Or art that is anatomically female-centric/uses the vagina. Is it me or the second you hear “feminist” in art the mind reels to images of a woman smearing Barbies with menstrual blood and talking about that time a man on a train touched them when they were eight? When did the legitimacy of feminism become so questionable in the art world and dismissed as irrelevant? What does Marina have to say about this? That sounds like something to put on a t-shirt and sell at Lilith Fair: The New Millennium. Actually I do respond to “women’s art” rather positively even though I have this simultaneous aversion of addressing it by this limited scope.

There is a quite few menstrual blood artists: Petra Paul, Vanessa Tiegs, May Ling Su, and Lani Beloso, to name a few. They all definitely straddle this issue of being irrelevant and cheesy in their desire to use their menstrual blood as a medium; the jaded art world is just not havin’ it. But what makes their art less valid for exploring the female cycle not just as a part of “suffering” or daily life but the use of the material as a tool as well as the fear culture surrounding it in popular culture.



Petra Paul


Vanessa Tiegs


Lani Beloso

May Ling Su is one of the more recognized of the bunch since her scope is not limited to menstrual blood but also the pornographic depiction of women. However menstrual blood could be seen as natural paint or a textural version of the black and white photograph. The shock value is definitely low on the conceptual art end of the spectrum but hasn’t been fully explored for what it can do as an aesthetic medium (Vanessa Tiegs somewhat works with this in her blood watercolors but the depth of subject is a bit lacking besides the overall image). Lani Beloso has this “my pain is my art” approach to her Jackson Pollack-eqsue paintings with menstrual blood, which to her credit she has various methods of applying the blood, but it’s difficult to sympathize (she has menorrhagia, causing longer and more painful periods) for a biological issue that many women are afflicted with and have become desensitized to.

The issue that should be further explored is the overall snideness and inability to explore the nitty gritty (no pun intended, I swear) of a natural function of the body when in the art world we can accept Chris Ofili’s elephant dung paintings as genius or Gilbert & George for their photographs using the words and images of bodily fluids. What makes menstrual blood wrong and taboo? Being affiliated with women specifically turns it into this “my pain is worse that your pain” but also this aggressively female presence that is often looked down upon as not being art that can be openly viewed by a general audience. This is pretty contradictory, considering how far art has separated from the general public into the fetishization of making art for other artists. I hate to make a misogynistic argument to this, but I’m more concerned that the fantastical view of the female body makes it difficult for art that combats this to exist. Yes there is the trite factor, the womyn’s-studies-from-Smith-College attitude that makes us uneasy, but the inability to be vulnerable to bodily approach is becoming detrimental in the art world that is headed in a pop culture banality direction.

Now the image of the vagina. Metaphors, human existence, blah blah blah. The crafty etsy generation hasn’t helped remove the kitsch value of the vagina because I am just not the type who would wear a self-portrait of my labia medallion to the post office. The vagina is used on t-shirts, pillows, weird dresses, the commodity of the vagina has created an overstimulation (no pun) of the iconography of the vagina, if only one could copywrite the vagina, they’d be Steve Jobs loaded (Bill Gates is just bigger than the vagina, sorry ladies). But my question is more how can the dick still be funny and relevant but the clit is this gross, passé cavern? It’s a similar issue to how art about heterosexual relationships exists as a supposedly objective point of view but the same plotline in a homosexual context suddenly becomes “niche” art that is only catering to a specific audience. Part of this is the inevitable minority argument, though still strange since women have become the overwhelming majority in the United States, but the fringe culture (Jesus, it’s weird jokes all over the place) of the vagina is of common acceptance as that.

Basically, debate this among yourselves. I keep having to put “it’s not a joke guys!!!” in parenthesis because innuendo is just too damn easy.

I have to remember to write about the Anna Halprin/Anne Collod show at the MCA, some crochetwear pictures and some other stuff, this semester is really kicking my ass. Can it please end now? To tie you over, here's a report I wrote for my freshman English class. Yes, I really do have to repeat English, shut up. It's titled "Beyoncé and the Tenets of Feminism". Obviously the only paper I was able to really get done besides my research because it was mostly opinion based/listening to lots of Beyoncé for research. It sounds like I was trying to write an article for Vice or something.

( Bootylicious Action )

Tumblr makes me really anxious much like twitter. It’s so unattainable and voided into it’s own world of mysterious beauty and banality. I get lost into this vortex of archives and trying to find original sources of images I’ll never find or understand. It is simple to the point of nothingness and has this visceral advertisement quality to it, trying to say as little and show as much as possible. And then I think about advertisements and trying to sell youth and gorgeousness and sex as closeness and it is all very depressing. It gives me a headache and I can’t do it. I hope not too many people get as worked up about things like this as I do, the internet drains me a lot mostly about keeping up with the joneses and updating statuses on facebook. Quitting is too easy and difficult. Basically what I’m trying to say is: I need to get a life. That’s it.

I haven’t really been having artist crushes lately, which makes me very sad. I haven’t even a fraction of the current knowledge of contemporary artists yet I am not finding anything stealing my heartstrings away and bringing me to this place of excitement/jealousy/awe. I am retreating to a fashion mode lately because that is the place where I have been blooming with joy, mostly in knitwear, not as much the general popular runway stuff since it’s been kind of dour and harem pants-y lately.

But so far, some of the stuff I have been able to see (I am also suffering from artist lecture withdrawal):

However! If you went to the SAIC BFA show opening, you’d have hopefully seen Lucy Chinen’s The Ex-Mermaid piece and been just as giggly and affected as most people I was seeing. It was a certain adorable little best friend of mine in a off-putting yet pathetic (in a good way) latex costume as Ariel the Mermaid in a kiddie pool with some sand on the borders of the floor, a beach chair and a video projected of the ocean and a live video of the bottom half of people who entered. It had an anonymous sexuality thing going on. The sound narrative had this dark humor vibe that was both superficial and deeply revealing ala collaboration between Bejamin Bellas & Justin Cooper, just hearing “I AM THE LITTLE MERMAID” repeated was both funny and really awkward.


