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Scott Treleaven "All-Nite Cinema" @ Invisible Exports

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:10:16 -0700

One of the first things they disabuse you of in Art History 101 is the notion that abstract art represents or refers to something “out there in the world.” Only the naive viewer looks for a worldly referent in abstract work. The emptying out (or filling up) of a picture with abstract marks and spaces is intended to offer artists the opportunity to explore painterly problems without dressing them up as something else. But abstraction too easily becomes a veil and an excuse for not talking about things. The proliferation of a certain style of abstract painting in contemporary art feels more like a way for galleries to sell work that feels “cool,” for artists to avoid making an argument.

“All-Nite Cinema,” an exhibition of drawings and works on paper by Scott Treleaven at Invisible Exports in New York, thinks abstraction differently. Treleaven shows that abstraction can exist between naive referentiality and contentless formalism, but instead can be a vehicle for approaching issues and themes in an oblique (but determined) way. The artist is well known for works that explicitly reference a number of subcultures, queer ones in particular. In the works on view here, Treleaven instead approaches certain ideas (psychedelia, mysticism, family) with a strategic implicitness. The work neither contains nor refuses content, but gestures to an outside like a gnostic fable or Zen koan.

For example, the title of untitled (for Philip Larkin), 2012, alludes to Larkin’s “This Be the Verse,” but also toys with a series of formal problems such as the relationship between each image in the triptych; the triptych as a whole and an implied exterior space; the black fields, the light background on which they rest, and the colorful marks inscribed in the foreground. The work thinks through social and familial themes by exploring formal ones, which frees the artist to approach or “think” certain ideas in a lateral mode. In doing so, it continues in and explores both queer and religious traditions simultaneously, occupying a liminal space that is exciting, rare, and beautiful.

-Grant Wahlquist

Bob Ostertag is my guest for the 10th episode of Why We...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:39:55 -0700

Bob Ostertag is my guest for the 10th episode of Why We Listen.

We listen to and discuss:

Blind Willie Johnson – ‘Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave It There’
The Ho’opi’i Brothers – ‘Na Pua Ka ‘Ilima’
Pygmy Yodeling – ‘Mebasi’

Bob Ostertag is a musician, composer, activist and Professor of Technocultural Studies and Music at the University of California at Davis.

http://www.bobostertag.com

Listen to the podcast on the player below, or download HERE.

You can also subscribe to Why We Listen via iTunes HERE.

Thanks for listening.

There’s not really more you can hope for your child than...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:56:08 -0700

There’s not really more you can hope for your child than for her to be on the cover of a magazine proclaiming she is “IN LOVE WITH A SEX ADDICT”. That’s honor. Especially if your child is a champion Olympic athlete, but is most remembered for her love of a sex addict.

It’s always good to be the face of something.

Since every cover of Cigar Aficionado could be subtitled “HAVING SEX WITH A LOVE ADDICT”, maybe your son can be a spokesman after all!

-Andrew Choate

Julie Tolentino: RAUL and JULIO series: UNTITLED (Diaspore)April...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:50:00 -0700

Julie Tolentino: RAUL and JULIO series: UNTITLED (Diaspore)
April 07, 2013

As part of MOVE IN AGAIN
CURATED BY BRIAN GETNICK AND LAURA WATTS
HONOR FRASER GALLERY
APRIL 02, 2013 —APRIL 07, 2013

Filmed and edited by Cindy Yeh
For the Huffington Post Arts

“Apparently this is genuinely the grammatically correct...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:59:38 -0700

“Apparently this is genuinely the grammatically correct way to deliver this information, but it’s irksome. And egg whites are actually clear.”

-Andrew Choate

Jill Tracy is my guest for the ninth episode of Why We...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:08:37 -0700

Jill Tracy is my guest for the ninth episode of Why We Listen.

We listen to and discuss:

Pink Floyd – ‘Don’t Leave Me Now’
Peter Gabriel – ‘Intruder’
Japan – ‘Nightporter’

Jill Tracy is a songwriter and performer from San Francisco.

http://www.jilltracy.com

Listen to the podcast on the player below, or download HERE.

