Monday, March 29, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
My Top 5 Favorite Moments from Last Night's Re:Happening
5. Gene and Meg out in a canoe, three hours before the event begins, tying huge white balloons to cement blocks and anchoring them in a cluster on Lake Eden. At night, they will project images onto them, including old footage of Merce Cunningham’s dance troupe.
4. Clare dancing under black light, wearing only florescent paint, the old lodge pitch black, Kima’s amazing trance music filling the space. Viewers scatter around the space on couches, on the floor, or up on the staircases on either side of the performance space—a sphere of white beneath Clare’s slowly moving, flowing form.
3. Looking up at around 10:00 and realizing that the Dining Hall is jammed full of hipsters and art lovers and musicians and kids and folks who remember the old BMC-days, volunteers running food to the dozen tables, Chef Mark whipping up one of his stunning “bites” by the kitchen; then looking out at the screened in porch and to the deck outside (the spheres are lit up like angels on the water) and seeing even more people moving around in the night, talking and drinking, passing from one art event to the next.
2. (and I must confess I didn't make it to this event by, hearing about it from one side of the dining hall and missing the actual moment by the time I pick my way through the crowd) BUT… Jinx has lifted a friend up in the air 40 feet on his crane, and the man is playing "air" guitar, hanging over the crowd, jamming out into the night.
1. Out with Emilia and Alice making sure everyone finds a parking space, around 6:30, the sunny day at its glorious height, a slight breeze in the air. Two stilt-walking artists dressed as huge doves sway and dance in slow-down pantomime along the dirt road, circling each other, side-stepping cars, knocking wooden wings as they cross, their white feathers flapping in the wind. Hanging out with them for half an hour, watching them slip back behind the old stone buildings.
4. Clare dancing under black light, wearing only florescent paint, the old lodge pitch black, Kima’s amazing trance music filling the space. Viewers scatter around the space on couches, on the floor, or up on the staircases on either side of the performance space—a sphere of white beneath Clare’s slowly moving, flowing form.
3. Looking up at around 10:00 and realizing that the Dining Hall is jammed full of hipsters and art lovers and musicians and kids and folks who remember the old BMC-days, volunteers running food to the dozen tables, Chef Mark whipping up one of his stunning “bites” by the kitchen; then looking out at the screened in porch and to the deck outside (the spheres are lit up like angels on the water) and seeing even more people moving around in the night, talking and drinking, passing from one art event to the next.
2. (and I must confess I didn't make it to this event by, hearing about it from one side of the dining hall and missing the actual moment by the time I pick my way through the crowd) BUT… Jinx has lifted a friend up in the air 40 feet on his crane, and the man is playing "air" guitar, hanging over the crowd, jamming out into the night.
1. Out with Emilia and Alice making sure everyone finds a parking space, around 6:30, the sunny day at its glorious height, a slight breeze in the air. Two stilt-walking artists dressed as huge doves sway and dance in slow-down pantomime along the dirt road, circling each other, side-stepping cars, knocking wooden wings as they cross, their white feathers flapping in the wind. Hanging out with them for half an hour, watching them slip back behind the old stone buildings.
Lake Eden Transformed
Installation piece by Gene Felice and Megan McKissak (these balloons were used at night as screens to project images onto; stay tuned!)
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Ray in Dadaland
Greetings from Daddaland:
Fluxus, Mail Art and Rubber Stamps
Stendhal Gallery
New York, New York
April 15-May 29, 2010
http://stendhalgallery.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Mark Bloch, in a recent email:
One time Ray sent a message in a bottle. It had his address on it and some kid found it and wrote to Ray. Ray was so excited! He loved that kind of stuff. To him that was the absolute essence of what he was trying to do and what excited him about correspondence. But unfortunately the kid's mom wouldn't let him correspond with Ray and so Ray was very very disappointed. I'll never forget: his exact words to me on the phone were "AND HERE THIS KID HIT THE JACKPOT BUT..."
I always found it touching how much he cared and how disappointed he was and also how his perception of it was that this kid hit the jackpot. An all expenses paid correspondence with Ray Johnson—founder of the New York Correspondance School!!!! I just love that! And the kid did hit the jackpot, the poor bastid.