(Facebook picture)

The rest of the show had a few good pieces but it was mostly kinda boring. It sort of rested on nostalgia & simplicity for the most part, one piece as well as it’s idea reminded me of another piece at either the BFA or MFA show a few years ago which only made me really sad. I can’t figure out if it’s better or worse than last year’s, it’s all sort of beige or offensively bad but it wasn’t even offensive this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what happened to me by the time I was ready to graduate anyway. I just haven’t been jazzed about the student art in so long, be daring, guys!

And on the same night, La Pocha Nostra’s workshop performance I am just going to politely keep to myself.

I’ll also try to update about ICAF (International Comic Arts Forum) that came this year.

A while ago I went to Anke Loh’s lecture that didn’t really teach me anything different from her work or anything, though I enjoyed it. I don’t know if this counts as accent exoticism but I love the way she speaks and the way she says it. I don’t think this with all Belgian or general European accents though. Her voice is like a cozy room of cucumbers & books while it’s snowing outside. Okay, even I know that sounds creepy. But I like her matter-of-factness about aesthetic and just creating through doing. Especially when someone HAD to ask her about using “real people” and if it was a political statement, she was just very “I like what I like and I just prefer that aesthetic”. Because asking her that question is the same as when fashion magazines make a “plus sized models” edition with a few size 6 models or untouched photos of pretty models. We get it, the fashion industry has ridiculous standards, but the discussion and attempts at protest are benign and ridiculous almost always. Back to the point, Anke Loh has a nice restrained aesthetic, sometimes she could afford to shake it up a little more, but it works especially in the dance costumes she’s created.

I’ve used up my quota of exclamation marks for this week.

I have been doing research on:

1. Technological sex (Phone, Cybering, Webcam, etc.)

2. Dutch/Bamboo Wives (The chikufujin, not actual women)

3. Dakimakura (or “hugging pillows”)

4. Real Dolls (or “Sex Dolls”)

5. Artists to look at/influenced by

6. General conclusion

There is a progression of these from the mental implication of a body slowly forming into a created replication of the body. The technological aspect of sexuality being more interactive and mental, slowly morphing into the physical realm of less conceptual and more accessible and creating a real companion. It also addresses the shame in sex, but really the shame in being someone unable to attain sex or the kind of sex they truly desire because it is ultimately unacceptable in popular world of sexuality. We have these bodies we’ve created for our bodies by our bodies in the image we lust for. How this connects to our lives and physical need for touch and human interaction even beyond general desire is overall fascinating.

1. This was sort of my first entryway into this third realm as it has a common reference in popular culture and almost to the point of societal acceptance. It also is easy to trace chronologically as technology used to connect people within large distances becomes a connector that morphs into a sexual and “more intimate” purpose. The first foundation of this system would be the mail system that then also utilized love & erotic letters. Then there would be the invention of the telephone that brought phone sex and then paid phone sex with strangers and party lines. With the innovation of the internet, this exploded further developments of visual and communicational relationships/sex. From emails, instant messaging, to forums & chat rooms and then webcam sex/voyeurism, these created further exploration of the hidden desire and help explore the value of shame & acceptance of sexuality and human relationships culturally. There is something about not being in direct contact or view of the physical body that allows this freedom to unveil the taboo and dismantle the idea of exclusivity in romantic relationships.

2. Dutch wives are not created for any personal companionship or needs, they’re woven (usually) bamboo tubes the size of a body for “embracing” while sleeping as a form of maximum air conditioning through the woven material. I love objects of a “non-personal” nature personified through a suggestive action or title. I just imagine hugging a ghost with the breeze coming through the pores of the chikufujin. Like that Gershwin brother’s song “Embraceable You”. However Dutch wives have also become one of the new names for

3. A large section of my research has been about dakimakuras and the boundary between the innocent and the “unseemly” nature of them. They’re similar to sex dolls in that there is an imputation on people who own them but simultaneously contain less of a shame factor because they have a functional purpose that is not sexual. The article “Love in 2-D” in the New York Times, though an ultimately flawed reflection of this culture, represents this idea of having the fantasy person worked into the necessity of everyday life (which reflects the essentiality of the body on a primal level), where objects morph into living beings. Anthropomorphic. Plus the pillow is reflective of comfort, of cushioning and of an area of vulnerability in beds, plus I always think of a cheesy teen movie with a girl on her bed, painting her nails while talking on a rotary phone to her girlfriends. The bed as the living space, the name “living room” always weirded me out like there was a specific room to live our lives and then another room to die.

Dakimakuras are a section of animation/manga/general fantasy comics I’ve been exploring through people but not real people. Since they’re cartoons or illustrations, they are further abstracted concepts of bodies and age becomes as gray of an area (especially considering many characters that will be as young as twelve but are treated as much older women.) This is more in that third world, the imagined-fantastical world that is beyond human law and speculation because it exists in the mind. Plus cartoon pornography or hentai has had a growing popularity that is starting to take in more money than live or real pornography in many cases.

4. I was really hesitant about the last one for some reason, probably because of the popular notion of them as blow up dolls and cheesy bachelorette gift of them when I should’ve embraced that even more. However real dolls I find extremely fascinating. I watched the BBC documentary “Love Me, Love My Doll” which offered a good opening (albeit judgmental and exploitive, quelle surprise) about the industry and community that surrounds real dolls. I don’t find them “creepy” when someone develops a personal relationship with them, but I find myself uncomfortable when people (like the Texan guy in the documentary who had multiples he just threw around everywhere) don’t develop relationships with them and very clearly see them as disposable objects yet able to be intimate with them. They look human, but they aren’t and that’s what makes people uncomfortable as it does for others to be drawn to them. Also that they don’t represent “sex dolls” but this newer being that exists for relationship purposes (and a different fetish) which makes them harder to classify. I’m fascinated by that boundary.

