LO QUE RECUERDO

CIRCULAR RESEARCH

MY DARLING, SEXY, BEAUTIFUL TROPICANITA: SKETCHUP RESEARCH

Rough gallery plans


Apartment 34E, 300 Mercer St., NYC


Red marks Mendieta's height


The window from which she "went," with height marked


Andre's Large Door (1988)next to the window


The fall

THE INNACURACY OF MEMORY (OR HOW TO START A REVOLUTION)

The idea that memory is inaccurate not necessarily groundbreaking. Even without the innumerable scientific studies on the subject, daily encounters make it pretty clear that recalling an event can be influenced by myriad circumstances like mood, subtle (or not so subtle) persuasion, a completely inaccurate initial account, and even the brain’s need to transform a memory into a good story. In August of 2012, however, Donna Bridge, a postdoctoral fellow at the Feinberg School of Medicine, and Ken Paller, a professor of psychology at the Weinberg College of Arts and Medicine, both at Northwestern University, published an article in The Journal of Neuroscience taking memory inaccuracy even further by stating that a memory recalled in the present is as much a result of the initial action being remembered as it is a product of each moment it has been remembered prior. Each time a recent event is accessed, “associative links among cortical networks that specialize in processing and storing particular types of information” are strengthened, but at the same time that this is happening, those forces external to the memory itself listed above are slightly altering the original event as it is recalled in the present. Because “retrieval [of the initial event] promotes storage of retrieved information, memories … come to include information learned during the original event and information activated” via the specific spatiotemporal circumstances of each prior and additional retrieval. Memory is basically the worst game of telephone ever, with your mind repeatedly playing the role of inaccurate transmitter of information.

While deceased well before the publication of Bridge and Paller’s article, Walter Benjamin not only embraces memory and history being dependent on their past and present interpretations, but sees this concept simultaneously as that which allows hegemonic control and crucial to revolution. In his “On the Concept of History,” Bejamin states that “like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power on which the past has claim.” This weak Messianic power, which he later equates with the power to revolt, is controlled by the past, something that “carries with it a secret index by which it is referred to redemption,” with which “the idea of happiness is indissolubly bound.” As George Orwell (and Rage Against the Machine) famously said, “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” Interpretation of history, much like the recall of past events are under control of the current spatiotemporal context in which they are being remembered, is therefore constantly changing based on the ideals of the current hegemon.

What Benjamin sees as furthering this control by the ruling class, of the continual victors, over the working class is that the popular interpretation of the relation of the past to the present to the future is seen as progressive, as something “moving with the current,” moving forward just as technological development does, which he cites as the main reason for the demise of the Social Democrats in Germany, in addition to the leaders of the party casting “the working class in the role of a redeemer of future generations,” as opposed to their own. Instead of each moment of the present being imbued with the potential for change, this change was seen as something that would arrive in the forward-moving future, as long as it is worked hard enough for.

This is where, for Benjamin, the historian can jump in, using dialectical historicism and historical materialism to “become conscious of the constellation in which precisely this fragment of the past finds itself with precisely this present.” This statement implicates a number of past (and future) presents through which a certain fragment of the past can be seen. Instead of understanding history as progressive, which keeps the Angel of History in her place, staring back in terror at the constant destruction created in the name of future generations, understanding interpretations of the past in relation to a specific present allows for the clarification that “the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live [or rather in which we are being told that we live by a class whose true goal is control] is not the exception but the rule.” In order to “bring about a real state of emergency,” by making “the continuum of history explode,” it is necessary to not only acknowledge this interpretation of the present-past, but to apply it to every single moment, to “convert everything that we [experience]…into revolutionary experience, if not action,” instead of waiting for a “revolutionary situation” to appear.