You can also subscribe to Why We Listen via iTunes HERE.

Thanks for listening.

Download: 09-Jill_Tracy.mp3

Notes:
1. Fort Romeau on ‘Slow Listening’
2. Producer/engineer Hugh Padgham on Phil Collins’ gated reverb drum sound.

August 9, 2012 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Curated...

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:39:26 -0700

August 9, 2012 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions
Curated by Robert Crouch
Audio by Lawrence English
Filmed and Edited by Cindy Yeh

Artists Sheree Rose was collaborator, partner and dominatrix to...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:06:00 -0700

Artists Sheree Rose was collaborator, partner and dominatrix to American performance artist and poet Bob Flanagan. He Has Risen, She Has Risen Rose is in conversation with poet and writer Bruna Mori and artist Joseph Santarromana, Rose talks about her life and career with Flanagan and her work and healing after his passing.

Produced by Bruna Mori and Joseph Santarromana

Audio recorded interview with archival video and photographs.

These are all of the places mentioned places mentioned in The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:44:00 -0700

Sauerland
Kashubia
Bissau
Ramkau
Viereck
Brentau
Dirschau
Karthaus
black forest of Goldkrug
Bissau-Abbau
South Africa
Egypt
Mottlau
island of Troyl
Częstochowa
Poland
Modlin
the Bug River
West Prussia
Niemen
the Bobr
the Bug
the Vistula
Thorn
Schichau
Kiev
the Pripet
Weslich Neufahr
the Dead Vistula
Einlage
Käsemark
Letzkau
Czattkau
Pieckel
Mazowsze
Wloclawek
Schwetz
the Dnieper
Stettin
Neufahrwasser
Russia
Deutsch-Eylau
Marienburg
Klawitter
Schicahu
Danzig
Wiebenwall
Langfuhr
Danzig-Niederstadt
Church of St. Barbara
Langgarten
Tuchel
Einlage
Heubude
America
Malmö
Buffalo
Canada
the Spiecherinsel
the Philippine Trench
Emden Deep
Europe
Berlin
Bastion Kaninchen (powder mill)
Danzig I
France
Verdun
Hartmannsweilerkopf
the Somme
the Marne
Silberhammer Military Hospital
Oliva
Vogelsang
the Nehrung
the Nogat
Schönfließ
Saskoschin Forest
Lake Ottomin
Mattern
Baltic Sea
Klein-Katz
Poland
the Westerplatte
Heveliusplatz
Casimir and Báthory
Africa
Eastern Europe
Heaven
Pisa
Jülicher Straße
Graf-Adolf-Platz
Friedrichstraße
Rapallo (Treaty of)
Magdeburgerstraße and Heeresanger (corner of)
Polish Quarter
Oliva Forest
Freudenthal
Pillau
Norway
the Azores
Italy
Kleinhammerweg
Hochstrieße
Little Dipper
Big Dipper
the Vosges
Max-Helbe-Platz
Neuschottland
Anton-Möller-Weg
Marienstraße
Kleinhammerpark
Aktien Brewery
Aktien Pond
Fröbel Meadow
Neuer Markt
Bohemia
Arsenal Arcade
New York
Brunshöferweg
Jäschkentaler Forest
Erbsberg
Gutenberg Memorial
Pestalozzi School
Zingler’s Heights
the Film-Palast
Hertastraße
Luisenstraße
Kohlenmarkt
Altstadt
Leiser
Sternfeld
Machwitz
Wollwebergasse
Tischlergasse
Cafe Weitzke
Stockturm
Langgasser Gate
Zoppot
Castle Park
Whispering Grotto
Glettkau (/spa)
the Maiwiese
Ohra
Emaus
Schidlitz
Bürgerwisen
Praust
Hindenburgallee
Steffenspark
Löbsack
Havana
Brazil
the Bissago Islands
Higher Regional Court
Bansemer Jewelerså
Warsaw
Düsseldorf
Königsallee
Café Wietzke
Helene Lange School
Church of the Sacred Heart
Elsenstraße
Wohlgemut’s butcher shop
Rome
Brösener Weg
Saspe Cemetery
matrimonial fortress