DaveCat brought up in conversation what I think is an accurate representation of how we see these people in accordance to their dolls: “If I'm treating this human-shaped object as an object, then how would I treat a human?” There is this “creepy” factor that has to be addressed and much more prejudice than dakimakuras as it is more of a commitment to a human object than an object that has human imagery. Plus the “Uncanny Valley” that the closer the replacation to a human, the more uncomfortable that people react to them. I think I’m also further interested in the “synthetic” in relation to the “organic” body, it has this meaning beyond the idea of sex and further into companionship. The way these people are treated in society who have them, the way their communities develop, etc.



5. As far as the artist work to think about would be:

-Ryoko Suzuki’s 3 different ANIKORA series in using her own image pasted over anime figurines that are supposed to represent cute women, schoolgirls and pop stars. She contemplates the real body by using her own image as well as the manufactured one in a way that I am hoping to embody.

-Gracen Mikus Brilmyer’s “How We Slept” (in the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection) describing the body positions of the women in her family sequentially with the implication of a body or yearning for a body beside them in the beds.

-Amber Hawk Swanson’s To Have, To Hold, To Violate project with the Amber Doll, a Real Doll made into her image, as her girlfriend-collaborator. I’ll go into detail on this later.

-Elena Dorfman’s Still Lovers & Fandomania, which both deal with iDollators and their dolls. Still Lovers is haunting photo series of the relationships of these dolls and their human mates, it’s simple but allows for visceral complexity.

-Gabrielle Bell's Cecil & Jordan in New York, specifically the story about the girl who balances living in someone's house as a chair and as a person separately. There is a softness about that story that really gets to me.

And others I’m not mentioning, but these are the main ones.


6. In all of my research, I notice it’s not about “people” engaging in these subjects, its “men”. Why is there a stigma on top of a stigma where women can’t admit to having interest or being involved in these things? What specifically makes this a women’s issue? Which then is what REALLY turns this into this whole feminist problem (which personally antagonizes me): women as objects. I want to separate that cultural issue or really expand it because it shouldn’t just be women but people as objects. Our bodies as thing. That’s not to say it’s an irrelevant argument but not what interests me as a whole to become so gender specific. These substitutions for the body, the extensions of intellectual property, become personal homes for the living to be nurtured, vulnerable and loved in a way they don’t experience in their “real” life. It exists in the thin line between fantasy and reality, the participation and acceptance in which this is a lifestyle. However, I think Amber Hawk Swanson’s doll project can encompass these feelings, my favorite question of an interview with her by Nicole Pasulka:

“NP: Some people feel like you can enjoy representations of violence expressly because you know they’re not real. It has the thrill, but not the actual fear or repercussions of real violence. So I’m wondering if what happened in Miami is a way of experiencing violence as a representation or if it’s the expression of a latent desire. Does who and what she is give people some kind of permission to do this to her?

AHS: I don’t know. I’m just the puppeteer. But, I’m there, facilitating the permission in some cases. People in some ways do very little and her sexual availability does it all—whether I’m providing alcohol, like at my wedding reception where all of the guests were people who knew me personally from my art and queer communities here in Chicago, or just rolling her somewhere and leaving her with strangers, like at Girls Gone Wild. I don’t even know, in the project as a whole, how much I had to do with facilitating permission, but it ended up being a big part of how I think about the way consent and permission play into the work.”

Whole interview: http://newsletter.gallerydiet.com/10/conversation2.html


In general, it’s always interesting to see what people do when they’re lonely. Though there is a general discussion of what I project in my own personal preconceptions, I think my main want/belief that transpires is the idea of animism and the soul within the objects. It’s where the body and object exist in fantasy in one world overlapping. I’m getting repetitive.

It's a really abstract subject with so many broad ideas that can't all be encompassed, however I'm trying to mentally connect everything. I'm treading lightly and blindly. Somewhere in my narcissism I can't place if this is an exploration of self and longing or a futile attempt at connecting. Both, as always. Plus like many kids (right? right?...), I've had this sort of secret dream or idea of wanting to become an object and watch people. I want to be personally invested like usual but I don't want this to be a story about me but maybe a story as this other me in other people's eyes.

Um, yeah, I need to stop talking about this.

I need to seriously get over myself and start updating. This used to be less burdensome but lately my body doesn't even want to get up in the morning. I need to get addicted to decongestants or something.

I'll start with the lame thing and for the first two people, promote those who went to my high school (no we didn't hang out, I wasn't cool.)

1.


Maya Gilbert, winner of a CosmoGirl entrepeneurial award and founder of SurpriseIndustries.com, where you pay to have new experiences and meet new people through the element of a surprise adventure. This way people find out about new services (it's in NYC) offered in the city and business owners can expand their customer base.

(Her mother is the jewelery designer behind ippolita.com)

Her personal website:
http://www.headofhappy.com/


2.


Fay Leshner was that one "stand out in a crowd" girl that everyone had in their school, which only made it more impressive at a progressive art high school. She just exuded that aura of being untouchable and could paint like a motherfucker. I believe she's still working on being a fashion designer at Parsons but in the meantime has been working successfully as a model for Major Model Management and Fusion Model Management of Cape Town. We underestimate the importance of a model as a creative factor because under the pounds of make up and lighting, they better know what the hell they're doing. I feel a tad creepy knowing all this.

Her modeling portfolio for Model Management:
http://www.majormodelmanagement.com/details.asp?modelid=232984&subid=3960&Mainsubid=3960&curpage=1

Fusion Model Management:
http://www.fusionmodels.co.za/details.aspx?nav=&modelid=332338&subid=5193&mainsubid=5193&indx=1&btnx=&locate=0&sexid=2

She also had an internet buzz around her after being featured on style bubble awhile back:
http://stylebubble.typepad.com/style_bubble/2008/06/brit-fay-no-bro.html



3.






These guys seem cool though I don't know them even in the slightest. Sid Bryan, Cozette McCreery and Joe Bates, the designers behind Sibling Clothing London to transform the dull and conservative expectations of menswear through electric and fashion forward knitwear. Can I get cheesy for a moment and say it's fun and fabulous? I know I'd wear it. For men who are more daring (and probably on the young side or at least youthful at heart.)