Benjamin posits that the revolutionary moments of the everyday occur when “a memory [or “image of the past”] … flashes up in a moment of danger.” This danger is described as “becoming a tool of the ruling classes.” In a world where “the enemy has never ceased to be victorious,” this danger is constant. It exists as past, present, and future. If memory and history are indeed nomads dependent upon all recollections before them that will continue to morph with additional acquired information at the point of future recollections, the number of potentially revolutionary moments becomes endless; with each slight alteration of relationship between personal and historical past and present, by people who are in a constant state of danger, a new “chance [to find] a completely new resolution of a completely new problem” appears.

The constant inaccuracies of the storing mechanisms of the human brain are thus precisely those internal mechanisms which can entrap us, which are easily manipulated and morphed into a sympathy with the victor of the constant battle of the working class. It is the acknowledgement of this imperfection, the understanding of not only the interpretation of personal history but of historical events as constantly morphing, that can help to spot moments of history-exploding in ourselves and thus lead to at least a moment of possible revolution.

AWKWARD INTIMACIES: SOME NOTES ON MY WORK

Yo, MCs better start chatting about what's really happening

Because if you ain't chatting about what's happening

Where you living? What you talking about?

                                                - Dizzee Rascal, “Brand New Day,” Boy in da Corner

While I don’t know that I would necessarily apply the bravado of Mr. Rascal’s lyrics to my own work, this quote popped into my head recently upon realizing that dialectical materialism is sort of Marx (& crew)’s “real talk” moment. That led me to the importance of naming, of “chatting about what’s really happening,” but also chatting about what has happened, which is more precisely where my work fits into this equation.

The way that I consider the past from the standpoint of the present can best be understood through “hauntology,” a term used by Jacques Derrida in his Spectres of Marx. This idea, this word, is a no-brainer to the type of person I embody - female, Mexican-American, a victim of sexual and physical violence, someone who is stared at or commented on for reasons ranging from my tendency to wear black to my large ass. The space I inhabit, particularly in public, is constantly being considered as a potential past, current, or future site of trauma. Also inherent in traversing public space, particularly urban public space, for someone who occupies a body, existence, and/or mindset of an “other” is the very real presence of the lack of my history, of the places and memories important to me that will be torn down or forgotten without remorse or even a measly gold plaque. The (big A) Archive, as it turns out, is just another MC not “chatting about what’s really happening” or what really has happened to a significant number of people.

It is within these hidden histories of spaces and the people who use them that I literally and figuratively produce work. My process is research-heavy and interdisciplinary (mostly because I’m a massive nerd). It certainly has strong ties to anthropological and experimental archaeological investigation, but the type of investigation I engage in does not end when the piece is performed or even after its documentation has been edited down to a 2 minute Quicktime file prepared for Internet streaming. Much of what excites me about performance as an art and as a means of research is its potential for embodied transmission of knowledge and memory, an idea I discovered a language for in Diana Taylor’s The Archive and the Repertoire. So I tend to repeat specific actions in specific places for a specific amount of time to try to, I don’t know, utilize the liminal nature of durational work to get some sort of sense for the story or idea I encountered that led me to create something for and about it, which of course, means that the performance itself isn’t usually the end of the work. After falling in love with an idea and discovering something new about it, it’s difficult to relegate it to the existence of a spectre. Works literally create other works or I make works about old works or old ideas. Or I just change my mind. I have a lot of issues with framing anything.

Which then brings me to the idea of object agency in the materials and general aesthetic logics my work engages. One of the more important media I use is my body, which certainly is able to assert itself either over or in a different way than my brain. I feel like it’s pretty obvious that bodies have methods of learning and stored knowledge independent from the brain, otherwise a lot of things about being a human amongst other humans would be a lot easier. So the other media I use are just as banal and every day as one’s own body. I am actively lo-fi in my performance documentation, and in 2D work, I have most prominently used things like 8 ½ x 11 sheets of printer paper, used biore strips, partially-erased notebook pages, and accidental photographs. In How to Make an Art, Jayson Musson, as his alter-ego Hennessey Youngman, advises the Internet “Make sure you say [your art is] exploring something or challenging or investigating, but don’t say it’s solving anything, all right?” Though Musson is clearly using the character of Youngman as a means for institutional critique, this is very essentially how I feel about a lot of my work. Real talk. The agency of the objects I use exists in that they aren’t elevated above what they are. They’re simple, small, and a little bit boring, but I sort of like that. In trying to “[chat] about what’s really happening,” using the aesthetic of the everyday makes sense, I think. I also generally don’t respond too well to the big, bright, glossy stuff.