Polish Post Office
Brentau Cemetery
Skagerrak
Brentau post office
Polish border
Land of the Midnight Sun
Café Vierjahreszeiten
Aquarium Room
Krone’s Circus
Milano
Parigi
Toledo
Guatemala
The Mediterranean
Strenfeld’s department store
Vienna
Swedish Bar
Protestant Seaman’s Church
Holm
The Racetrack in OhraFahrwasser
the Schlageter
Speicherinsel
Herbert’s bed
Gdingen
Dresden
the Free State
Fahrwasser
Schichaugasse
Hakelwerk
Bürgerwiesen
the Free Port
the Maritime Museum
Lorraine
Bruges
Zeeland
Sluys
Florence
Silesia
Stadt-Theater
St. Peter’s Gymnasium
Lübeck
the Gold Coast
Regional Museum
City Museum
Fleischergasse
Artushof
Germany
the Free City
Hohes Tor
Heilige-Geist-Gasse
Trafalgar
Copenhagen
Abukir
Rechtstadt
Pfefferstadt
St. Mary’s
Brotbänkengasse
Langfuhr Synagogue
Michaelisweg
Langgasser Gate
Kohlenmarkt
Corinth
Haupstrasse
Königsberg
the Free City of Danzig
the Greater German Reich
the Polish settlement
Tempting
Ringstraße
Oxhöft
Oliva Gate
Schneidemühlengasse
Rähm
the Number Five tram
St. Catherine’s
St. John’s
St. Bridget’s
St. Barbara’s
Trinity
Corpus Christi
Łódz
Lublin
Lwów
Torun
Krakow
Lodz
Lemberg
Tschenstochau
Cracow
Danzig-Schidlitz
Altstädtischer Graben
Ritergasse
England
Police Headquarters
Modlin Fortress
Radaune Bridge
Ostmark
Sudetenland
Rittergasse
Flingern
Gerresheim
the Siegfried Line
the Baltic
Danzig Harbor
Putzig
northern Scotland
the Maginot Line
Municipal Power Plant of Danzig
Mount Kobyella
Victoria School
Schießstange Prison
Kuno
Spain
Hela Peninsula
The Free Hanseatic City of Danzig
Kaisers-Kaffee
Schottland
Schellmühl
Reichskolonie
Pelonken
West Germany
Groß-Boschpol
Rations Office
Paris
Oslo
Brussels
Petri School
Mound of the Moon
Belt of Venus
Springer’s restaurant
Tierra Del Fuego
Grafenburg
Holland
the Atlantic
Hitler Youth District Bureau
Jenkau
the Baltic Sea
Sweden
Hela
Tiegenhoff
Praust
Sankt Albrecht
Catholic journeyman’s club
the Saale
Tharau
Crete
the Arc de Triomphe
the Seine
Smolensk
Local Farm Association
Infantry Training Camp
Gotenhafen
Vyazma
Bryansk
Army Group Center
the Greffian flat
Moscow
Bayreuth
Salzburg
Stalingrad
the Kuban
the Mius
the Don
Pearl Harbor
Tobruk
Dunkirk
Aleutian Islands
Attu
Kiska
Adak
the Far East
the Volga
Rzev
Demyansk
Danzig-Langfuhr
Metz
Taginae
Pestalozzi School
Pestalozzistraße
Women’s Clinic
Wintergarten
La Scala
Theater at the Front
Danzig-West Prussia
Lothringen
the Eastern Front
Palermo
Belgrade
Athens
The Vierjahreszeiten
the Brunshöferweg underpass
Naples
Stolp
Hanover
Cologne
Thomaskeller
Nancy
Châlons-sur-Marne
Rheims
the quais
Eiffel Tower
Salle Pleyel
Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt
Le Havre
Trouville
The Atlantic Wall
Bay of Biscay
Trouville
Bavent
Caen
Calvados
Cabourg
Normandy
St. Petersburg
Lisieux
Central Station
Oberhausen
Frankfurt
Ministry of Health
Center Sector
Heidelburg
the Arctic Front
Brest
Saloniki
Fatherland
Bad Kreuznach
Church of Christ
Prague
Bahnhifstraße
Streißbach
Orvieto
Reichskolonie
Adolh-Hitler-Straße
Uphagenweg
the Conradinum
Baltic Chocolate Factory
Hohenfriedberger Weg stop
Zoppoter Chaussee
Horst Wessel School
Langfuhr Forest
School of Engineering
Bischofsberg
Camp Narvik
Altschottland
Rechtstadt
the Rhineland
Courland
the Milky Way
Winterfeldplatz
Kuhbrücke