(Forgive me if this is too confusing, especially if you weren't there, but it was a heavy lecture and it's too much for me to process, organize and report. Senses overload.)







Raimund Hoghe is the dancer that is the exception to the rule. He isn't particularly modern (I mean this as a compliment) yet he's doing something different, he makes sexuality and political issues blatant as well as completely subtle and he's very simple but very loaded in ideology. He was a really good speaker though I admit he became a little long-winded and redundant at times (mostly when answering questions since he opened the floor for questions to generally say why he didn't like answering them), but it works for this old world European vibe he has. Then again, I occasionally didn't get to the journey past the accent; I'm American like that. Frankly I know very little about him as well, so my impressions are completely based on the presentation; but I feel like he gave such a deep background on his work plus his pieces have that ominous theatrical configuration, so you didn't really need to explain it all.

The pieces shown accompany music such as a Peggy Lee song or thick operatic overtures. He showed some clips from his live performances, which in the first two he used A LOT of Asian iconology and symbolism of sacred objects especially from the traditional tea ceremonies of China & Japan. It certainly worked in his favor and wasn't one of those awkward "white guy appropriating a foreign culture" issues; probably because of the simpleness of his work and the compliment to the German culture of dignity, respect and honor that is embedded in Asian convention. Another aspect that ties in with the Asian sensibility was the outline of the objects with a calligraphy brush which totally looked like chalk outlines, but the definition of structure and architecture that deals with the sensibility of defined spaces which is also very European-Asian in concept. His blanket became his unfolding triumphant landscape; it was so French film noir especially with Maria Callas' voice in the background.

He performed a snippet from one of his performances in high heels and a blindfold, I thought of Nan Goldin when she refers to drag queens as a "third gender" because he walked so naturally in the heels however it was such a masculine movement that made the divide confusing. The blindfold reminded me of this manga (yes, really) called Land of the Blindfolded that talks about people always walking around with blindfolds on to their sixth sense and for the main character hers would slip every so often. I couldn't really decode this performance the most out of all of those he showed us until he showed a video of Maria Callas singing the song and it clicked that he used the restrained elegance of Callas and the conductor's firm, gestural movements combined. He of course moves to the music, but the strength of the quiet pauses in the music in a stretched, silent agony.

Near the end, I was surprised he even brought up (or anyone else for that matter) the concept of beauty and his body being atypical for that of a dancer or "conventional beauty". Of course his bone structure is obvious at first glance, but I forgot that it was abnormal rather instantly. It seemed strange to mention it as this issue of disfigurement that was subversively attractive when it didn't even arise (to me) as a problem; it works to his favor in the way he dances. I suppose the rules of the art world don't always translate to the rules of the popular world. I can't help but think of the James St. James' quote in the Party Monster movie: "I mean if you have a hunchback, just throw a little glitter on it, honey, and go dancing!" Yeah, that's the definite thought to tie this review together.

At the end, it felt like the end of an epic movie, my first go-to example would be Casablanca or Les Miserables. It was just so heavy with letters of sorrow and drawn out movements, it was a lot to take in. I'm pretty sure I saw a few people wiping their eyes, which is probably one of the best signs that something was done right.

The song by Maria Callas:



Clips of his work:

Though people in the U.S were becoming aware of manga as early as the 70’s, it became much more popular in the mid 90’s with anime like Sailor Moon, Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z. As manga became more popularly printed and read in the U.S (beyond issues of Barefoot Gen, Astro Boy and Akira) it created another sub-group in comic book fans and became something inherently recognized as any other genre. Though there are many that enjoy both the traditional DC & Marvel brands as well as manga, there has become a growing rift of hostility between the upcoming “otaku” generation and traditional American comic nerds.

I do admit, whenever I see a tiny pre-teen girl in an Inu-Yasha cosplaying outfit at Comic Con, I wince quite a bit. They are the poseurs to the rest of us fans, them and their tired “kawaii!!” exclamations at the Tokyo Pop booth. Why? It’s even more contradictory to who I am as I am a manga reader, I WAS one of those girls who desired to be a Lolita (and still do) and I still can do the moon prism power hand gestures from Sailor Moon. What makes them so separate from myself? Their outward displays of affection to yaoi character posters? The creepy attraction to become Asian? The kitty head hats and Hot Topic pants? I can’t answer that definitively for everyone, but I can for my own personal reasons. :

1. Cultural Exoticism – For the most part I’m not usually touchy about this, but I’m half-Asian. I went through that awkward phase of “I’m white! But I’m Asian! Nihao!” So when it creates this niche of attempting to appropriate a culture into an erotic as well as counter lifestyle in a sort of gimmicky attempt to feel different and exotic, I take it a tad personally. It’s kind of gross. Please speak English. No, I am not impressed with your kanji. This also applies to the majority of Ameri-mangas, though I enjoy the Nouvelle Manga movement greatly.

2. Repetitive Costumes (with lack of dedication) – I get it, new people are discovering Naruto every day, so they want to dress up as these people. I do love the occasional Batman out there, but when I have to see one in a bad paper suit, I am mortified. The same applies to cosplayers. It’s tough enough when you’ve seen a thousand people dressed up as Light Yagami, but it loses it’s charm especially when it’s done in regular clothing or badly made garments from Taiwan. No!

3. Pure, Unadulterated Elitism – Hey, I’m honest. There’s always a hierarchy in any fandom/group/alternative lifestyle. Unfortunately this is where manga fans lose. Sorry.

4. Misc. – You don’t know a lot about manga period. You try a little too hard to be impressive. You’re a little too invasive of my space. Some things are wonderfully personalized and less generalized.

To be fair, I am not fond of most other comic book fans either. Not fond of most people in general. I’m not going to thoroughly encompass everything and analyze the whole history. But it’s a subject to bring up to give a forum to discuss it.

