, and music). I see great potential there for building audiences and sharing, merging, and inventing new aesthetic languages.

In my video work, I have been deeply influenced and inspired by Kenneth Anger, Ken Russell, Ryan Trecartin, Charles Atlas, Takashi Miike, Richard Lester, MGM Musicals, Adam Bernstein’s music videos for They Might Be Giants, Missy Elliott’s videos, and, recently, many of the more outlandish videos by Russell Mulcahy (“Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “Video Killed the Radio Star,” etc.). In my music and also more generally, I have been most influenced by Brian Eno, whom I consider a role model of sorts. I have a great deal of respect for his ability to cross through the extremes of experimental and commercial work without ever compromising or betraying his artistic integrity.

3. What skill, talent or attribute do you most wish you had and why?

Two things. (1) I wish I could play piano brilliantly, and (2) I wish someone could just download the After Effects user manual into my brain. The piano–because it would make songwriting so much easier sometimes (although I enjoy poking around and finding things on my own, too). After Effects–because learning new software causes me physical pain, but I need to figure this thing out…

4. What do you do to make a living? Describe a normal day.

I coordinate and occasionally curate public programs for the New Museum–everything from panel discussions and lectures to screenings, concerts, and performances. I spend most of my day doing contracts, writing and editing blurbs for events with microscopic attention to detail, putting together eblasts and other promotional materials, coordinating artists and technicians, balancing the budget, and navigating bureaucracy. When we have an event, which is generally the case three nights out of every week, I switch into “show mode.” I set up the theater, which could mean anything from throwing out some tables and chairs to doing a light focus and rearranging the space. I coordinate with box office, welcome the artists, oversee their tech needs, house manage, usher, and then sometimes even run tech for the event. At the end of the night, I’m responsible for archiving all of the material that was recorded during the event. We do approximately 150 events a year.

5. Have you ever had to make a choice between work and art? What did you choose, why, and what was the outcome?

I have been balancing my work as a producer/curator with my artistic practice since I first arrived in New York. I try to think of my work in the arts and the art that I make as going hand in hand. The artists I work with nourish my own art practice. And, I feel like my art-making influences the work I am drawn to as a curator. It can be a struggle to keep those things in balance, but I try not to stress out about that any more. I generally follow the opportunities that arise, and when there are no opportunities in front of me, I find ways to make new opportunities happen. Right now, I feel very lucky in very many ways that my job requires me to investigate new ideas in contemporary art. I am constantly challenged, provoked, and inspired by the art I encounter these days.

****

Travis Chamberlain premieres two original dance/music videos at Center for Performance Research (361 Manhattan Ave. in Williamsburg) on November 20th and 21st at 8:00pm as part of a shared bill curated by Jack Ferver.   In HI HO (2009), a sinister werewolf transformation sequence turns into a midnight cuddle party, featuring a dancing lumberjack, two mischievous Daisy Dukes (cloned fromThe Dukes of Hazzard), music inspired by Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and a tribute to the strangely endearing world of plushy fetish culture. In FEEL THE BURN (2009), Judi Newton Missett Mephistopheles and her five masked minions lead you through the workout from Hell–the invocation of your demon personal trainer. His video/performance work HEAD VI + 2(X)IST, inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and men’s underwear ads, is also premiering at Danspace on November 14 at 8:00pm as part of Food For Thought, curated by Enrico Wey.

GINA PERFORMA is:

-Awake

-On time

-Drinking coffee

-Preparing

-Pre…scribing

-Collecting thought

-…document

-…and courage

-Cashing checks

-Running around

-Writing through shit (still)

-Performing through shit (always)

-Taking a big deep breath before the day takes over

To Get:

Soap

To Bring:

Michael Hart

Adidas bag with all contents necessary for GINA PERFORMA to make an appearance (don’t forget ALL ACCESS PASS for Writing Live fellows)

To Do:

Appear

Revise calendar of events

Sign contract with Writing Live and Performa

Show up at Sunday’s workshop ON TIME (in all caps)

To Finish:

Text Score for Day 4 of Performa 09 (happening now)

To Publish:

Any images or scans that might inform http://www.ginaperf orma/ wordpress.com

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009

Quote of the day: “A score is a template for improvisation.” Rachel Lois Clapham

Performance 2 (out of order)

Artist: Nikhil Chopra

Title: Yog Raj Chitrakar: Memory Drawing IX (in Roman numerals)

Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Time: 2:00PM

Venue: The New Museum

Geographic Location: On the Bowery

REALNESS Present (in all caps):

