As a queer feminist, I find representations of myself in American culture seldom. When I do, it’s more often in music (Le Tigre, The Gossip) than in the art world. Seeing Wynne Greenwood’s video work with K8 Hardy last Saturday night made my queer feminist little light shine brighter than it has in a long time.

New Report, 2005. With K8 Hardy.

At Hiawatha Artist Lofts, she showed several of her and K8’s videos as the first event in Feminist Form, Wynne’s screening series of feminist and queer video from the Pacific Northwest. The screenings will take place monthly, with future locations and dates to be announced.

The videos were pretty simple in form, yet boundless conceptually. In several, Wynne and K8 were news anchors, both named Henry. They plodded forward in their pursuits as news anchors without entirely knowing what they were doing. They were pregnant with. . . motivation, mostly. The videos are hilarious, but at the same time, breathtakingly serious. I think I was sitting on the edge of my seat the entire screening.

For one, they’re sitting as though on a panel; the panelists are Henry Iragary (K8), Henry Stein-Acker-Hill (Wynne), a furry pussy (K8’s, we presume) and a breast (Wynne’s, supposedly). Henry and Henry are pregnant with deliberation as they try to talk about the objectification of women. I, for one, felt pregnant with anticipation during their attempts— which were all the while animated by the dislocated (“cut off– as if by a knife”) body parts floating sheepishly next to them. Oh yeah, also: K8’s legs are spread under the table with a camera pointed at her crotch, and Wynne’s shirt is haphazardly pinned up to reveal her left breast.

There are so many things that can go wrong when one attempts to represent feminism that the disappointingly few self-proclaimed feminist artists seem to have largely given up.  A self-proclaimed queer feminist, Wynne Greenwood has not given up, and when you encounter her work you forget that feminism was ever considered a bad word. At least, that’s the way it seemed last Saturday. And each month the crowd is just going to get bigger.

Thank you, Wynne. I’m so glad you live in my city. And I’m so glad the city we live in knows you’re a genius.

This just in, brand new screening series at the Hiawatha Building:

FEMINIST FORM
presents video work by:

Wynne Greenwood and K8 Hardy
Saturday, November 21
Doors open at 7:30pm
Screening begins at 8pm
Hiawatha Artist Lofts Community Room
843 Hiawatha Pl. S
Seattle
$5 – $10 Sliding Scale
Suggested Donation

Chair seating is limited, please come early if you want to sit in a chair. Plenty of floor seating. Feminist Form is a screening series of feminist and queer media from the Pacific Northwest.

Wynne Greenwood and K8 Hardy have been collaborating since 2002. Included in the screening will be TV Lip Sync, 2002, and two videos from their ongoing project New Report, New Report, 2005, and the documentation of the live performance New Report: Morning Edition, in which the reporters hold an intimate deliberation on the objectification of the biological female body. This is the Seattle debut of this project. (This does contain graphic imagery.)

Ann Magnuson; image courtesy of papermag.com

When I originally started thinking about artists who might expand the definition of what a diva is, the first person who came to mind was the subject of this post. Who else but a diva could be seen in concert halls and magazines as well as museum exhibits, obscure sitcoms, and cultish b-movies? Campy, profane, versed in popular culture, obsessed with the fragmented nature of female personae, and tailed by a devoted audience, Magnuson definitely seems to meet the requirements of being diva.

Like Wynne Greenwood (aka Tracy + the Plastics), Magnuson made a name for herself through the available art scene, specifically by managing Club 57 in the East Village during the early 1980s. At the time, Club 57 — which originally claimed its residence in a church basement — was a burgeoning scene comprised of folks like Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, the B-52s, Klaus Nomi, and Fab Five Freddy. Magnuson and her patrons were obsessed with the radioactive kitsch of their Cold War-era adolescence and she would often arrange theme nights like day-glo erotic art show and Elvis Presley hootenannies or turn the venue into a putt-putt golf or a tiki lounge. During this time, she also became a part of Pulsallama, a percussion-based girl group that Magnuson thought of as an anti-band rebelling against the “fashionable primitivism” Malcolm McLaren was espousing with Bow Wow Wow, who he was managing (re: manipulating) at the time. Magnuson had left the group by the time they made “The Devil Lives in My Husband’s Body,” but you can get a good sense of what they were about in the music video below.

A key trait for any diva to me seems to be the ability to inhabit various roles, sometimes in opposition to one another, through performance. Folks might be quick to offer up a better-known pop icons like Madonna, Christina Aguilera, and Beyoncé, but let’s not forget Magnuson who often differed from these women by using her chameleon-like ability to create characters that poked fun at female stereotypes, materialism, confessionalism, and the hollowness of fame. Pairing up with Tom Rubnitz, she put together “Made for Television” in 1981 for PBS’s Alive From Off Center. The 15-minute piece, which simulates late-night channel surfing, features believeable send-ups of televangelism, soap operas, and game shows with Magnuson playing all the parts. Particularly with regard to how hollow and alienating our collective fixation of fame can be, it reminds me of Eileen Maxson’s “Lost Broadcasts,” which depicts the artist as a reality show hopeful whose staggeringly candid audition tape is being fast-forwarded and talked over by a disinterested casting agent fielding a phone call.