I'm back! Slowly, in small, small increments. I can't focus these days.








Brooklyn artist Ari Tabei makes whimsical (that word always haunts me) and warm cocoons out of various materials like fabric scraps, tissue paper and shrink wrapped egg shells. From her cultural experiences of Japan, she uses that sensibility of rigidity and control within these large scale and heavy garments that restrict her movement as much as it prohibits. These mobile homes are utilized in performance rituals such as preparing the space for the garment; similar to Japanese traditions about space and ceremony. On the one hand I'm aesthetically comfortable with Tabei's art and the sweetness, but there is something more that I would like to see pushed, I don't know. I haven't seen her work live yet to decide, but sometimes simple is taking it too easy, you know?

Onto the fashion portion:










A few looks, mostly from knitwear designer Risto Bimbiloski's spring '09 collection "Hypernova", influenced by the galaxy of stars he reconfigured images from the Hubble telescope to create these glowing creatures.


I don't know much about it, but Dora Kelemen Diploma collection (I've been into Greek designers lately):





Filep Motwary’s blog, which has many of his divine designs along with great updates of art and fashion in general. :

http://unnouveauideal.typepad.com/

Filep Motwary’s clothes + Maria Mastori’s jewelry = Gorgeous beyond your wildest dreams. A sample of their collection together:

http://dianepernet.typepad.com/diane/2009/03/maria-mastori-filep-motwary-fall-09-in-sophia-a-short-film-directed-by-janos-visnyovszky.html


Other designers in mind:

Basso and Brooke (For Sophia)

Dimitris Dassios (loved, loved his runway show with the model images.)

And a cute outfit/creepy model combo from Australian label, Nom*D:




Puppet performer Theodora Skipitares, old article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/theater/25kath.html

I know it seems patronizing, but her work is so…CUTE. I feel like that’s a word that is appropriate without being ashamed because it really is.

Very bland, general updates. The lack of cool air melts my brain. I need a fan like Karl Lagerfeld.

Am I the only person who feels really uncomfortable in a museum? I get anxious that I'll set off the alarms, so I never get too close to anything. Especially art museums, I feel incredibly overwhelmed if it's more than one floor. I prefer galleries that aren't crowded, small, intimate and have an easily digestible amount of work. Yet at the same time, I haven't been seeing enough galleries that have been well curated plus of course, the overwhelming amount of super bad art; the Catch 22. Though I have to shamefully say that it was my first time in the MoMA sculpture garden, which was very beautiful. Yeah, they've got Picasso's Goat thing and those pretty fabulous Franz West sculptures, but in my heart Giacometti's Woman remaining unnoticed (other than this weird couple that took a photo around it) remains in my heart.

Currently I'm on a big dance craze. I really enjoy classical dance, the elegance, the power and precision, it's quite lovely. Though modern dance is cool looking, it's too abstract sometimes, I like a story (but I love you, Isadora). The contradiction falls in; I missed "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME BE GREAT!!!" at PS 122 which made me feel like a jerk along with Gabrielle Lansner & Company but c'est la vie. I've really been into old Michael Clark routines, especially those Leigh Bowery did costuming for. If only I was a dancer!



Changing topics slightly, I thought about going to the Reconfiguring the Body exhibit at National Museum of Fine Arts or whatever that place is called (I still have no idea where that place is) but it sounded kind of antiquated, especially if Shannon Plumb is a big breath of fresh air in the exhibit. Yeah, Shannon Plumb has the formula for awesome but ends up falling short for me. It's the difference between Lady Gaga reaching Madonna status, a very distant and pale imitation. Saw some good exhibits in Chelsea and more awful ones. I will summarize with a photo of my friend near a Mark Flood piece in which my friend remarked it was the best thing we'd seen because it made her clothes glow.:




I'll have more focused updates when back in Chicago(?) with air conditioning. As far as the fashion front, a simple link to Vogue Italia with Linda Evangelista shot by Steven Meisel which pretty much says it all.:

http://projectrungay.blogspot.com/2009/08/vogue-italia-linda-evangelista.html

(Photo by Peggy Jarrell Kaplan)



I told myself I wouldn’t update until I got up and went to a damn art event. This was pretty much the closest I got besides the Claes Oldenberg/Coosje Van Bruggen exhibit at the Whitney Museum which was FABULOUS, my favorite are the sketches and the instillation of the happening videos. Could do without the people’s commentary.

Ann Liv Young, choreographer, dancer and performance artist. I went to her “part performance, part yard sale” on Saturday in her role as Sherry, one she has utilized in various performances. Marine park was definitely a fitting place for this role as she had on her bordering psychotic parody on sombol: excessive make up, shiny red jogging pants with a taped price tag and a plastic with maribou pink lined tiara. I felt guilty not buying the “normal” items (though an older man bought a fabulous rusted hatchet I wish I had noticed first) and bought the memorabilia that for some reason made me feel like a buzzard circling a dead corpse as we both were aware I knew who she was and what she was doing. It was pleasant yet strangely intimidating even though she was hospitable and forthright with information. I hightailed it out of there.

Her other works have her dominant presence and active audience participation (or perhaps attack as some see it) like Tribute to Elliot where she mourns her dog she had to put to sleep, in the piece she engages in explicit (and real) sexual situations, dances naked in sort of a lap dance on audience members and rolls around in her dog’s ashes. There is a lot formal elements that are very attractive, even though it’s obviously scripted and involves costume changes, it evolves each time it is performed especially when it requires current/on-the-spot dialogue like in Snow White where Young discusses events that happened previous to the show and things going around her when she performed this in Europe. She’s also known for yelling at audience members (in Snow White she tells one person “Don’t fucking cough.”), which maintains her control over everything and using overt sexuality in a way that is rebellious in how male artists would use it. Some call it feminist art, some call it shock art, I think it’s all of those things.

