Wallinger, Collis, Rosen

The best venue we visited in Edinburgh during the lousy festival was at the Ingleby Gallery, who were showing work by Mark Wallinger, Susan Collis, and Kay Rosen (a longtime fave, and high on my list of artists I'd like to publish). Wallinger's contribtuion was the above billboard, which I liked better when I thought it was by Rosen. Collis played with the fact that the gallery has just relocated by presenting a room that looked half-installed: there were tiny holes in the wall, drips on the floor and a paint-splattered broom rested in the corner. The trompe l'oeil at work is that the screws in the wall are solid gold and the paint on the floor is mother of pearl. It's a pretty effective trick, and plays into my empty gallery fetish, but I fear it also exploits the preciousness of the expensive materials. Roula likes it more than I do but the local Edinburgh-born artist certainly holds her own against the Turner Prize winning Wallinger and the well respected Rosen. Rosen had the top floor, which consisted of framed works and wall paintings, most of which were pretty great, but despite being text-based, are hard to describe and do justice to. The are simple without being simplistic, somehow. I wish I had thought to take photos.

Funding Cuts

As was easily predicted, as soon as the Harper government saw their poll numbers rise they began pursuing arts funding cuts. If an election were called now they would would stand a stronger chance at a majority, with further cuts inevitable. The brilliant way to facilitate this is to highlight a pending economic downturn and focus on a few projects that are not controversial, but sound as though they might be. Take for example, the Toronto indie rock back at the centre of the story.

They formed in 2004 and in four short years have amassed a pretty impressive bio: they have toured with M.I.A., Wolf Parade, Mouse on Mars, and Cornelius; they are nominated for a Juno and shortlisted for the Polaris prize; and they have played many of the world's leading music festivals including Coachella, All Tomorrow’s Parties, Lollapalooza, and the Glastonbury Festival. Not bad for a band from Toronto. The problem is, they are named Holy Fuck.

Similarly, Bill C-10, which was introduced a few months back, proposes that the Canadian conservative government could retroactively strip tax credits from films deemed "offensive or not in the public interest". The film Young People Fucking was held up as an example of the misuse of our tax dollars. However, only about forty thousand people have seen since it was released several months back (probably a smaller number than those who are currently sitting down to watch The Dark Knight). The film is a romantic comedy with less edge than an HBO sitcom, but its title allows it to appear that the Canadian Government is supporting child pornography.

The recent Globe and Mail poll illustrated above shows that the strategy has worked. As a business paper the Globe may lean to the right politically, but is generally considered the best daily paper for arts coverage. I imagine a poll of Toronto Sun readers would lead to a much more unanimous conclusion.

Preston

My talk in Preston was amazingly well attended, about fifty people in total, most of whom drove in from neighboring cities and towns, some as far away as two hours. They put my diligence to shame - I rarely make it out to events in Oakville or Mississauga, which are only twenty-five minutes away. The talk was hosted at Pad Gallery, at the invitation of Pest Publications and sponsored by Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, one of the oldest artist-run venues in the country. They seem to have some pretty interesting programming, including a recent exhibition by Cory Arcangel called A couple thousand short films about Glenn Gould. The director Kwong Lee told me about a Spanish artist that they are working with named Manuel Saiz who is working on a project not dissimilar to my Glenfiddich piece. He is announcing an exhibition to be held in sixty years time, which the gallery is contractually obligated to host.

I was hoping that Michael Corris would be there, but he ended up having other commitments. He wrote me a few weeks prior, saying he was planning on attending, and inviting me to participate in a project he's organizing in Texas in November '09. Corris is a writer and artist, and was a prominent member of Art & Language. He also started the influential artist publication The Fox. Would've been nice to meet up.

After the talk we went out for a fast drink and then a late dinner at an Indian restaurant. I was particularly grateful for the latter, given my steady diet here of pasta and pot noodles.

Genesis P-Orridge and Lady Jaye

The current Radar magazine has a fascinating article about Genesis P-Orridge and Lady Jaye, who were so in love they decided to become one person, and then one of them died. Their stated goal of Pandrogeny was both romantic and conceptual. They were not adhering to pre-conceived notions of beauty (or even gender), nor were they attempting to become twins. They were challenging the nucleic acids that contain the building blocks of all life. "We replicate as much to perpetuate DNA as to perpetuate our species" said P-Orridge, who views DNA as an evolutionary parasite, with the human body as the host environment. Matching haircuts and clothes were followed by breast implants for both, nose jobs, eye surgery, a chin implant, collagen lip enhancements, etc. - all in order to better become one another.

I met P-Orridge and Lady Jaye a few times, at the weekly Cocktail nights we would host at Art Metropole. My colleague Jordan was introduced to him at the Basel Art Fair and invited him to contribute a project to our Bootleg series, and after that he'd drop by whenever he was in town performing. I think the last time he was there he had already had the breast implants. I was surprised at how soft-spoken he was, gentle and elegant, given his reputation and history, including the title "wrecker of civilization" (which he was called in British Parliament). I remember I was playing a This Mortal Coil record and he very excitedly told me about the obscure folk artist (I can't remember which one, now) who wrote the original song that was being covered. The pair were clearly deeply in love and walked around as though tethered.

