VAD HAR HÄNT?
The Jerk-Off Festival in Paris is aptly named. They sure acted like Gallic jerks to the Bad Breast Production. We were slated to perform in Paris for this queer festival July 1-4, but they pulled the plug. If anyone has any dirt on these icky people please give it to me so. I was looking forward to seeing Paris again and visiting Rick Owens and Michele Lamy.
***
The final group of performances by my students at Malmö was open to the entire Academy, and we had a good crowd, with some special celebrity guests in the form of Malmö Academy grad and one half of Fine Art Union.
Jessica Sanderheim began the presentations with a lovely contemplative crystaline watery mess with nice repeatitive movements. It was tranquil, calming and very thought provoking.
Natalie Sanchez wore a feminine Abu Gharib gown, defecated blue pigment on to canvas and ignited the room in an expanded cinema pageant of brilliant starlight and volcanic music chimes. Powerful and profound.
Johanna Stillman played on the notion of Paul Bern´s so-called suicide note to Jean Harlow by having the audience write their own suicide letter and then displayed them gallery style on the white lecture room walls. Sweet and perfect.
The Prince of Babylon, and great beauty of Bagdad, thus spake Zardasht Faraj with assist from Gwen Stefanie, Michael Jackson and other pop supositories in re-reading text and context. Roland Barthes eat your funky heart out.
Stine Midstaeter dressed to impress with bling and blang read aloud her screenplay on adult adoption, with such yearning and intensity. This is one scenario that needs to reach the silver nitrate screen--Graumanns Chinese Theatre or the Egyptian.
The last performance ended the afternoon on a high note with Ihra Lill Scharning´s My Worst Nightmare. If all Norwiegan nightmare´s were like this i would want want every night. A beautiful short film bathed in Leonard Cohen with Ms. Scharning clad in pink serenading the audience of her peers with an Eddie Grant love ballad. Sublime.
I can’t believe that Platinum Jungle has come to an end. I really loved meeting such a marvelously talented group of students doing such diverse work. There are some shtars here in Malmö ready to take their rightful place in the heavenly firmament.

SYMPATHIVALET
Went with my talented and beautiful student Karen Gimle to see a performative lecture by the art collective Fine Art Union at Signale Gallery. Fine Art Union is a Norweigan artist group based in Malmö, and Karen has collaborated with them. Seeing a bit of FAU performing live and on video they remind me of LA performance art legend Johanna Went. FAU have a explorative quality in their work and expressive singing voices. We share a distrust of art institutions while maintaining a messy kibbles and bit aesthetic. It was grand to hear that FAU performed at the incredible Wu’s Wildness space in Los Ang at the Silverplatter in Westlake/MacArthur Park. FAU as future primitives unfurled a Gay Rainbow/Leather/Bear Flag while performing at Signale and it was a complete hoot.
***
Second day of final class projects and Helena Olsson performed a movement piece with Sewing Machine in C major. Nice hommage to Jean Harlow with a little bit Cary Grant thrown in for good measure as she disected and deconstructed live a bias cut white evening gown and perfected her bee stung lips. Nice way to start the morning and it got better with petite Maria Norman donning a Jane Avril outfit and taking Josephine Baker to new heights in an ecstatic dance of epic porportions. All of my lesbian drama went out the window as Ihra Lill Scharning and Ellinor Aurora Aasgaard used the internet, a web camera chat room and partner fascination to love juicy and hilarious results. Last but not least Ms. Catherine Helberg did her native town in Sweden take on the ubiquitous La Baker banana dance, this time substituting a Herring manifest. Didnt notice the fish smell until the end of her gala interpretive dance. Tomorrow, the last day of performances are open to Academy community, and after a champagne salon.
***
One of my cute and sensitively manly NYU grad students Carlos Reyes sent me a link to a marvelous video he created called Portrait of the Artist as an Artist. http://www.davidjmerritt.com/dailies/