-STILL LIFE REALNESS

-TIGHTY WHITEY REALNESS

-DIGITAL DOCUMENTATION REALNESS

-MAKESHIFT BED REALNESS

-GRAMOPHONE REALNESS

-WEDGIE REALNESS

-CHARCOAL REALNESS

-NOT TIGHTY WHITEY REALNESS

-LOAF OF BREAD REALNESS

-FOLDED BURLAP SACK REALNESS

-CIRCULAR REALNESS

-THE HUMAN ANIMAL REALNESS

-ENDURANCE REALNESS

-KEEP GOING REALNESS

-FABRIC ON THE FLOOR REALNESS

-BACK HAIR REALNESS

-PAUSE FOR BREATH REALNESS

-CAMERA CLICK REALNESS

-STAND BACK AND LOOK AT IT REALNESS

-OCCUPANCY LIMIT REALNESS (@ 74)

Performance 1

Artist: Proef (Maryje Vogelzang)

Title: Pasta Sauna

Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Time: 12:30PM

Venue: Performa Hub

Geographic Location: Cooper Union

REALNESS present (from memory; in all caps):

-ARCHITECTURE REALNESS

-PLYWOOD REALNESS (repeat)

-PERFORMA HUB REALNESS

-FELLOW WRITING FELLOW REALNESS

-PASTA DOUGH REALNESS

-PLASTIC FLAPS REALNESS

-ART SCHOOL STUDENT REALNESS

-STEAMY REALNESS

-WHITE JUMPSUIT REALNESS

-TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR REALNESS

-PERFORMANCE INTERRUPTION REALNESS

-ROSELEE GOLDBERG REALNESS (4-peat)

-PARMESAN REALNESS

-REAL CONVERSATION REALNESS

-DELICIOUS REALNESS

-GINA PERFORMA LOOKS DUMPY WHEN PICTURE IS TAKEN FROM BELOW THE WAIST REALNESS

-DELETE PICTURE REALNESS

-GETTING MOTHERFUCKING AUTOGRAPHS REALNESS

-FUTURISM REALNESS

AGAINST FUTURISM (Part 1)

What does it mean to write on “THE FUTURE” (all caps and in quotations)?

Is it even possible?

And, if so, is it possible to act (in italics) on the future?

The problem with the future—like the problem with the past—

is that it does not exist

We all know this

The only time it ever is–it ever can be–

is now

It is always now

Now

Say it again (now)

How does it feel to be here?

To be “really here”?

One cannot describe experience without

dwelling on the past

One cannot prescribe experience without asserting the present;

Then a document becomes a score, time passes,

And the past becomes the future

Becomes the past

Becomes the future

Becomes the past

Becomes the-

Do you get what I’m saying?

The human perception of experience encompasses all three:

Present, Past and Future (title case)

Past experiences and future anxieties crowd around the experienced present, like identical triplets

Inseparable yet insecure

Cuddled together in the crib,

Yet never touching

My old composition professor once said that,

for human beings,

what we consider “a moment”

is a window of time that lasts approximately seven to eight seconds

[wait seven to eight seconds]

There

Did we all have a moment?

This window of the moment

is slippery

is always sliding forward with us through the inevitability of motion

of things changing

of time marking itself

To be is to be in time

Like the cursor in Garage Band that

moves through the score from left to right

tied exactly to the forward advance of the composition

But it isn’t just doing that, is it?

The marker has a tendency to be in place; in one place, specifically;

It’s tendency is always toward center

If one begins to “play the score” and the cursor is at a position that is “behind the moment” (in quotations), the cursor will leap forward–left to right–catch up, and take its place in the center of the computer screen

If the cursor is “ahead of the moment”,

it will leap backward–right to left–to find its equilibrium in the exact center of the musical moment that is audibly happening

Even fucking Garage Band gets it; that the position of experience in the elastic tug-of-war of beingness…

IS CENTER (in all caps)

It is always now

And we are always center—each one of us—

Time and matter moving through us

Simultaneously fixing us in place

and yet tearing through us

dislocating us,

disorienting us

disintegrating us

Futurism is a problematic endeavor

Has always been

Take the zone of entertainment at Southern California’s Disneyland known as “Tomorrowland”

An abstraction from Wikipedia says:

Walt Disney was known for his futurist views and, through his television programs, showed the American public how the world was moving into the future. Tomorrowland was the realized culmination of his views. In his own words: “Tomorrow can be a wonderful age. Our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future.” It is this movement into the future that has, on occasion, left Tomorrowland mired in the past.

Walt Disney’s problem is our problem;

is the problem of design and technology’s ever-failing negotiation with time

In order to stay current (even if currency is believed to be the reflection of a projected “future”)

We must remain in a permanent state of updatedness

Constant updates now and forever

Any object that attempts to embody the future–

EVEN THIS SCORE–

is, on some level,

a complete waste of time

BEing

DOing

LIVEing

WRITEing

PERFORMing

The gerund is our friend

The future is happening

Keep going

Keep going

Keep going

Keep going

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