Sustainable Ideas and Simple Actions at the 2010
Shanghai World Expo
The 2010 World Expo in Shanghai anticipates 70 million attendees who
will wait in lines for hours to catch a glimpse of the ideas and
innovations that will shape our future. Hosted in the most populated
city on the planet, the Shanghai Expo will be one of the largest events
in history. In an effort to address sustainable urban development 189
countries have built temporary multi-million dollar pavilions addressing
the theme: “Better City Better Life.” Yet few Americans know its
happening.
What Are We Waiting For? is a curated project by Daniel S. DeLuca
and Sandrine Schaefer as a facet of the People in Space Project - An
interactive artistic research delegation to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.
What Are We Waiting For? invites creative thinkers from a variety of
backgrounds to consider the context of waiting in lines as an opportunity to
spark the imagination through unexpected actions and interactions. We are
looking for ideas that are simple to implement, have a strong concept, and
engage the people waiting in line. Proposals that are selected will be
performed by a team of expert practitioners in and through the lines present
at the Shanghai World Expo Pavilions. You come up with the actions and we
implement them as your surrogate!
Click here to download a PDF with a description of the guidelines.
Our lovely intern Coco Segaller, who edited the good majority of video you see on this archive, is moving on to new adventures on the west coast. In the midst of logging and capturing, editing, and researching we had her choose a piece that stuck out to her to write about. Below is one of the more humorous perfomances that have happened at a Present Tense event, Benjamin Bellas and Justin Cooper at Rough Trade in 2007.
Thanks for all your help Coco we’ll miss you!!
Performance art, most would agree, is best observed first-hand. However, performances frequently are subject to fragmentation through word-of-mouth recollections and opinions. Justin Cooper and Benjamin Bellas’s performance was one that I did not witness, but definitely heard about. Watching it for the first time, I was struck both by how different it was than in my imagination when I heard about the piece, and how faithfully its witnesses had relayed the performance’s incredible humor.
As Sandrine recently said, performance and theater are two different mediums that share characteristics, which can often be confusing for thespians and performance artists alike. Cooper and Bellas have done a wonderful job of bringing out the best of the familiarity of stand-up comedy or theater, while totally juxtaposing it with the attitude of farce that performance art encourages. I was reminded while watching this piece of great absurdist comedy, like Monty Python’s Flying Circus, or George Carlin’s stand-up routines—with the added bonus of the (slightly) controlled mania of a dynamic performance. Jazz Wolf is a performance that one watches and wishes to pass on to anyone else who hasn’t seen it, and the Present Tense is pleased to share it with you.
-Coco
Being a performance art initiative, it seems vital that we touch on Marina Abromovic’s MoMA exhibition, even though it seems that everyone and their cousin knows about this piece. I often look at a sports event or concert and think, why won’t that many people show up to see a piece of art? This is the first time that I’ve seen anything come close, and its thrilling to see the ways that it infiltrated so many of our familiar platforms (If you don’t know this piece, a simple google search will be more than enough information on it). First off, if you were not able to make it to NYC to witness the piece, there was a live webcam that allowed to you to see the performance as it happened. While it may be problematic to witness a piece that is so deeply about presence via a webcam, it provides a heightened level of access to it and and opens it up to and audience that may be to timid to approach a piece of “Live Art”
What is more impressive, it the life this piece took on with other social networking and creative platforms. It had/has a presence on just about every one I can think of, facebook, youtube, flickr, tumblr, vimeo, and even a parody tumblr. Many people, myself included, were reluctant to embrace these facets as tools, but when the self proclaimed “Grandmother of Performance Art” proves that they can be invaluable, it is clear that such components are pivotal in advancement of the medium.
Summer warms Boston as The Present Tense stretches it’s limbs and wipes hibernation from it’s eyes. In our somnolence, visions of the future abound! As of June 1 The Present Tense has moved on from MEME Gallery to explore new curatorial terrain. We are also investigating our roles as creators, nestling into new bodies of work. We are observing, digesting, contemplating, strategizing, dreaming, growing, learning, and hoping. In times of change we are driven to revisit the constant thread that has lead us to our present space: the affinity of our collaboration.
We began by tasting one another’s conceptual process and aesthetic while simultaneously searching for common ground.
Our process developed to acknowledge the exercise of meeting in the middle.
Our process has evolved to mimic the shape of a diamond.
“Congratulations on your Empire” was our first experience within the walls of MEME (then 55 Gallery). It evolved with an intentional beginning, middle, and end, that shed new light on our potential as collaborators. Shortly after, 55 was gifted to us and MEME emerged. Today begins MEME’s 2nd cycle. Alice Vogler, Dirk Adams, and Vela Phelan will continue with MEME, bringing it into a new epoch. As we examine the future of our collaboration and The Present Tense, we eagerly anticipate MEME’s development and we feel sincere gratitude for having the opportunity to contribute to it’s genesis.
Due to lack of internet and the physical archive being inaccessable, we will have to go on a temporary hiatus. We’ll be back once we have the proper tools to make more blog posts, for now we’ll leave you with a video. See you soon!
2010 began with a sip of Champagne poured from a bottle adorned with purple and pink butterflies, a fitting gift from my boss. 2009 was a year of grandiose change. This archive came to fruition, Meme Gallery made its debut, The Present Tense’s physical headquarters took flight, and on a personal note, my body shape- shifted. As I indulged in my bubbly, I was reminded of one of the most haunting transformations The Present Tense has encountered to date, coincidentally titled “Butterfly”.
In this piece, Jeffrey Byrd, an Iowa-based performance and video artist transforms from Maria Callas to Brittney Spears right before our eyes. He begins with a somber nod to Butoh and moves through a myriad of emotions. By the end, we have experienced Jeffrey’s rendition of Madame Butterfly while watching him expose a deep piece of his imagination that has inspired laughter and a sense of hope. Reminiscing about this piece prompted me to spend some time on Jeffrey’s website. I giggled through Jeff performing household chores dressed as a Stormtrooper and I cheered him on as he attempted to scale walls in a sexy Spiderman suit. My heart melted while watching a video of a Mephisto, a comic book character dancing in his underwear. I fantasized about what it would be like if I made an effort to retain my own creativity at work by tap dancing on my desk like Jeff did in “Tap Desk”. In this exploration, I noticed Jeff had chosen to include a quote from Sebastian Horsley on his site. “We are what we pretend to be”. If only we all could follow Jeff’s lead and spend more time pretending, the powers of our imaginations could truly and genuinely be realized.
This past November, MEME featured an exhibition of work by Boston performance artist Jeff Huckleberry. We’ve known Jeff for a few years now, seen his work many times in many different places, but never in the white cube exhibition format. You can see more photos of the show in the MEME Vault.
Sandrine: Who are you?
Jeff Huckleberry: I am a 40 year old white male living in Boston. I have spent 8 years total in art school, 23 years as a professional bicycle mechanic, 14 years as a father, (so far…If I can just keep him out of that car full of drunk high school friends doing 100mph on Rt. 2) and 15 years as a husband. I have had many cool but hurtin’ cars in my life, the most current is a slowly dying white VW Jetta from 1996. My father in-law collects Buick Roadmasters.
S: Where are you from?
JH: Originally, Loveland Colorado (0-17) though now, Boston. (17-40)
Phil: How long have you been making performance?
JH: Fall of ’89…wow, 20 years.?
P: I’ve noticed that in most of your performances/installations you have a similar set of materials that you work with. What brought you to these materials and what compels you to continue working with them?
JH: There are a few materials that really stimulate the brain/body/art/ connection for me: wood (especially saw dust), loud/low/abstract sound, some aggressive liquid that hurts when you pour it on your self, paint and dangerous tools. Those materials have become, over the years, things that I would be very sorry to be without.
I started working with lumber when I was working on my thesis show in 2003. I was exploring some of the “characters” that were/are directly involved with my development as a person, namely my Dad, his father (a master carpenter), and my Scout Master. Sometimes when I see my shadow on the street I get startled and think that my Dad is standing next to me. That shadow is often represented by pieces of lumber, or by the activity of cutting boards, or by the smell of saw dust, or most directly, by the sweat dripping off my nose while bent over some impossible task. The lumber, if it represents anything other than itself, is the hard work of making work. The lumber is also very much a kind of minimalist art project that could be viewed as separate from its possible meanings and interpretations (impossible?). Lumber, in all shapes and sizes has the potential for any number of possible physical relationships. Wood is one of those materials that will accept me no matter how ineptly or masterfully I interact with it. So, I keep using it.
I also often use paint and other authentic “work” and “art” materials in performances. One of my earliest performances in school involved painting myself different colors with acrylic paint, so I have been doing that for a long time. Using paint in performance (usually by painting my body or pouring it over myself) has a twofold utility; on the one hand, it visually joins (big P) Painting with (little p) performance by providing an entry point into a conversation about the location of art making, surface and object. It also has the added and not insignificant effect of feeling really great: this “feeling”, or physical sensation is a primary ingredient in structuring my physical and mental space to accommodate the process of performance. (I also think it looks really cool!)
P: In the last few pieces I’ve seen you perform, black and white paint?has been incorporated in a variety of ways. It seemed to reference some form of duality that you take on in the work, is that even remotely correct?
JH: Yes. And no. It is kind of an attempt to collaborate with myself (splitting myself into two people and then uniting again in the shared task of the performance) and also to have a conversation about grey. With respect to the activity of performance, it visually describes the “liminal” space of performing, though, to be fair, I don’t think it is doing a very good job of that so I am trying to figure something else out. The black and white paint primarily goes with my most recent performances, “broken(a.)” and “broken(b.)” and “Expected Outcomes” which will eventually become one larger performance.
P: In your most recent show at the MEME gallery, you started using color paints in addition to the black and white, why?
JH: They’re colorful! All of the drawings I had made of those little 2×2 frames had color paint in them. I just wanted them to be active and “beautiful”. When I went looking for paint at the art store, I was most attracted to the fluorescents, so I used those, and to that construction orange. Which by the way is the same color for the robes the Buddhist monks in Laos and Cambodia wear. Work = Worship? ?