Kiel
Puttkamer villa
Trinity Church
Luzon
Stockholm
Mountbatten
Burma
the Pacific
Konev
Zhukov
Ireland
Panama
East Prussia
the Delta
the Sporthalle
Zigankenberg
Pietzendorf
Vorstadt
Jungstadt
Niederstadt
Häkergasse
Breitgasse
Große and Kleine Wollwebergasse
Tobiasgasse
Hundegasse
Outer Graben
Lange Brücke
Crane Gate
Tailor Lane
St. Mary’s Church
Saints Brigitte, Peter, Paul
Butchers Lane
The Franciscan monastery
The Lane of Our Lady
Hay Market
Coal Market
Lumber Market
Bakers Lane
Milk Churn Lane
West Prussian Fire Insurance building
Leipzig
Gyddanyzc
Danczik
Dantzig
Danzig-Gdańsk
Pomeralia
Włocławek
Hungary
Lithuania
Gulf of Danzig
Vilna
Białystok
Treblinka
Galicia
Turmberg
the ZOB
Trawniki
Argentina
Bysewo
the Arctic
Langfuhr suburban railway station
Wrzeszcz
Brösen Bathhouse
Rheims Cathedral
Norman pasturelands
Camp Treblinka
Gdańsk
Gdynia
the East
the West
Schwerin
Lüneberg
City Hospital
Bilk Railway Station
Wersten
Benrath
Dortmund
the Bilk apartment
the British Center
Die Brücke
The Bridge
Tsushima
British Centre
Bittweg
Korneff’s shop
the Eifel
Heumarkt
Sandgrube
Bilk
the Elbe
the Main
Kirchheim
Grenzheim
Blaubank
the Lahn
South Cemetery
the Rhine
Kappes-Hamm
Section Eight
Section Nine
Stockum
the Number Ten
Hamm
Koch am Wehrahn
Kürten’s pastry shop
Wedig’s
Löwenburg
The Lion’s Den
Korneff’s workshop
Grevenbroich
Neuss
Stomml
Rommerskirchen
Bergheim Erft
Rheydt
Niederaußem
Oberaußem
Erftland
the Fortuna Works
Fortuna North power plant
Belgium
Fortuna
Ruhr
the Ruhr area
Müllheim
the Fortuna power plant
Denmark
the Erft
Fortuna North
Wedig’s Löwenburg dance hall
Guste Köster’s living room
Employment Agency
Art Academy
Eiskellerbergstraße
Ratinger Tor
the Academy
Sittarder Straße
Zeidler’s flat
Jülicher Straße
St. Mary’s Hospital
St. Vincent’s Hospital
Hildesheim
Ratinger Straße
Zeidler’s kitchen
Helgoland
Mannesmann
the British Empire
the former Free City of Danzig
the Bergisches Land
Klepp’s room
Zeidler’s bed-sitting room
Kashubian potato fields
Düsseldorf’s Altstadt
St. Lambert’s Church
The Unicorn
Kaiserswerth
Hofgarten
the Planetarium
the banks of the river Rhine
the right bank of the river Rhine
Duisberg
the Mississippi
the Rhine meadows
The Onion Cellar
The Ravioli Room
Taboo
Paprika
Friedrichhall Two
Budapest
Schmuh’s Onion Cellar
The Little Fish
Côte d’Azur
Ravenna
Rimini
Jäschkentaler Weg
Posadowskiweg
Auntie Kauer’s kindergarten
Devil’s Gorge
the Rhine River
Section Ten
Le Home
Arromanches
Hollywood
the Orne
Port Winston
the mouth of the Orne
Oskar’s room
The West Concert Agency
a West Concert Agency
an East Concert Agency
Wuppertal
Bochum
Recklinghausen
southern Germany
Switzerland
East Prussia
Rath
Grafenburg Forest
Paradise
St. Roch’s Church
Alice von Vittlar’s allotment garden
Frau Alice von Vittlar’s allotment garden
Düsseldorf’s city walls
the High Court
Lohausen
the tram terminal in Gerresheim
Oberbilk
Wersten Cemetery
the East Zone
the Federal Republic
Unterrath
Haniel’s
Ratingen
the hill at the Löwenburg dance hall
a Polish post office
the Polish Post Office in Danzig
USA
the United States
Aachen
the Paris North station – Gare du Nord
Orly Airport
the Gare du Nord
the famous airport of Orly
Place d’Italie
the Porte
Maison Blanche
the Maison Blanche metro station
the Avenue d’Italie

- Andrew Choate

B!RDBRA!N (Addendum) by Emily Mast with Antonio Cisneros...

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:37:28 -0700

B!RDBRA!N (Addendum)

by Emily Mast with Antonio Cisneros (camera) and Megan Daalder (editing).

K.M. Soehnlein is my guest for the eighth episode of Why We...

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:32:55 -0700

K.M. Soehnlein is my guest for the eighth episode of Why We Listen.

We listen to and discuss:

Fleetwood Mac – ‘Dreams’
Madonna – ‘Like a Prayer’
LCD Soundsystem – ‘I Can Change’

K.M. Soehnlein is the author of The World of Normal Boys, You Can Say You Knew Me When and Robin and Ruby.

http://www.kmsoehnlein.com

Listen to the podcast on the player below, or download HERE.

You can also subscribe to Why We Listen via iTunes HERE.

Thanks for listening.

Notes:
1. Edmund White quote: ”…few people are avant-garde outside their own domain.”

There’s a certain kind of spider that likes to live and...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:57:00 -0700

There’s a certain kind of spider that likes to live and die and lay eggs around paintings. Here are some of those insects surrounding pieces by Al Payne, Barbara T. Smith, Otto Muehl and Judith Bernstein.

Swim Swim Swim go the fishes
Gulp Gulp Gulp go the sharks
Reel Reel Reel go the people
Twist Twist Twist does the art

Music: Ben Vida & Greg Davis Video: Charles Barabé Ben...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:10:59 -0700

Music: Ben Vida & Greg Davis
Video: Charles Barabé

Ben Vida & Greg Davis - Working Models (LDE 040)

Los Discos Enfantasmes 2013
losdiscosenfantasmes.com

Double Negative

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:18:10 -0700

In May 2012, MoCA opened an exhibition on Land Art. It focused on the movement’s early years in the 1960s to mid-1970s before it became an institutionalized artform.

In 1969, sculptor Michael Heizer completed Double Negative, now considered to be a pioneering and seminal work of the movement. The piece consists of two long trenches that cut through the eastern edge of the Mormon mesa in the Nevada Desert. Heizer displaced 240,000 tons of rock to create the work, stretching it across an immense 1,500 feet of land.

Even though this piece is part of MoCA’s permanent collection, Heizer refused to include documentation of it in the exhibition. He claimed an aerial photograph would only misrepresent the piece, as it is a sculpture meant to be experienced through physical and direct engagement.

