Saturday, April 24, 2021

The Donut Aperture - Rutschig, feucht, kräuselnd, pink und vor allem homosexuell

My West Coast Gallery Adams & Ollman in the Pacific Northwest has a new exhibition opening so if you are on the Zest Coast stop by or call first to find out the pandemic perimeters.

Paul Lee: Tamborine Heart April 24-May 22, 2021
Adams & Ollman Gallery 418 NW 8th Avenue Portland Oregon 97209 +1 503-724-0684 AdamsandOllman.com

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My NYC gallerists Ben Tischer and Gala Verdugo have a new exhibit opening or has it already opened? Well below is info for you tri-staters:


FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE

Ellen Jong, Yeni Mao

May 1 – June 13 18, 2021

New Discretions is pleased to present Five Minutes to Live, a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Ellen Jong and Yeni Mao. This is the second of the Home Invasion Series, staged by appointment only, in a West Village apartment.

Though time no longer exists, we are tethered by our personal histories.

Using traditional Chinese methods of ink-making as an entry point, Ellen Jong creates sculptural works that reflect on dynamic personal and collective notions of her identity. Process is integral. Chinese ink is ground from solid blocks, adding water to make a liquid. Jong reverses the process, creating liquid ink and then dehydrating it to sculpt malleable solid forms. Her pigmented ink simulates the plasticity of caution tape, yet maintains the capacity to liquefy when exposed to extreme heat or moisture. "In essence, the ink is alive and always has potential to transform," states Jong. The artist has called the ink "a time machine," in that one must go backwards in both history and process in order to move towards the future of the work.

Jong's two works, entitled Mirror Mirror (2020), examine the quarrels of time. In the first, the cursive flow remains pristine. In the second—a doppelganger of the original—some of the material's pigment properties have been allowed to seep into its foundation. In both, the background is composed of photographic prints of glowing, red-toned sunsets, captured in Los Angeles during the 2020 lockdown.

The sculptural practice of Yeni Mao engages in issues of fragmentation, exploring the subjective body and architecture through restraint, domination and absence. Mao works with agency of materials, objects and building systems, emphasizing the tension between both their embedded and given significance. He refers to his making process as “accessing the lizard brain,” a series of impulses, allowing him to layer his own personal histories over the expansiveness of these concerns.

With fig 25.9 headhunter (2021), Mao references the story of his grandfather, who he never met, disassembling and rebuilding a schoolhouse in his small Malaysian village. There is also reference to the Land Dayak, an indigenous group with a headhunting tradition, amongst whom his grandfather lived in Borneo. This is work made by and for the body.
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Ellen Jong (b.1976, New York) has a multi-disciplinary practice recognized for using vernacular material and personal history to tackle body, form and place. She launched her career as a photographer, publishing two monographs—Pees On Earth and Getting To Know My Husband's Cock. Solo exhibitions have included Basement 6, Shanghai; Allegra LaViola, New York; and the Vice Flagship, New York. Group exhibitions include Whitney Houston/Every Woman Biennial, LaMaMa Galleria, New York; Current: Abortion curated by Barbara Zucker, A.I.R. Gallery, New York; XXX curated by Mathieu Borysevicz, Bank MABSociety Gallery, Shanghai, China; Self-Publish Be Happy curated by Bruno Ceschel, Micamera Milan, Italy; Toy Box with White Box, Robert Miller Gallery, NY. Her work has been featured in Photograph Magazine, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Foam Magazine, amongst others. Ellen Jong lives and works in Los Angeles and New York.
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Yeni Mao (b. 1971, Canada) has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including “vol. 1: cowboys” at guadalajara90210, Guadalajara; “vol. 2: cabal” at PAOS GDL, Guadalajara; “Regatta” at Munch Gallery, New York; “Dead Reckoning” at Collette Blanchard, New York; and “Whiskey Papa” at Zidoun-Bossuyt, Luxembourg. Group exhibitions include “Otrxs Mundxs“ at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; “Los juegos del capricornio” at Arróniz Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; “Luego, la Forma” at Galería de Arte Mexicano (GAM), Mexico City; ”Transnational” at Proxyco, New York; “The Waste Land” at Nicelle Beauchene, New York; and The IX Bienal De Artes Visuales Nicaraguenses, Managua, Nicaragua. Mao has been awarded multiple residencies including Casa Wabi in Mexico, The Lijiang Studio and Red Gate Gallery in China, The Fountainhead Residency in Miami, OAZO-AIR in Amsterdam, and Flash Atöyle in Turkey, and he is a recipient of the Pollock Krasner 2021. His work has been written about in The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Advocate, The Village Voice, and the Bangkok Post. Concurrently, Mao has a solo exhibition “I desire the strength of nine tigers” at Fierman in New York. Yeni Mao lives and works in Mexico City and New York.

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My Berlin gallerist has an exhibit that utilises both of her spaces:

Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi is pleased to announce

GIUSEPPE DESIATO

“Like the quietness of flowers...”