Shock value has recently been considered derogatory in art and is supposedly reflective for a lack of content. I think that can be true considering the popularity of the movement within modern art in Japan, which I’m not a fan of though I don’t necessarily think that renders it null and void. Yet shock value has been an important part of the progression from classical toward modern then contemporary art was largely derivative in shock art, which didn’t necessarily mean it lacked purpose but also to question: “why is this so shocking?” This is where I feel Young’s work lies, she takes part in intimidating the audience within her own universe where it becomes normal, something primal and owing to ancient Roman theater. Though her work is bordering cliché in the world of performance art, it’s considered surprising and strange in the world of dance in many of the venues where she displays her work. Her aggressive demeanor adds to the effect when she battles the audience, her crew, and herself; it is recognizably terrifying but also fascinating.

I read one article online that said her use of pop music (Snow White’s sad reflection to her prince involves Gloria Estefan’s Cuts Both Ways which transformed into Aaliyah’s I’ll Be Watching You) was irrelevant and didn’t stick to the original fairy tale as if she were just using it as an excuse. Granted, it becomes very different than the linear children’s story but I think it was very relevant to her narrative which was bringing Snow White from the innocent Disney level to the more classical level where children’s intelligences weren’t insulted similar to Into The Woods. The argument of children being more comfortable with their bodies and sex in Europe also is a hint of the argument. As she mentions in interviews about “deconstructing then constructing it back on her own terms” is evident.

Either way, it’s a treat for everyone (unless you piss her off or she decides in the beginning to not even do the show) to watch Ann Liv Young perform, her use of whimsy, brash choreography, pop hits and general personality not to sugar coat anything, has an impact on the audience which is perhaps the most important element.







Excerpt from Snow White

Ann Liv Young’s website (click the castle door to get to the good stuff):
http://www.annlivyoung.com


I should’ve went to a bunch of other exhibits like the closing of Yayaoi Kusama’s, Kalup Linzy’s (though saying I’m not a fan is an understatement) and the closing of the Pocket Utopia gallery, though Bellwether is closing soon too.

Female vs. Male Transformations. I swear that none of this is some LBGT gender discussion or that which is too feminist-y. No, but mostly involved in the lame attempts of nerd-to-stud removal of glasses in the 90’s (She’s All That, Au Pair, Drive Me Crazy, etc.), superheroes (Sailor Moon, Wonder Woman, Superman, etc.), and the most “realistic”, reality shows/makeover shows (What Not To Wear, Trading Spaces, etc.).

Tag sales/yard sales/stoop sales, like a personal museum on sale. How do we fear letting people enter our homes and our personal lives but so easily cast out these objects and sell them? They say so much about people, like one I went to where this Asian woman was selling traveling maps, books about being a minority, books about Korean women and their relationship with the law, etc. I’m pretty sure there was a photography series on it or something, but it’s a fascinating way into people’s history without expressing a personal (or creepy) over-interest. Which is also kind of my fascination with phone/cyber sex.

Worry dolls. This one is the only thing that might eventually develop into something, I think.

Slam books, I can’t remember ANY of the episodes of Flash Forward except the one where they had a slam book. I know “Friendship Books” exist but those are total bullshit, whereas slam books are honest and cruel and were a once something done by junior high schools before they were banned. I have been wanting to experiment with them but college classes are small plus they’re too hippy dippy (and afraid of getting caught).

Silly slang. That defines itself. Isn’t the term “popo” just really funny no matter how convincingly you try to say it?

And drowning. I’ve almost drowned several times, yet I love the water, but I can’t swim. I think it’s fascinating the way people exist in this other world, contend with it, live in it, die in it. Almost everyone has a drowning story, which is that thin line from living and dying, but it barely registers as a memory let alone traumatic for most people. It’s a part of life except for those avoid it with fear. I don’t know, it’s one of those things where I can’t put it into words. Insignificant but meaningful? Something like that. I don’t know what it means yet.


Things I am craving:

The smell of matches
Saying the word “galoshes”
Anything Mark Fast is designing
Mona & Holly dresses
A simple desk job
Cool breeze
One of Maegan’s laughs at one of my inappropriate comments
Pepperoni pizza from DiFara
CSI, the original

Three years later saw the release of Working Girls, Borden's unsentimental look at prostitution. Shot in pseudo-documentary style, the film follows one group of "working girls" as they put in a long (18 hours) shift at the Midtown Manhattan condo that serves as a bordello. One might expect a feminist's film about prostitution to be a strident denunciation of the "profession" and the exploitative patriarchy that evokes it, but Borden's message is more complex. While working on the script, she spent considerable time with members of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), an organization of current and former prostitutes who lobby on behalf of the oldest profession and its practitioners. These contacts influenced Borden's perspective in a major way.

Borden does not glamorize prostitution—her film is not remotely like Pretty Woman—but neither is it a feminist jeremiad. The title that Borden chose is revealing. Working Girls portrays prostitution as a job—often tedious, sometimes depressing, occasionally interesting or funny. The main character, Molly, has a degree from Yale and is a lesbian in her private life. The other "girls" in the film also fail to conform to Hollywood stereotypes.



So I finally watched Lizzie Borden’s Working Girls, which I thoroughly enjoyed for all the wrong reasons of course. I was surprised to find how many people approved of the movie as “an unbiased view on prostitution”, yet I can understand it. Borden apparently worked with a lot of people from COYOTE (Call Off Your Tired Ethics), an organization trying to provide support and aid to sex workers as well as working to deflate the negative views on prostitution.

On the one hand, I think Borden does take a more proactive depiction of prostitution by not exploiting the seedy Hollywood image of it. They work in a clean, professional environment not on the street, which allows them to do or not do what they’re willing to for money. Their attire must be professional as well as their attitude with the clients and the characters don’t exploit the usual stereotypes of being drug addicts or single mothers. However the second the main character is called a whore, she quits, which I think is supposed to be empowering but seems also relatively exploitive. I guess it depends whether your moral compass or your entertainment value are higher.