IT'S SORT OF LIKE WHEN YOU REALIZE YOUR PARENTS ARE JUST HUMAN, TOO: MY RESPONSE TO THE MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ DOCUMENTARY

96 minutes into Matthew Akers’ 105 minute documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present, a young woman walks up to the chair placed across from a perfectly still, seated Marina Abramović, slides out of her dress and is quickly rushed away by security. She had been waiting, like many others, for hours – possibly days – to sit across from the “grandmother of performance art.” A few minutes before this scene, she even calls the act of waiting to sit across from Abramović “kind of a [performance] piece in itself – dedicating this much commitment to her.” Abramović has apparently had a huge influence on her work, and the younger artist “just wanted to be as vulnerable to her as she makes herself to everyone else.”

Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present follows Abramović as she prepares for her 2010 performance retrospective of the same name at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The show includes video documentation of performances, both solo and with her long-time former collaborator and partner, Ulay; artifacts like the set up for Rhythm 0 (1974), where 72 objects (including a gun and bullet) where placed on a table for the audience to use on her; reenactments of pieces by a hand-selected group of performers; and a new piece in which, for the duration of the show, she silently sits across from members of the public. At first this is done with a table between the two seated bodies, much like Nightsea Crossing (1981-7), originally performed with Ulay, but eventually the table is taken away, leaving her more vulnerabie to whatever the person sitting across from her might do, as noted by Tunji Adewiji, Director of Safety at MoMA, who seems to be personally overseeing Abramović’s security.

Probably the most difficult to look at photo of Rhythm 0 (1974)

As stated and re-stated, Abramović is no stranger to giving much of herself to her work, to her audience, and to performance art as a whole, sometimes even putting her body in extreme danger. In Rhythm 0, her shirt was ripped off and a rose attached to her chest via its thorns. Despite a signed document claiming herself as the only accountable party if anything should happen, the performance was cut short when the cops were called because a loaded gun was put in her hand, pointed towards her head. Her work with Ulay involved acts such as spinning until neither could get up anymore, balancing a taut bow between the two of them with an arrow pointed at her heart, and in their final piece, walking the length of the Great Wall of China until they met in the middle, ending their personal and artistic twelve year relationship. She has spilled her own blood and endured extreme, self-inflicted tests of physical and mental strength.

Now, at 63, she is sitting as still as possible for 7 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 3 months. In describing just how she is able to sit so still for so long, she states “The moment you really go through the door of pain, you enter to another state of mind, this feeling of beauty and unconditional love. You start having this incredible feeling of lightness.” While it is no question that her endurance pieces require immense mental and physical strength, Akers really focuses on the strength she receives from the audience. Klaus Beisenbach, Chief Curator at Large at MoMA and Abramović’s ex-husband, says “she needs the audience like air to breathe.” He recounts feeling so loved by her at the beginning of their relationship only to realize that what she really loves is the entire world, not just him.

Abramović stretching after a day of sitting. I really loved these moments - her verbalization of the pain, the things she must do to continue on with the performance, the fact that there's a secret compartment in the chair for her to pee in.

In many ways, this performance takes the idea of being in love with the entire world, or at least with her audience, almost literally; after all, it was clearly developed from Nightsea Crossing, a piece famously performed and re-performed with Ulay. Instead of her partner sitting across from her, the audience is. They don’t get 19 straight days across from her, but they do get a few moments, in between her eyes closing for what seems like a reset, where they stare at her and she stares at them. She describes being a mirror for whomever is seated across her. Sometimes smiles are shared, sometimes tears. She would indeed literally be no one without those who come to see her and her work, two things inherently fused, and in the thousands of individual moments that comprise this piece, she sees them.

I couldn't find images of the queue, but this screen shot from Pippin Barr's video game The Artist is Present is nothing in comparison.

Once she decides to take away the table separating her from her audience, Beisenbach simply comments “The priest doesn’t need the cross.” While I think she’s maybe more of a god/profit/priest hybrid if that’s the analogy you’re going for with Abramović, this statement pretty succintly sums up the one aspect of her work I wish Akers had explored more, if at all: just how, for better or worse, it has changed. Abramović repeats throughout the documentary that she wants not only her work but the whole of performance art to be mainstream. (I was actually pretty amazed, in discussing this documentary with others, just how many people have little to no idea who she is.) She’s devoted over 40 years to both her own work and the training of future performance artists, a process we get to witness when the 30 performers used in her retrospective partake in a “performance art boot camp” at her upstate New York estate. She’s been called crazy by many, the validity of her work has been questioned over and over again (and continues to be, as shown by clips of a few local newscasters shouting ¡Escándalo!...though I mean it’s not like they have art history degrees or anything. Not that only people with degrees can enjoy art, but still.), despite influencing and being adored by millions.

Whatever Abramović had the performers do is, as you would imagine, way more difficult than it looks (yet still retains a lot of the beauty of her work?). Read an amazing account of it by Brittany Bailey in Gnome Magazine.

She’s given a lot of herself and worked really hard to get to the place that she is, but she just isn’t the young woman who stood naked across from a naked Ulay while men fondled her as they slid past the two bodies to get into a gallery. She would never perform Rhythm 0 again. She’s an art rockstar, she’s in her 60s, and her performances now require a security team that responds to signs from Abramović to take away anyone who makes her uncomfortable. She’s not completely unvulnerable, but she’s puh-retty close to it.

Akers’ documentary does way more than just depict how Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present was made; it includes stories of her childhood, her relationship with Ulay (who she is reunited with for the first time since they broke up, like, 20+ years prior), documentation of a lot of her work, her search for love. She’s incredibly charming, and when she talks about getting her nails did and buying her first designer clothing after breaking up with Ulay, a relationship during which she lived in a van in order to continue making work, all I wanted to do was rejoice in her success. She works and has worked so hard, she’s endured so much, she deserves the money, the fame, the legitimacy. Plus OMG her awkward laugh. It’s really hard not to root for her and also understand that, duh, she needs to be protected. There are crazies out there and a shit ton of people waited hella long to silently sit across from her. (I’m trying to think of a way to fashion Abramović’s name into something akin to Bebliever. Suggestions?)

If you survive the scene where Ulay sits across from her without crying, you have no soul.

But then there’s this moment when a young performance artist walks up to her, takes off her dress, and is quickly whisked away. The crowd boos. She is interviewed as she waits to possibly get another chance at sitting across from Abramović, and apparently she “thought in that space, in that square, ... the audience is, like, part of the art and what you bring to it,” which is basically what we, the viewers of the documentary, were made to believe. Plus, I mean, the fact that she was removed for getting naked in front of Marina Abramović is sort of laughable. Not only are there videos and photos Abramović naked all up in that show, there are also actual naked people. So much nudity.

Srsly though.

In a cameo way less annoying than James Franco’s but still sort of strange, David Blaine eats some glass with his wine in Abramović’s apartment and suggests an intervention of her performance in which he very publicly and very gruesomely kills her. When she presents this idea to her gallerist, Sean Kelly, he makes a face and is all like “He’s an illusionist. Your work doesn’t have anything to do with illusion; it’s all real.” (Last aside, I swear: Her actually bringing this up to her gallerist was one of my favorite parts; as someone who’s worked as an assistant to many artists, I was giddy at the fact that Akers showed that even the best artists have god awful ideas.)