(rituals, ephemeral monuments and brides)

curated by Elena Re

28 April – 31 July 2021

Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi
Schöneberger Ufer 61, 10785 Berlin

Eden Eden
Bülowstraße 74, 10783 Berlin
For appointment and inquiries contact the gallery at info@bortolozzi.com

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One of my all-time favourite people in the world is “Jeffreyland” Hilbert aka: Jeffrey Hilbert. I met Jeff when he first moved to Los Angeles from the problematic White Republic of Idaho in the late 1980s. He was a hunky big peniled Goodtime Charlie of a ginger lad who had started his own incredible queer zine called Sin Bros and later launched an amazing series of clubs and dance parties starting with Sit & Spin. What made Jeff stand out was he approached doing clubs with a passionate whimsy and was a complete newcomer to the alternafag and post punk scene where everybody knew each other and in many cases had grown up together in cliques going to the same high schools and colleges. It wasn’t an easy gnut to crack but Jeff’s wit and spirit really broke through. Jeff is also an iconoclast with a family background of peeps who don’t take any feral excrement from anyone. Jeff is one of the blackest white queer boys I’ve ever met. He doesn’t suffer any foolios and will tell a motherfucker off in a clapbeat with no pause just the way black folk are prone to do it. I always seem to gravitate to white kids with this special and unique quality which is so refreshing and rare in the caucasoid world. Well Jeffrey was one of the founders along with Frank Rodriguez, Dale Johnson and Paul Rossi of Wasted Youth of my punk rock beer bust and performance space Club Sucker at the Garage (1994-1999). When i was invited to take part in the 13th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea I knew i wanted to do something that involved Club Sucker. My initial idea that i would recreate the place and have Jeffrey and my fellow co-hosts and DJ’s come to Korea and we’d recruit some local young queers and stage some akshuns of the lovesexy variety that took place back in the 1990s. Unfortunately the Rona Barrett pandemic reared its “fugly” tentacles and all the fun site specific plans i initially harbored had to be shredded. My installation opened in South Korea April 1st and runs till May 9th, but I was able to get Jeffrey and the others to contribute a music selection of what they DJ’d at the club that would be played in loop in the Club Sucker prong of the exhibition.

After years of working in the advertising department of Sony Pictures and with his own independent company Jeffers married the love of his life Henry Morin and left Los Ang and moved to Houston,Texas where his husband is from to help take care of his man's elderly mother. Jeff is really one you can count on when the going gets rough. He is a true blue friend in every sense of the imagination. He also refuses to age and looks younger today than when i first met him in the 80s.

Jeff has been producing an online forum called WeAreFlagrant which is beyond brilliant. Received this email from him recently with accompanying saucy images:

Ladybirdland,

I was happy to be invited to help realize your Sucker vision in South Korea. Imagine if all of us were able to be there to DJ and hostess the punque rawk shenanigans. Sponsored by Ensure, Kamchatka vodka, Depends and Double Scorpion poppers.Yeah, I'd read about Jeffrey Shanker and his Covid+ sex tourism circuit party for elder 'roid Marys. And the basic, moneyed, aspirational faggles flocked to (H)PV to dance and prance and not social distance with other like-minded office cogs. We really missed our calling. We could've aimed really, really low and appealed to the fey masses with dull house remixes and D-level diva appearances and made a fortune. Instead, we did events that netted us tens of dollars, but enriched our souls.

Houston continues to drain my lifeforce. It really is ghastly here. But I am a bit more at ease since Henry and I have been double-vaxxed. I still wear a mask everywhere and do all the rest. Are you able to venture out? I thought for sure La Merkel would be the first to get her countrymen/women/non-binary vaxxed.

Always a treat to hear from you. I love and miss you.

XO J









Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Rosa Hintertür des blonden Mannes brennt mit Leidenschaft!

Received a very sweet note and package including a delicious pink tote bag from Joe von Hutch the managing editor of Daddy Magazine. Daddy is a black owned Berlin online mag that has morphed into a print version. Daddy is a dreamy little periodical publication with a 1980s queer zine feel that you’d be wise to support. Was delighted to see an interview with the enigmatic artist and activist Diana Arce. Ms. Arce is a young Black/LatinX woman who is certainly making a difference with akshun and humour, just like Daddy Mag itself. www.daddy.land
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I just read that my old pal the Swiss artist Urs Fischer was divorced from Imitation of Christ’s Tara Subkoff. I didn’t even know he was married.

Haven’t seen Urs since he participated in Platinum Oasis at the Corral Sands Motel, the endurance art event that Ron Athey and I curated in Hollywood back in 2001/2. I first met Urs through Cyril Kuhn one of my former Swiss German students at Cal Arts when Ron Athey and I were tag team teaching a performance art class and curating a monthly performance salon called G.I.M.P. Unlimited in Silverlake at a Sushi Restaurant on Hyperion Blvd. Urs was always super flirtatious with me but other then a little smooching things never progressed to fornication.
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CHEAP Kollektiv’s monthly radio program Cheap Funk on Reboot FM will hit the airwaves- Sat 24.4. 19:30-20:30. This month’s theme is CHEAP Sex Lizard. If you can’t listen to the program live you can alway catch it online as a podcast as well as all our other programs from the past five years or so. Freies Künstlerradio aus Berlin - Kunst, Diskurs & elektronische Musik. Live aus dem ACUD - UKW 88,4 MHz in Berlin & 90,7 MHz in Potsdam

Tara Subkoff and Urs Fischer
Ann Rutherford

Rita Hayworth