I cannot locate ”Made For Television” online, but I have seen it in exhibition. If you hear about it coming to your town, I suggest you see it. If you find it on the Interwebz, share with the group.

In the mid-1980s, Magnuson got together with Mark Kramer to form Bongwater, a band where this kind of performance was all too common.   

Ever the actress, she would off-set duties with Bongwater with turns in the ABC Jamie Lee Curtis/Richard Lewis sitcom Anything But Love, The Adventures of Pete and Pete, and The Hunger as well as Susan Seidelman’s beloved Desperately Seeking Susan and Making Mr. Right (which totally looks like a movie I should see).

In 1995, Magnuson released her first solo album, The Luv Show, which was apparently inspired by the mad-cap narratives, sex-crazed vixens, and pop-art shine of Russ Meyer movies. It certainly explains the cover, though no explanation needs to be given for songs like “Miss Pussy Pants.”

Ann Magnuson, ever the saucy minx; image courtesy of salon.com

While Magnuson was never going to be a mainstream talent, it’s heartening to know that our media culture had room for a smart, cheeky lady all too willing to represent in the margins. Actually, they still seem to have the room for her, as Magnuson released her second solo album Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories in 2006, embarks on cabaret tours, and does occasional film work. More importantly, Magnuson seems all too willing to deconstruct the very idea of the diva, who she is, who she pretends to be, who she represents, and where her markers of identity blur and splinter. She might be Cindy Sherman’s kind of diva. She’s definitely my kind of diva.

Tracy + the Plastics; image courtesy of criticalmiami.com

My friend Morgan is taking a grad seminar on divas through UT’s Theatre and Dance department. Kinda amazing, right? Makes you wish you were in school, talking about Mariah Carey and getting college credit, doesn’t it? Me too. I always remember this when someone posts a horror story on Facebook about admission cutbacks, hiring freezes, and when you’re supposed to make babies.

A class on divas fascinates me. If I were taking this class, I’d have so many questions. Who is a diva? What makes a diva? Does a diva have to be glamourous? Does a diva have to be campy? Is performance inherrent to being a diva and, if so, can anti-performance fit into this construction? Does being a diva mean vocal virtuosity? Is being a diva about turning spectacle into art, or deriving art out of spectacle? How do the interstices of identity play into the construction of a diva’s persona(e) and fan base? Can a diva be male, despite diva Beyoncé’s assertion that a diva is a female version of a hustler? 

I think that last one is totally rhetorical. Guys can totally be divas. And as I support being flexible with language to include female contributions, I also endorse that we not masculinize originally female-gendered terminology when applying it to boys and men. I’ll not stand for this “divo” business — Kanye is a diva. A diva can also clearly be trans or intersex.

I think we can also agree on performance being intrinsic to the diva. But is there a specific way that performance has to be packaged? Does a diva have to make a scene at the Grammys or can s/he do it in some rundown cabaret or house party?

These questions lead me toward an issue I’m not so sure about, and am going to take this blog as a forum to play with. Does a diva require or need to project a lavish lifestyle, and thus tied to capital? I have a few ladies in mind to complicate the classed notions of the diva. Admittedly, they’re kinda art-fuck suggestions meant to subvert the normative positionings of this cultural figure. They’re also adult, white, and biologically female, perhaps causing them to abide by aforementioned norms. So if you’re like “what about _______?,” feel free to share.

For my first post on divas, I offer up the now-defunct solo project Tracy + the Plastics for consideration. Does Wynne Greenwood’s use of elliptical song structures, graphically candid confessionals, antiquated electronic instruments, and video installations to play with identity, gender, sexuality, and performance make her a diva? Why or why not?

There are some excellent art events happening tonight in Seattle.  This afternoon, multimedia artist Wynne Greenwood continues a series of performances marking the end of her exhibition “Sweated” at Seattle University’s Hedreen Gallery.

Derek Larson, studio view. Via crawlspacegallery.com

At Crawl Space, Vermont-based artist Derek Larson (who grew up in Seattle but received art degrees from Indiana University and Yale) is marking the end of his week-long studio intenstive residency with Liquid Crystal, an homage to material nostalgia. Larson is specifically interested in the effect of the digital age on the resonance of cultural artifacts:

As cultural signifiers increasingly exist as digital media rather than artifacts collected at physical events, Larson questions the emotional impact the internet has on its public. What once was the accumulation of things in a room (objects, books, photos, vinyl) is now a digital collection of ideas archived on hard drives. Larson plans to create an archive of his own made up of pre-internet objects culturally significant to Seattle. Using this material, he will build a sculptural installation and video works to reactivate an aura around these artifacts.

After that, I suggest you head down to the Moore Theatre for Moore Inside Out, an evening of free performance and installation, the latest effort by the Free Sheep Foundation (of Motel fame).  The Stranger has a full list of participating artists and projects.

“How do you map a hope, a flower, a muscle, a gaze, a breath, an exhaustion, an attempt, a history, or your community? You are here.” Originally from Washington, then Brooklyn based Wynne Greenwood returned to the Northwest to premiere her piece, Maps to Radical Imagining, specifically created for the Tollbooth.

Click here for interview: