Video Witch: Joan Jonas' shamanistic approach to performance

I had no idea what to expect for the performance billed 'Joan Jonas reading Dante.' I read the Performa summary, which lent almost no information, as well an ArtForum article about the work as instantiated for the 2008 Biennale of Sydney and some other scraps; yet nowhere in the limited information that I could cobble together even remotely conveyed a true sense of the piece. So far, I haven't even found extensive video documentation. It's a shame, because I had my camera, and was sitting dead front center, but with Barbara London three seats to my immediate right, but I didn't want to do anything "uncouth."

Pure, experimentation unfurling through several delicate televisual layers, as well as live performance, the work was comprised of previously shot footage (in Canada recently, and New York in the 1970s with Pat Steir) displayed in the background as a floor- to-ceiling video screen. There were also at least two closed circuit video cameras recording intermittently throughout the performance, and manipulated live as well. The visible camera was part of Joan's drawing and video "laboratory," a vanity sized table to the right of the stage where footage of her live action drawing was taken; floating in and out of the video screen behind. The other, less obvious closed circuit video camera taped either Joan or her assistant, Ragani Haas, as they performed on stage. The second closed-circuit camera used a blue trail effect, and typically was overlaid on top of other footage, producing at once an ethereal and organic vibe.



Joan and/or Ragani interacted with the the video a couple of different ways; all of which were quite captivating. One or both of them would respond to the image behind them on screen, Joan would draw at her laboratory on camera, or would draw on the stage space. These drawings, enacted with white chalk tied to long sticks laid the process of the work bare before the audience; and visually revealed the thought behind the work.

The performance was comprised of about 10 movements. In one, there was an image of a human body on screen, overlaid with Joan's live-drawing video, as Ragani positioned two candy-colored clear circles attached to long wooden sticks to highlight parts of the body. Another favorite was a large floor drawing where Joan and Ragani used their primordially fashioned chalk sticks to slowly draw hollow circles on the black paper, and then connect them all together through continuous loops of unbroken line. Once finished, the large black paper was crumpled up in a gestural, but eloquent manner. The final movement, my favorite, was simple yet poetic; Joan at her labratory, drew in chalk on a series of flat mirrors and erased periodically as atmospheric, child-like music played.

The story of Dante was one of the many strands in this braid of a performance, as if Joan was offering her interpretation, but not handing the audience a fixed pedagogical history as such. In this sense, it seems she is inviting us to construct our own narrative of the work(s), while assigning no hierarchical order or privilege to any one strand. I thank you, earth-mother Joanas for a spiritual reinvigoration.

Museum Futures: Distributed

Last Tuesday, I went to the New School for a screening of Marysia Lewandowska and Neil Cumming's 2008 film 'Museum Futures: Distributed.' The artists have collaborated between 1995 and 2008, in institutions such as banks, museums, galleries, archives, auction houses, universities, and department stores. Commissioned for the 50th anniversary for the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, the film uses art world developments of the last 20 years or so to project what the next 50 years will look like for institutions--politically, socially and economically. The result is a provocative Alphaville-ian utopia/dystopia creation; purely speculative, but resonant nonetheless. It really pushes the current (and past) "glocal" art realm to a vision of hyper-globalization, commenting on digital cultural heritage, governance, open source, GPL, and as the main character states "cultural mesh works of the public domain."

Afterwards, there was a talk with Marysia Lewandowska (who teaches at Bard CCS), Christiane Paul (Whitney New Media Curator, and Director of Media Studies at the New School, goddess) and James Hunt (Director of Interdisciplinary Graduate Initiatives at New School, incoherent blatherer).

As stipulated by the Moderna's accession of the work, it will be published in open source on the internet, as well as on the Museum's website after one year. I may or may not already have accessed it... Will share when possible.

read:
1. Bruno Latour, "Can We Get Our Materialism Back, Please?" in The History of Science Society (New York: Isis, 2007).
2. Hou Hanro, "Towards a New Locality, Biennalism and Global Art" in Barbara Vanderlinden and Elena Filipovic. eds. The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-wall Europe (Cambridge, MA: Roomade/MIT Press, 2006), 57-62.
3. Elena Filipovic, "The Global White Cube" in Barbara Vanderlinden and Elena Filipovic. eds. The Manifesta Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-wall Europe (Cambridge, MA: Roomade/MIT Press, 2006), 63-84.
4. This site rules.