Jaye died a little less than a year ago, and I heard that P-Orridge was inconsolable. People would bump into him around NYC, but he was just a wreck. The Radar piece confirms this: apparently he still wears her clothes and uses her cellphone, keeping her outgoing message active.

The article is fascinating, though perhaps a little over the top. I suppose it's difficult to state the importance of P-Orridge's influence without making some dubious claims. Saying he was a performance artist before the genre was named is a little spurious, as it implies pioneer status. 'Live Art' can be traced back to Dada Poetry readings from the beginning of the last century, but is generally considered to have begun in the early sixites, when P-Orridge was still pre-teen. The Viennese Actionists, Fluxus events, Happenings and Body Art were all well established by the time he relocated to London in the early seventies. The term 'performance art' has been used at least as far back as 1974, when the NYC venue The Kitchen included it in one of their brochures. P-Orridges contributions to the genre are usually spoken of in terms of sexuality and self-mutilation, and the similarities to Vito Acconci and Chris Burden. But Acconci's Seedbed (where he masturbated in the gallery) and Chris Burden's Shoot (where he had himself shot) both took place in 1971, so at most P-Orrdige could be seen as having made parallel efforts.

Biographies like this also often cite him as the originator of Acid House, which is a little unlikely. You'd think it would be enough to have started Industrial Music (which, unlike the Acid House claim, is undisputed). P-Orridge (then Neil Megson) founded COUM Transmissions as a performance art collective in Hull, Yorkshire, in early 1970 and they then morphed into Throbbing Gristle (Hull slang for an erection) in 1976. Their debut album was released on their own imprint, Industrial Records, which named a genre of music that spans from Einstürzende Neubauten and Laibach thru to Ministry and Skinny Puppy, all the way to pop cross-overs like Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

The article, titled Strange Love (quite an understatement) is here. It's a sad and fascinating story.

This week

My sweet but small Edinburgh B&B has wireless internet, but it comes and goes, so my blogging will likely be sparse for the next coupla days. The National Post reheats some earlier entries, which can be read here, all week.

In Defense of Vaudevillians

Cartoons

This war's Ok
In a sweet old fashioned way
Like a game we play

Guilty of something we forgot

I wasn't staring
I was just looking far away
Dazzled by something I forgot

Here, drink this down we've been here way to long
Acting this way is a craft
I'll shut up soon then we'll go home
Covered in band aids and casts

(Kristin Hersh)




Two Reelers

A lot of people love that Jerome
Did you know he missed his comb?
All his life was in pain
Made us laugh he never did complain

Brother Sam was more than OK
Returned once more to save the day
Slicked-back hair he did keep
Making a heep, heep, heep, heep, heep

If all you see is violence
Then I make a plea in their defence
Don't you know they speak vaudevillian?
And for what it is hear what my theory is
Some gibberish it is so serious
What we need is more silly men

Though underrated all the time
Louis was so very fine
Without him, imagine
Did you know he could play the violin?

Most important was brother Moe
He was the one who made it so
He got a Joe and another Joe
He would not quit, he would not quit

And Mr. White heard bad report
And so it ends the two reeler short
Cause you cannot do what you can't
And Mr. White heard bad report
And so it ends the two reeler short
Cause you cannot do what you can't

If all you see is violence
Then I make a plea in their defence
Don't you know they speak vaudevillian?




(Frank Black)






Merriment

an old woman in a wig
and a mule eating a fig
caterpillar on a twig shouldn't flitter
fella hanging from a clock
someone falling from a dock
little ripple showing stock and then we titter
chubby kid upon a trike
opened up the dyke
she nearly lost her water
heals a haggard soul
reflex to cajole
bust your ass to soothe his cancer
then the tragedy within
gets the audience to grin
so you stop to start again but it's ending
shooting one's self in the foot
catch one's self with a fishing hook
elementary textbook comic devices
for the common good
take a little nug
who's to say we should or should not giggle
bless the idiot
that makes us split a gut
roses for the butt of our merriment


(Vic Chesnutt)

Fringe

I didn't come to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, and I haven't invested much time in it, but my first impressions are that it's fucking terrible. It brings in flocks of people to crowd the street and obscures the beauty of the city (see video). It's everything you hate, all together, all at once. There're jugglers and face painters and balloon benders and earnest dance acts, feigning death. There's sub-Shakespeare-in-the-Park calibre Shakespeare, without the park but with McDonalds Drive-thru headsets. There're barbershop quartets and jive-bands performing in front of a banner that reads Say Yes to Life and No to Drugs. And down the main street the crowds hustle you off the streets into oncoming traffic (coming from a direction you're not used to). It looks like a bad mardi gras parade except everyone is dressed up to advertise their performance and pleading with you to come to their their gig. I turned down more handbills in one afternoon than in my entire life before this day. It's like being chased down by a thousand mimes.

However, this evening we went to see Kristin Hersh's performance, which alone would be worth the train ride(s) into town. More on this soon.