I'm always late when it comes to movies and documentaries. Meanwhile, I finally saw Guest of Cindy Sherman which was good even though the guy was SO annoying, the ending lost credibility when I found an ad on craigslist for an intern to bring back Gallery Beat, oi. Still need to see Jen DeNike and others at the Brooklyn Museum for the feminist video exhibit (which is sad since I live so close to it).

I am so glad the semester is over even though I am a bit panicked about summer plans. Internships, jobs, galleries, and mental clutter I must contend with, but only after I get my work done the way I want it. This was just a really hard semester; I’m always burnt out by the second. In my mind I was trying out new things and ideas that I don’t gravitate towards/haven’t worked with, so I try to remember that after thinking about how badly most of it turned out. I struggle with doing things within the school time frame mostly, as much as I know I need to learn to deal with curveballs, I need time to sit on things and think about them as well as make them properly. I’m not making excuses for how things turned out, they just ended up being not particularly good and that happens. Of course it hurts to fail and make something bad which also gets seen by others, but I won’t let it keep me from trying new things and doing work about things I hadn’t really wanted to put under a microscope, but I’m wondering if I have to do so in order to know why I make the work that I do. Or maybe it was better left as a mystery. I’ll see. I want to make something beautiful at some point in my life, it would just help if I didn’t let my environment make me question myself and affect me the way that it does. But I am definitely getting nervous, as it seems I have pretty little to offer “the real world”. I need to learn how to act or something. It’s a dream of mine to do low-budget television commercials for a living. I’m sure I could achieve that if I tightened my bootstraps, worked hard and robbed a bank.

I’m just working to crochet fun things and get back into the studio aspect I miss. I wish my aesthetic could improve from this Holly Hobby thing but my skills are kind of…wack. I reiterate this way too much.

But! Things I look forward to:

Finally seeing some of Sophia Calle’s work from Take Care of Yourself, the book is a bit self-pitying and apparently the show is a lot less of that.

http://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/56

The feminist video exhibit:

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/new_feminist_video/

Tehching Hsieh’s instillation of the one-year performance (I also want to see Aernout Mik):

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/322

Not sure about this one, but Fashioning Felt:

http://www.cooperhewitt.org/EXHIBITIONS/Fashioning-Felt/


And if I get to it, Alice Neel at Zwiner & Wirth, Sadie Benning at the Whitney, and what I really, really hope: Yayoi Kusama at Gagosian Gallery. I haven’t decided yet if I want to see Marie Brassard’s Jimmy at PS 122.

Video artist and performer Kate Gilmore creates highly physical environments for herself which deconstruct the social achievements and expectations of women. In Every Girl Loves Pink, she is trapped with her legs in the air in a corner filled with pink paper as well as her shoes that are pink, trying to kick through the walls and escape (someone has been reading Laura Mulvey). Though it could be seen as a more obvious "women can be powerful too" sort of message, I think it also deals with the resurgence of pink as a pro-feminist movement that has been occurring of trying to use pink as empowerment and being exciting but often achieves the opposite of confining the ever prominent "Girl Art" along with juvenile in it's attempts to create something meaningful and transgressive. Though it probably isn't her intention but she creates a certain irony in this forceful nature on woman-ness like in Double Dutch, where she jump ropes on a wooden platform that is breaking down as she is jumping in stilettos, which creates this ultimately cheesy discussion on femininity and the sense of masquerade being childish and difficult to maintain, but it also parodies on that type of overtly female agenda art. Using such physicality ranging from 70's body performance art, slapstick comedy and cliches, she achieves something very earnest in it's obviousness and somewhat preaching practice of art.

She's in this ongoing exhibition in the feminist wing of the Brooklyn Museum people should check out:

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/new_feminist_video/

Video piece Walk This Way:

http://vimeo.com/2826179

Interview:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/2006/11/kate_gilmore_in_conversation_w_1.php

Everyone has done a tribute discussion ever since Bea Arthur passed, so I suppose now is as good a time as any to discuss her leading role on the show Maude in a broad spectrum (no pun intended). Before Married With Children, Roseanne and Murphy Brown (obviously after All In The Family/during Soap), there was Maude, a snarky, liberal feminist congresswoman.

Though television may seem like a mindless, cultural void to some, it is a pure reflection of our pop culture and societal values through entertainment. Where it descends and rises is up to the demand of the viewer’s desires as much as it controls them.

(And don’t even mention Bridget Loves Bernie, I find that show’s premise more than mildly lame.)

In Mary Ann Doane’s Femme Fetales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis, she discusses Robert Doisneau’s “Un Regard Oblique” and the effectiveness of masquerade within it, she says of the subject “In order to ‘get’ the joke, she must once again assume the position of transvestite.” I feel this is fitting in term with Maude as a feminist icon, though she is powerful and presents a radically independent image for women, she must suffer this somewhat pushy, overbearing character in order to achieve thar. Perhaps it’s Judy Chicago syndrome, or it allows for balance to occur. But the infamous two-part abortion episode possibly redeems her from this as it gives that “vulnerable female quality” while evening out by her sticking to her ideals along with thinking of the hypothetical child within terms of where she is within her life to raise that child. I don’t aim that as a pro-choice argument but rather how the criteria for women’s conceptions of each other.

In comparison to contemporary television, no show has measured up to the cultural impact of Maude. Television has become much more about appealing to lack of thought, lack of anything and pop culture references to what once was. This comes from an avid television watcher. I think of one exceptionally insulting show, though it is confrontational, a reality show called There’s Something About Miriam in the UK. Miriam Rivera, a Mexican model and pre-operative transgender who dates several men and doesn’t tell them her gender status until the end where she picks one suitor and then reveals it to him in front of everyone. He chooses whether to go with her, the cruise and the 10,000 pounds or not. Eventually the men sued the producers of the show. Though I would want to have sympathy for her, I know it's deceptive and manipulative for her to use her gender as the big reveal; she then creates this image of being wrong, being a freak.

But I take them all in their positives and negatives, from congresswoman crusader to transgender single woman, what does this say about our culture and our heroes? I don't know what the fight is, quite yet.