Last week I drove out to see the landmark—one hour north of Las Vegas in a remote area along the Virgin River. Surprisingly, it was difficult to find. Camouflaged among the rocky landscape, the work almost mirrors what its surrounding space does naturally. In fact, it seems as though one must know about this work, and of Heizer, to notice it. Without this knowledge, the trenches become a peculiar section of the land, with clean cuts extending through the mesa, but never really call attention to the contrived touch.

Experiencing this difficulty to find the work, then suddenly encountering it, illuminates Heizer’s refusal. I can guess what a photograph of this sculpture would entail—to read the mark on the natural landscape, identify the grandiose gesture, and peg it as another monumental earth work, one that is simultaneously calling for a return to nature while reinforcing man’s strength over his environment. (With Land Art, it tended to be predominately His.)

However, when encountered, the work doesn’t settle on this mark—this negative space—but calls attention to the surroundings and the visitor’s interaction with these surroundings, the position one inhabits. To wander off and stand at a distance, or linger at an adverse position, neglects the work. Or rather allows it to disappear. The desert landscape takes over—the cliff, the river—and these two trenches diminish to just another segment of the continuous line that is the mesa rim. Like Donald Judd’s Box with a Trough (1963), a solid form with a trough-like strip passing through it, the work offers a hollowness only at distinct positions, and then a unified form—a landscape—at others.

And as time has passed, rocks have crumbled down and mounds of sand have formed in the hollow space, slowly infiltrating the work. These unkempt sections are one of the first things you notice in fact. Through this interaction, the sculpture moves and evolves—it is in no way impenetrable.

Touching the work, moving around it, and allowing one’s mind to ricochet between the positive and negative is what makes this sculpture so resonant, and unexpectedly humble. A photographed documentation would perhaps flatten this ambiguity, and this liveliness. An actual visit, and the process of searching for the work, is imperative to understand this blurring of nature and art, and how a single line can contain both grandeur and modesty.

To visit, and I highly recommend you do, see directions here: http://doublenegative.tarasen.net/double_negative.html

-Shoghig Halajian

It’s just not true that sausages don’t point in a...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 12:49:09 -0700

It’s just not true that sausages don’t point in a certain direction

Geeta Dayal is my guest for the seventh episode of Why We...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:04:58 -0700

Geeta Dayal is my guest for the seventh episode of Why We Listen.

We listen to and discuss:

Brian Eno – ‘The Big Ship’
Dieter Moebius, Conny Plank, and Mani Neumeier – ‘Pitch Control’
Nazia Hassan – ‘Boom Boom’

Geeta Dayal writes about music, technology and culture for The Wire, Frieze, the New York Times, The Village Voice and many other publications and is currently a staff writer at Wired. She is also the author of the book “Another Green World” about Brian Eno’s album as a part of Continuum’s 33 1/3 series.

http://www.theoriginalsoundtrack.com

Listen to the podcast on the player below, or download HERE.

You can also subscribe to Why We Listen via iTunes HERE.

Romy Schneider in Henri Clouzot’s unfinished film,...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:55:06 -0700

Romy Schneider in Henri Clouzot’s unfinished film, L’enfer.

wouter van Veldhoven

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:20:25 -0800

wouter van Veldhoven

"The Color of Plummet"

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:35:05 -0800

“And here, between the boat slips, icy emaciations
Past blackness somehow, the color of plummet…”

That’s the last stanza (of four) of Christian Wiman’s translation of Osip Mandelstam’s “Today Is All Beak”.

Sure, I know how to fall down. But the straightforwardness of those last four words made me think that perhaps “the color of plummet” is a more tangible thing, something that I just hadn’t learned about yet. So I slid the computer over and googled it up. The top site that appears links to a display of five rows of five colors ranging from various browns to a couple whites to a few greens and a slew of blues.

http://www.colorhunter.com/tag/plummet/1

At the end of each row of colors is a small photograph the same size as the color samples; each photo has been taken from a different flickr account, but was tagged “plummet”. The first photograph – linked to four browns and a gray – is of a wall of stones and a sign that reads “NO FURTHER ACCESS”.