While I definitely think this documentary is really entertaining and serves as an important record of Abramović’s work, life & practice, it leaves a pretty unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach, particularly as someone who works in performance. While we are being told by MoMA security, by critics, by those who go to see her, even by herself that she is incredibly vulnerable during The Artist is Present and so much of the focus is on the audience, this naked woman being taken away in tears shows that those statements are just no longer true. It isn’t “all real,” especially if real is talking about this piece with the same language as her older work. Given her age and fame, she will never be able to make the same type of work that she used to, and I mean, that’s fine. It’s really amazing and impressive that she’s still producing, let alone such physically arduous work. I just wonder, with all of her lamentations of being underground for so long, of being called crazy, if this is the price performance art will have to pay for going mainstream. I honestly don’t think that most of it will at all ever, and while it sucks to realize there’s a part of you that’s ok with never having any sort of financial stability via what you love to do, I’m pretty chill with that.

06.11.2012: ALIKA COOPER'S FLAWED BEAUTIES

Brigitte (on couch) (2008)

Maybe this is the wrong place to start, but most paintings of women make me want to punch myself in the face. If you’ve ever read anything I’ve written on this blog, I’m pretty sure my distaste for most representations of females in, like, every media ever is clear, so it should come as no surprise that whenever I see another painting of a woman – especially if she’s naked – I tend to give the painting major side-eye, mutter something about originality and single-notedness under my breath, and walk away. And then there’s Alika Cooper.

Grace (Keith Haring Body Paint) (2010)

"WOMEN/works ON PAPER," curated by Yaoska Davila and up at TENOVERSIX until July 7, is a selection of Cooper’s paintings of famous women, starring the likes of Edie Sedgwick, Grace Jones, Brigitte Bardot, Twiggy, Farrah Fawcett & Little Edie Beale. Not only are these women famous; they’re women whose image literally made them who they are (or are remembered as) today. And that’s where this show just starts to get interesting; all of these paintings are based not solely on the women depicted, but rather on famous photos and stills of these women as depicted by someone else. Whether it’s Grace Jones as painted by Keith Haring as photographed by Tsen Kwong Chi or Brigitte Bardot in a scene from Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, this body of work, created between 2007 and 2010, is definitely right on meta-trend.

Edie (grey gardens) (2008)

Edie (ciao manhattan) (2007)

The work definitely doesn’t stop at its meta-ness, however; just saying that these are paintings of pictures of famous women doesn’t at all do justice to the experience of looking at them. Cooper’s style turns these otherwise familiar images on their heads. They’re dirty, they’re gritty, they’re a little confusing. They add new and varied dimensions, sad and beautiful, vulnerable and strong, to the faces and bodies of women we’ve already seen thousands of times. Edie (ciao manhattan) (2007) seems to show a young neanderthal deep in thought. Edie (grey gardens) (2008) could be a painting of Joan of Arc. Adding to this disorientation is the fact that these celebrities are portrayed in goauche on paper with torn, uneven edges. Cooper takes the idea of idealized female celebrity and simultaneously flips it off and caresses it, telling it everything will be ok.

(L to R) Brigitte (large) (2007); Farrah (by Andy) (2008)

I guess in a way these paintings apply the modern lens through which we see young, beautiful female celebrities to their forebearers from a time before Wikipedia and the stalkerazzi. Britney was in a bad place for so long, but now it seems like she’s marrying a nice guy, and that makes me happy. Lindsay! Oh Lindsay. You wanna hate her, but then you remember her parents and understand everything. They’re beautiful, they’re ugly, they’re objects of desire, they’re objects of disgust, which is exactly how I feel while looking at (and sort of being judged by) Brigitte (large) (2007). She’s a little cross eyed and her skin is awful but that hair is so perfect. She’s clearly Brigitte Bardot, but there’s also something very off. Through these paintings we get to see a side of these women that may only exist in Cooper’s head but feels so real you wanna pop open a can of Sofia and drink champagne with them. Out of a can. Cause they actually seem like in this world, they’d be down for that.

Article originally published on the TENOVERSIX blog.