I always found it touching how much he cared and how disappointed he was and also how his perception of it was that this kid hit the jackpot. An all expenses paid correspondence with Ray Johnson—founder of the New York Correspondance School!!!! I just love that! And the kid did hit the jackpot, the poor bastid.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
BMC Students in Dance Performance
"Happenings" are a form of participatory new media art, emphasizing an interaction between the performer and the audience. Breaking the fourth wall between "performer" and "spectator", it replaces criticism with support. While it includes everyone present in the making of the art, the form of the art depends on the engagement of the audience, for they are a key factor in where the performers' spontaneity leads. There are no set rules, only vague guidelines that the performers follow based on surrounding props. Unlike other forms of art, "Happenings" are ever-changing. Because only chance determines the path the performance will follow, there is no room for failure. As Kaprow writes in his essay, '"Happenings" in the New York Scene', "Visitors to a Happening are now and then not sure what has taken place, when it has ended, even when things have gone 'wrong'.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Ursula Gullow Reviews the Ray Show in Mountain Xpress
I heard a viewer say, "This looks like a Warhol," upon glancing at the piece, JamesDean/Rimbaud, which shows both men with bold stripes of pink rendered in marker across their faces. Considering that the piece was made in 1956-58 and predates Warhol's iconic pop paintings by half a decade, it is certain that Johnson influenced his friend's popular artwork, as artists who run in similar circles tend to do.
Much of the work should be regarded as physical relics of actual art pieces. Johnson's postal performances, for example, had a lot to do with the actual mailing and receiving of letters and envelopes he created. With that action removed, the letters are now what remain of the original art piece. There are several on hand to check out in this exhibit, and even some that Johnson had created in 1943 — two years before he attended Black Mountain College.
There are so many facets to Johnson as an artist, and his personal life in many ways was also an art piece...To see a collection of this importance in such an intimate setting is a privilege indeed.
For whole review:
http://www.mountainx.com/ae/2010/030310new_yorks_most_famous_unknown_artist/
Much of the work should be regarded as physical relics of actual art pieces. Johnson's postal performances, for example, had a lot to do with the actual mailing and receiving of letters and envelopes he created. With that action removed, the letters are now what remain of the original art piece. There are several on hand to check out in this exhibit, and even some that Johnson had created in 1943 — two years before he attended Black Mountain College.
There are so many facets to Johnson as an artist, and his personal life in many ways was also an art piece...To see a collection of this importance in such an intimate setting is a privilege indeed.
For whole review:
http://www.mountainx.com/ae/2010/030310new_yorks_most_famous_unknown_artist/
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Ghostly Ray
Seen Through Back of Display Window Banner, inside Looking Out into Late Afternoon Light
Monday, March 1, 2010
Ray Show gets its first review
from Raleigh Rambles:
The kernel I found that connected all these essays? Nothings – empty shells of meaning – e.g. nonsense – that serve as markers and triggers for the kind of nonlinear art experience Ray Johnson wanted you to have. William S. Wilson talks of “the surface concealed only by another surface.” Julie J. Thomson finds their roots in “the gap, an element emphasized by Albers in his teaching,” and makes the valid and often repeated connection between Ray’s study of Taoism and these ideas. Kate Dempsey makes it clear Ray wanted to avoid specific meanings, sending messages in bottles to be partly constructed by the finder. Sebastian reminds us that Ray was “an autodidact student of Buddhism and a self-described disciple of John Cage’s cultivation of chance occurrence. “ Julie Thomson describes the performances Ray created entitled “Nothings:” they “interrupted the Happenings, opening up a space amidst the busy environments and experiences of the Happenings.” Ray brought Zen and his unique fusion of life and art into American art, and made his mark with great gifts and energy.
for whole review:
http://raleighrambles.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/ray-johnson-tracking-deep-currents/
Thanks, John Dancy-Jones!
The kernel I found that connected all these essays? Nothings – empty shells of meaning – e.g. nonsense – that serve as markers and triggers for the kind of nonlinear art experience Ray Johnson wanted you to have. William S. Wilson talks of “the surface concealed only by another surface.” Julie J. Thomson finds their roots in “the gap, an element emphasized by Albers in his teaching,” and makes the valid and often repeated connection between Ray’s study of Taoism and these ideas. Kate Dempsey makes it clear Ray wanted to avoid specific meanings, sending messages in bottles to be partly constructed by the finder. Sebastian reminds us that Ray was “an autodidact student of Buddhism and a self-described disciple of John Cage’s cultivation of chance occurrence. “ Julie Thomson describes the performances Ray created entitled “Nothings:” they “interrupted the Happenings, opening up a space amidst the busy environments and experiences of the Happenings.” Ray brought Zen and his unique fusion of life and art into American art, and made his mark with great gifts and energy.
for whole review:
http://raleighrambles.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/ray-johnson-tracking-deep-currents/
Thanks, John Dancy-Jones!
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