S: How did the work evolve in “A beautiful Art Show for you”?
JH: It started by just bringing all of the materials I was interested in using down to the space, plus the usual assortment of performance materials I usually bring to events. Then I started to get involved in making a bunch of wood objects that I have had in my sketchbooks over the last couple of years. For some reason, I made a bunch of things that were roughly 2’x 2’. I worked on some video in the space, which I eventually decided did not really make sense with the rest of the show. I knew at some point that I would want to put paintings on the wall that would drip down onto the floor, so I made a bunch of those. I started concentrating on objects that would have some use, or be active while people were at the opening/closing and I worked out a couple of actions that could be used if I decided I needed to do something in the space while people were there. Then I brought that old black and white video camera down thinking that I could have a live feed of some of the boxes projected onto the wall. I think that worked to join some of the ideas I had together, especially the early 70’s style of performance and minimalist sculpture I was experiencing making myself.
S: Who was the Beautiful Art show for?
JH: You. (and me.) And Rose Hill.
S: At the closing, you created a performance that had a “soundtrack,” from the B-movie, “Bucket of Blood”. How did you arrive at the decision to use this sound for your piece?
JH: I had run through a lot of sound options, and I was listening to some movies that I had recorded the audio from that I have used in sound performances in the past. I was listening to “Bucket of Blood” and laughing to myself about how it was so appropriate, especially considering I was really trying to be a real artist and make sculptures and paintings. So that just sort of happened during the opening/closing, I knew it went with that action.
P: Tell me about one experience that has influenced, inspired or effected your performance work.
JH: Watching my dad (and helping him) work hard on the weekends in the back yard. This is fundamental.
P: What is your favorite performance you’ve ever seen?
JH: Here is a list in no particular order:
• That Grey Wolf (Survival of the Fittest, 2007) performance by Marthe Fortun and Yoonhye Park at Contaminate2
• Julie Andre T. at One Gallery with the tea kettles screaming and her rolling on the floor and the buckets of liquid and all of the awesomeness, or her climbing the carpet up to the ceiling in Beijing, or any performance really.
• Persephone and Hades with Mari Novotny-Jones and David Miller, Directed by Marilyn Arsem, where I fell asleep and woke up thinking I was still dreaming
• A David Miller performance at Mobius in the 90s. (I can’t remember the title)
• “The Painter” video/performance by Paul McCarthy (one of my all time favorite pieces…)
• Some performances by Andre Stitt that I will never see in person, but would really like to.
• Three Ulay and Abramovic performances: where they walk into each other repeatedly, where they move the walls by walking into them, and where they stand naked face to face in the doorway of the gallery.
• A performance by Jamie McMurry that I have only seen on video where he topples three huge plywood pillars onto himself.
• Most bike races, but especially the spring classics.
• A performance by Arti Grabowski where he gets onto a chair and chops the legs out from under himself with an ax. Brilliant!
• Anything Alastair MacLennan does. I just like paying attention to him.
• There are more! I don’t have room and I am leaving people out! Sorry! I’ll make a longer list…Deva Eveland controlling all of us from the trunk of the car in the IBC parking lot. Anaise Nadair destroying that couch at TEST. Paul Waddell in anything he does, Helen Pfann making me scared for her life by crawling across a busy street in the middle of the night in a black plastic bag…And on and on and on…Travis Fuller Ghost Killa! Ahhhh!
P: Favorite death metal band?
JH: Cannibal Corpse, Kataklysm, Amon Amarth, a couple of Agoraphobic Nosebleed “songs”, new Celtic Frost…I tend to like it fast and aggressive. Sorry.
English Kills Art Gallery is pleased to present the inaugural Maximum Perception Performance Festival, December 11-12, 2009 at English Kills Art Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.
Over 2 nights, the Maximum Perception Performance Festival will be a showcase for over 20 national and international performance artists, focusing on presenting a dynamic range of contemporary performance practice from the best emerging artists in performance.
Curators Peter Dobill and Phoenix Lights seek to present a counterpoint to the fiscally bloated, dilettante-based spectacle that has consumed the image of performance art in New York City. The Maximum Perception Performance Festival will feature newly commissioned performance works in addition to site-specific actions and ongoing projects from all participating artists.
Established as a critically acclaimed exhibition in 2008 to survey the Brooklyn performance art scene, the Maximum Perception Performance Festival has evolved to become a yearly showcase for the forefront of performance art practice in New York City and beyond.
More photos from our exhibition “Thus Far”, these ones from the closing event. It felt great to get back to our roots and host a night with a just a few performances, and to utilize the MEME Gallery to officially launch the Present Tense archive.
Philip Fryer
Coco Sgaller
Daniel DeLuca
It’s important to note that the artists body was not present in Daniels piece. Instead, the audience was instructed via a series of cryptic text messages and hidden notes to go to various locations and perform various actions. The final part of the project will come on a later post when it is completed.
Joanne’s 2 year long performance came to an end last month, and Sandrine was there to witness it. Check out the article she wrote for Big Red and Shiny, as well as photos from the final action.