Bruce High Quality Foundation- Art History with Benefits

Seeing BHQF for the second time last week, as part of Performa at X-Initiative in Chelsea, I finally realized that the art world really still is anyone's oyster. Bruce have formed a collective under the auspices of the late social sculptor Bruce High Quality, for which it acts as the official arbiter of the estate. Sounding like a credible foundation, they have used this fictional institution as their platform and guise. Their performance, 'Art History with Benefits' is a critique and satire of traditional Art History, and thereby functioning as a sort larger institutional critique (and they do this other ways as well, see their Heaven Forbid!, response to Rondonine's Hell Yes! or BHQFU). Here, they execute their performance of 'Art History with Benefits' by narrating anecdotes, facts, histories, and gossip regarding the artist-patron relationship, coinciding with a image slide show that leads us through a hurricane of pop-culture, art history and mass-media moments. To top it all off, the collective Karaoke'd George Michael's "I'll be Your Father Figure" to end the performance.



It is the tension between the dissemination of information, of "high" and "low" taste that is most palpable in the presentation. Especially when you consider BHQF's audience; a mix of art world senior staff, Chelsea socialites, rebels, artists, students, and young derelicts out for free drinks. I love the idea of critiquing a canonized narrative of Art History while talking about Anna Nicole Smith, or Mariah Carey giving some record producer a blow-jay. And not surprisingly, the contemporary art community embraces this with open arms-- it is worth mentioning that contemporary art institutions, though they may represent the authoritative stance to some, are still not the codified institutions that they are often associated with. Such institutions act as a platform to disseminate a range of artistic practice, theoretical discourses, and new institutional ideologies to profligate, feed and propel for future ideological concerns, though (complicatedly) they are often bound to the past for a host of practical reasons. Getting back to my original point, though, I find it fascinating that the BHQF has been so quickly accepted, given their anti-establishment mission. I suppose we live in a time where institutions are prone to integrating works that exist to critique the past histories of what has lead to the current moment. What does it mean for contemporary institutions to embrace this not so subtle criticism? Can it be viewed as trying to integrate this critique into the larger picture of cultural memory? Are we witnessing the institution at a point of maturity, where its self awareness is increasing through this type of critical aknowledgement? Moreover, as a performance with no commercial value (although this could be debated), the discourse behind 'Art History with Benefits' could not be integrated into the social fabric via the commercial art market.

But still, there was something particularly biting, ballsy and shrewd about showing a photo of Dakkis and Lietta Joannou, from a recent Artforum diary post, in X-- aka the former Dia Chelsea building, where not 24 hours prior, hosted the art world A-list celebration for the opening of Performa, for which some of the very collectors, and art world high-ups that BHQF question were undoubtably present. If not for the Performa celebration the night before, then possibly for the Dia Foundation Fall Benefit Party, the night after. Despite the large scale celebrations, X/Dia is a sensical venue for BHQF, because of their ability to garner the respect and trust of both artists and donors. Dia has represented artists whose work defies the limits of the museum, and artists who use the Museum as the central force of their work; think Walter De Maria, Michael Heiser, Robert Smithson and Louise Lawler.

The collective themselves consciously embody the artist-patron relationship by way of performing it before an audience of this character. Yet through the DIY aesthetics, denigrated visual examples and anecodes, and general lack of seriousness, they simultaneously mock and highlight such relationships. Now that BHQF has the attention, they might be in a position to reverse the credo. Bruce exerts mockery and trickery to invert institutional practice, in an attempt to break it open and see what's really inside. In other words, Bruce is embraced by the very institutions they ridicule-- and who knows what they've got in store next. Even so, such a cohabitation will likely contain elements of doubt and wariness from the Bruce's perspective. A relationship that we have seen previously throughout the course of Art History, and in 'Art History with Benefits,' where artists and the museum are mutually dependent on each other, and monitor each other vigilantly. Somehow, through their tongue and cheek actions and their insertion of prevailing themes of the underdog and "low culture" into Art History, BHQF proves to be the work of mastery.

Bruce High Quality Foundation Profile
BHQFU- Bruce's free, unaccredited, user-generated university