So there I stood, sharing a cigarette with my friends on the curb outside of La MaMa. We were patiently waiting for the house to open for former NEA 4 defendant John Fleck’s show, “Mad Women,” a dizzying one-man mash-up of the performance artist’s life with the final year of the legendary Judy Garland, when one of the producers approached me and asked, “Do you want to be in the show?”
Monet Clark’s current exhibition at Krowswork Gallery represents the first solo showing of 20 years worth of performance and video work in which her own body and life experiences serve as subject matter. Images of Clark as the ideal “California Girl” are juxtaposed with documentation of the deterioration of her body due to Environmental Illness, a condition that causes the sufferer to become allergic to common household chemicals.
The debate surrounding performance art and the rights of artists has started to grow past the original controversy initiated by Marina Abramović’s gala performance for LA MOCA earlier this month. Now, three reperformers who took part in MoMA’s Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present retrospective last year have come forward to support the efforts to reexamine why major art institutions don’t pay adequately for the time and efforts of performers and reperformers.
We now know the identity of the artist who initially wrote Yvonne Rainer to complain of the conditions of the Marina Abramović performance during the LA MOCA gala. In a letter titled “Open Letter to Artists” published by the Performance Club, performer Sara Wookey explains her motivate for initially auditioning for the work …
Memo to self. If I work as an independent contractor at a market research consulting firm and we get contracts from the city’s billionaire mayor, then maybe I shouldn’t pretend to be his press secretary to the media. Why the memo? Because this happened.
“Would you like to see the birth?” Elle Burchill from Microscope Gallery casually offered me a spot on the list of people who would be notified of the birth of Baby X. The night of the opening of the exhibition and performance The Birth of Baby X was pretty cold. Despite the media attention that followed the news that Bushwick performance artist Marni Kotak was planning to give birth in a gallery, the turnout at the opening wasn’t any larger than the usual crowd at a Microscope Gallery opening. “Yes, please. Put me on the list,” I heard myself saying loud enough to mute the doubts and fears I had.
LOS ANGELES — October marked the beginning of the Pacific Standard Time onslaught, a collaboration between 60 institutions to commemorate and celebrate the birth of the Los Angeles art scene from 1945 to 1980. LA Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) is among a host of venues invested in translating the performative end of LA’s art scene for contemporary audiences, and this past Saturday was no exception.
Tuesday night’s premiere of Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset’s “Happy Days in the Art World” at NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts kicked off this year’s Performa “new visual art performance biennial.” A commissioned work, the piece was clearly a work of theatre and not performance art, which the duo is better known for. If a play could give its intended audience a blow job or cunnilingus, well, let’s say this one would be very very popular.
There I was, sitting in a rocking chair at the Microscope Gallery in Bushwick but I felt like I was visiting a friend in her own home and we were just sitting around bullshitting. No, it wasn’t one of those snobby holier-than-thou art shacks in Manhattan. It was Marni Kotak’s show, The Birth of Baby X and the rocking chair had belonged to the artist’s mother.
I ran to Times Square this morning to catch a glimpse of artist Zefrey Throwell’s latest incarnation of his performance series, Midtown Games, but a missed subway connection which delayed my arrival a few minutes making me late to witness the artistic/athletic spectacle. Luckily, I tracked down Throwell afterwards who spoke to me about what the hell the Midtown Games are all about? And provided me with images of yesterday’s thrilling good time.
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