SKRAMLIGT OCH VASST
Received a wonderful emug from the gorgeous and multi talented artist Heather Cassils, who among other things has also worked as part of the art collective Toxic Titties. Heather as many of you know was prominently featured in the 9 minute music video of pop starlet Lady GaGa, sharing a passionate lovesexy smoochy. The video reminds me of Cheryl Dunye's lesbian prison film The Stranger Inside, and i am sure that was one of the directors influences. Also in the video is R&B Prinzessin Beyonce.
***
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Thank you for the outpour of support and comments over these past few day. I really appreciate it!! The video has over 15 million hits on the internet allready so I think its safe to say that this is another step for queer representation. All though I am happy to have had this experience and excited that the image is everywhere, there is absolutly no mention of who I am and what I do, (beyond making out with pop stars.)
My partner worked with a publicist last night and a press release went out this morning.
Please forward to any and all of your contacts in the art/ film and music worlds.
Help give a different kind of credit to the "girl" who kissed Lady Gaga.
Thank you!
Heather Cassils
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who’s the “Girl” Kissing Lady Gaga in Controversial “Telephone” Video?

Lady Gaga’s epic nine-minute video “Telephone” has caused an up-roar
on the Internet, in part because of a sizzling queer kiss with a
female prison inmate. The video has already racked up 15 million
views on You Tube alone and now the “girl” has been revealed as Los
Angeles artist Heather Cassils.

Heather is a visual artist, stunt person and a body builder whose
exaggerated physique questions ideas about gender. It was for that
very reason that Lady Gaga handpicked her for a featured moment in the
jail yard scene during “Telephone.” When Gaga walks into a prison
yard, glasses flaming with cigarettes and smoke, she is approached and
seduced by Heather. With her unconventional beauty and strength,
Heather steals the scene.

Heather’s body is a work of art sculpted over the past decade as a
response to traditional ideas of gender. Somewhere in the “in-between”
of girl or boy, woman or man, she is a queer artist. Her work has been
so influential, the Canada-native was recently granted a green card as
an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” to continue performing in the
United States.

While the make out session with the pop star was provocative, it was
anything but gratuitous. Rather, it added another layer to the ongoing
conversation about sexual identity and beauty. Heather’s response to
the media frenzy over the video is overwhelmingly positive. She
states: “it was exciting to be picked by Lady Gaga because I know my
body is different and I knew this video would give mass exposure of a
very unconventional female body.”

Heather moved to Los Angeles from Montreal to pursue her Master’s
Degree in Fine Art’s from Cal Arts, completed in 2005. Her work can
be seen in film, as well as formal gallery and museum settings. You
can find out more about Heather here: www.heathercassils.com

To reach Heather for an interview or photo opportunities, please
contact Cristy Michel at sir@youcancallmesir.com.
***
Today my students started to present their class performance finals. With the help of Miss Margot the technical coordinator at Malmö we turned the lecture room into the Platinum Jungle performance space, complete with video documentation. One of the youngest students the beautiful Elsine Hoff Levinsen who is just shy of 18 years of age presented a nice recitation that included two of her oil paintings. Her work already has a performative charge to it and she took it to the next level.
The equally beautiful and serene Jessica Sanderheim had the class follow her in pagentry procession mode to a 2nd floor closet which she converted into mini amphitheatre and installation space where she cleverly projected a short film with text that seemed to float in the room in a very mysterious fashion. Great way to start the week. Tomorrow six more student performances---a veritable variete show.

SAIGON LETTER
Part one of a wonderful letter received from that first family of experimental film Sherry & Ernie,who i love dearly and two of the most gifted and fun loving people i know. Enjoy dear readers.

Hi Vag--Sherry and I are traveling in Vietnam and now in Cambodia and as of tomorrow back to Vietnam, where we'll be till mid-April. We expect to be back in Europe all summer, doing various little things in Copenhagen, Ljubljana and in Portugal--we'll have to plot a way to get to Berlin as well--in our whirlwind tour. Anyway I wrote the notes below a little while ago and now have written another little such letter that continues the story--which I'll send you in a separate email. I have to say that you would be much loved in Phnom Penh. We stayed at a gay-friendly guesthouse there--and the city which is very lively is for sure gay-friendly overall (unlike it would seem on first inspection much of Saigon...). Anyway, just wanted to catch you up on some of our adventures--love, Ernie (and Sherry)
Happy New Year--from Saigon!
(on the streets of Saigon, cheap and, as you can see, smudgy copyshop editions of travel and Vietnam-interest books in English are widely available. This is a pirated Bantam 1968 edition of General Giap's manual.)