The third line of Mandelstam’s poem reads:

“Black warships inching distance as through oil.
Black wakes like waves of sound that never sounded.”

Wiman describes his translations of Mandelstam’s poems (Stolen Air, HarperCollins 2012) as versions, because his only resource was the combination of the originals with the translations of others and something he could sense was missing in other English versions: he does not speak Russian.

The second and third links that appear when you look up “the color of plummet”

http://www.colourlovers.com/color/6C2446/Plummet
http://www.colourlovers.com/color/7C0677/Plummet

are colors created by “hypestir” and “atriaref”, respectively, on a site devoted to color, and run by color nerds. Their colors are plummy, more like what you’d expect if you know English and can see.

But, oh wow, the fourth link?

http://www.engineersupply.com/cst-berger-tribrach-with-optical-plummet.aspx

Now we’re getting into some quality industrial equipment. ‘I’d plummet the hell out of that thing.’ That’s exactly what I thought when I saw it.

Naturally, I make a document with all these links and get excited about the variety of colors of plummets and start thinking about a project to investigate these strands and the ones I haven’t even seen yet. I then went to cut some oranges as a post-breakfast snack in lieu of a cigarette, and refill my teacup. Because this was my train of thought on February 6th at about 8am, 2 hours before I have to be at work.

I like to read poetry in the morning, while my mind is still not all mine.

So I cut the oranges and scoop up the peels and turn to throw them in the trash, but the hood from my sweatshirt is folded over my left shoulder and blocking my peripheral vision, and I don’t see that my teapot is on the counter in the way of the trash, so as I swoop sideways with my scoop of orange peels, I knock over the teapot and I see it falling in space, but still, somehow very still. And in that instant I know what the color of plummet is and what I’ve spent my time researching and thinking about for the last thirty minutes of my pre-work morning and it’s suddenly all too clear: the color of plummet is my own decision-making, blind and over time. And crashing to the floor. Because my teapot was purple.

The first two stanzas of the poem, that put all this in motion in 1936:

“Today is all beak, little yellow hell
Pecking, pecking at my stone brain.

And the seaside dock gates, and the locked anchor chains,
Even the inchoate mist, see, somehow, me.”

When your last name is Choate, and you have no relation to the NE boarding school nor that world, because you’re Southern, and you chew language, the word ‘inchoate’ is fraught. Does your last name signify the opposite of ‘inchoate’? So, instead of being ‘just begin’, you’re ‘almost finished’? Pecking for sure.

Heather Cassils, Becoming An Image “Becoming An Image is a...

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:35:00 -0800

Heather Cassils, Becoming An Image

“Becoming An Image is a new body of work consisting of a live performance, photographs, a sculpture and an audio piece. The performance is designed for the camera, specifically the act of being photographed. Taking place in a blacked out room, the only elements in the space are the audience, a photographer, the performer and a block of clay weighing 1500 pounds (around the same height and width of a body). In the darkness, I use my skills as a boxer/ MMA fighter to unleashing an assault where I literally beat the material, moulding the form. A “sculpting” process results on account of my blows. For the duration of this performance I am blind, as is the audience, as is the photographer. The only light source emitted comes from the flash mounted on the photographer’s camera. This burst of temporary light allows the audience to glimpse at suspended moments of the performance, much like a “live” photograph, burning this image into their retina, which leave ghost like traces. The act of photographing is the only way in which the performance is made visible.

Originally commissioned by the ONE Archives (the oldest active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning (LGBTQ) organization in the United States.) Becoming an Image addressed LGBTQ archives and the “Ts” and “Qs” often missing from historical records, which exist outside of the lens. BAI brings forth the idea of accountability by directly address the role between artist and photographer. Additionally it calls into question the roles of the witness, the aggressor and documenter by building these challenges into the very act of the performance itself.”

-Heather Cassils

Photography: Eric Charles and Heather Cassils
Sound Design and Composer: France Jobin