Maude in her prime:

I know, trite statement, the comic isn’t as good as it used to be, but I still really enjoy it. For those who don’t read it, Cat and Girl started in 2005 by Dorothy Gambrell: it’s witty, it’s referential, and indulges in a lot for the art crowd to enjoy. Some people hate that dry humor, but she’s addressed that too (in a t-shirt I wanted, argh). How can anyone resist Zombie Joseph Beuys?


Okay, I really hated the Next show this year and mildly less Art Chicago in which the only things I liked were older, established artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Annette Messager, Nan Goldin, Yayoi Kusama, etc. and even many of the other established artists had really leftover pieces to exhibit.

General overview:

The Grad Work (they are a category all their own)
Painfully, hit-you-in-the-face performance
Soft sculptures and whiny post-Loretta Lux girl portraits (no, random embroidery is not a new concept)
One-liner religious/political art (ie. American, American’t)
Oblivious religious reference
Redundant genuine-but-ironic-but-genuine again, pop culture references
Blurry, non-representational anything
Asian call girls/pornography to make any statement at all
Re-appropriated appropriations
Awful cultural…stuff (that means YOU, Marc Seguin)

And

Misc., which could be from gimmicky video installations to generally boring art.

This may be harsh, but it was badly done, there should not be chipped podiums, crooked stickers, pencil writing on the walls, uneven spacing within the gallery. I was just really offended and not in the “I don’t understand the subversive quality to this art because I live in a field near paintings of cottages and dandelions”, no. I was dizzy from an overwhelming amount; that ended up being rather pointless. I want my twenty dollars back. But let’s talk about someone I really liked, Yigal Ozeri (yes I know he too has been around awhile).








This new collection of garden delights is really breath taking, I do think it needs to be pushed conceptually beyond some “gender” comments people attach to it and obviously classical literature, but his technique and perspective on it’s own is at least really wonderful. If I hadn’t seen his work in person, I wouldn’t be sure if they were paintings either. His older work is radically different, especially the technique being more obviously painted but it’s also less ethereal too. Not into those weird photo balls he has, though. Lovely is lovely is lovely. Granted, contemporary art has less of an opening for photorealism (or even hyper photorealism) but I don’t think just throwing some objects out there with some clever titles and attempts at narrative necessarily do art make. There is something progressive in the traditional that needs to be continued, expanded and understood.

(I’ll forgive him for further promoting white girls with dreadlocks).

http://www.brandonbird.com/bea.html
Please, please buy me a giant print of this for my birthday. (Yes, I know everyone who has the internet knows Brandon Bird, I think my journal is established in the passe).

I know enough feminist critiques have been done on movies like Vertigo or Barbarella or Disney princesses, which I think are important categories but I think I’d like any input or discussion on these topics that get very generalized. It helped to have watched Frankenhooker for the first time, I think there’s a transgender critique on that which I think is awesome, though calling it a feminist movie is really gross.

Old vs. New Disney:

There is a lot of empty “girl power”-isms lately which I think is relative to presidential politics, the environment and charitable causes which become an empty in vogue statement to wear on a tote bag (did I really just say that? Urgh). No, I don’t plan on blaming Hannah Montana, I actually like some of her songs and being a relatively positive role model “in character”; deal with it. I think of Sally Mann when I watch Hocus Pocus in this weird use of the theme of shame with young virginity, especially because I totally accepted those jokes as a kid but definitely had no idea of what the word meant. But then I watch Lizzie McGuire and try to remember why I watched it, like Miranda’s “anorexic” episode, yeeesh. The way they deal with serious issues are completely transparent.


Drag/Transgender in films:

Whether it’s newer movies like: the Medea series, Big Momma’s House, White Chicks, older movies like Angel, Boys Don’t Cry, Toostie and Mrs. Doubtfire or even shows like Bosom Buddies; the drag and transgendered persona is brought to popular culture on a superficial level with mostly straight men to portray them in order to make them approachable and parodied in pop culture. I know that’s not a new thing to hear, but sometimes it has to sink in how odd it is.

Feminine ideals:

Okay, this is not a rant about the perfect beauty or anorexia nervosa playing a large role in our culture or what equality is, I cringe at those type of arguments. But moreso about the contradictions, there’s never one specific message so my wires get crossed and I can’t figure out what the point is. Like some of my friends were talking about with ‘ol Destiny’s Child, Independent Woman but then you want your man to pay your bills. Just like this weird debate with feminists about chivalry and what is accepted and what is a MAN dominating the woman and archaic practices and all that.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-seltzer/some-enchanted-movie-mixi_b_75334.html

and (mostly because I like the name of the website):

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=231


No, I have not been re-reading my copy of Manifesta.

I just had one of those indescribable moments that was so introspective and so connected that afterward my heart was beating out my chest and I was, and still am, stuck in that moment that it’s so strong that I really want any kind of distraction of any kind right now because it was so real it refuses to wear off. I’m thinking in long, intangible sentences. I kept thinking so hard that I needed music even though there was no music appropriate for the situation and I know it’s one of those things I always wish to even barely describe in a performance but it would only be futile and awful to try to do so by capturing it as something else. I’m so awake and manic that I want to sleep. I need a little while to let myself die down. Will it be weird to connect again after such a powerful moment or will it die down and disappear like every fleeting memory should? One can never describe it the way it happened and that’s okay. Mmm. I feel really raw as does my throat. This will pass. It can’t be still.

My art therapy class works at the Open Studio Project in Evanston and this show is put together with our projects together with the students, Sweet Tooth Masquerade. :



This event takes place on Wednesday, May 6th
From 5pm - 6:30pm @ Gallery 901
Artwork can be viewed from April 30th - May 6th
901-3 Sherman Ave.
Evanston, IL
847-475-0390


Featuring artwork created by students from the Youth Organization Umbrella and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Both groups worked together with a variety of mediums such as candy, collage, paint, and plaster. Please come and join us for light refreshments and a welcoming and creative atmosphere.