Sherry and I arrived at Tan Son Nhut Airport—a designation like so many others with a grim resonance for us for more than forty years—just minutes before Tet, the week-long New Year’s Festival was to begin. Outside the airport people were clamoring for taxis—so anxious or so excited were they to get into Saigon proper before the Year of the Tiger began. We got in the mood.

Once we grabbed one, the taxi ride in was exhilarating, after the 24 hour trip from snowy New York City, as the streets were thronged with dozens hundreds thousands of young people on motorbikes—motos, as they are called here. Sometimes whole families are bunched on a single moto. Stopped at red lights,we called out Happy New Year, from the taxi window, in between erratic bits of videotaping.

Upon checking in at our hotel, situated just two short blocks from the central Cho Ben Thanh market, we asked about the fireworks and were assured that the best place to see them now was the roof of the hotel….Up we went in the elevator, with a bunch of other visitors to Saigon, both Vietnamese and not. We were in time—which seemed auspicious—and was, as it turned out, for our nine days in Ho Chi Minh City. As the fireworks boomed the strangers looking out on the roof wished each other a Happy Year of the Tiger, in several languages.

I suppose in exploring every unknown and alluringly foreign city the swirling atmosphere of chance, even if ultimately illusory, seems to take over with each glance left or right, or each uncertain step this way or that. But Tet in Saigon nourished that potential, as we wrestled with inadequate maps (the bookstores were all shut for the week—Tet, you know—and so we kept failing to find a decent map, which had its own detourned appeal once in awhile—but not always). In the first Temple (Quan Am Pagoda) we went to in the Cholon District (which one reads about in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American as a suburb of Saigon, in the still-Frenchifed Fifties) we were struck right-on by the fantastic incense-drenched smokey spectacle of the rapt desire for good fortune. Dozens of worshippers lighting joss sticks they stuck into ceramic jars and incense cones hung on the ceiling in hopes of good fortune for the coming year. It was enough to turn any sentient being into a believer on the spot. And so newly religious, I joined in the ceremony, as Sherry wielded the camera. The overlap of the practice of worship to the more mundane practices of everyday life was so striking that we left suitably dazzled and soon stumbled into an actual gaming arcade, a few blocks away, where luck was a bit more mixed with skill as Sherry and I took turns playing some kind of pinball with some young Vietnamese also playing and trying against high odds to instruct us on how to play. We were transfixed for quite awhile—and when we broke away, thanking our neighbors for their help—we asked the young attendant what we owed for playing—and she checked our scoreboard—and paid us 10,000 dong—about sixty cents.

A few days later, in a muted Disney-fied almost amusingly ghastly tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels outside Saigon (from which the 1968 Tet offensive was launched by the VC against Saigon) the politics of luck (another name for class struggle in this context?) were played out on all sorts of levels. For instance, at the climactic point in the tour you can pay a little extra for some ammo and shoot the Vietnam War weapon of your choice at a target range. That nobody ever seems to hit a target would appear to be one point of this game. The punishing noise is another.

But much more compelling was the chance to talk to the tour guide, who had been demonstrating and lecturing about the enemy (that is us, the US), demonstrating, that is, the use of boobytraps and lethal cages, how the tunnel entrances were camouflaged, how the VC did and didn’t survive in the tunnels. We talked to him about his own experience of the War—he was a man of about 67 years of age.. He’d been an advisor to the Green Berets, was wounded in 68 and luckily –there it is again—demobilized—so after ’75 when he should have been a target for ‘Reeducation’ was given a pass on that. He asked me whether I’d been in the army during the War and when I explained that I’d been a draft resister responded, “oh, like Muhammad Ali.” We had in common the knowledge that the War had been the determining moment in both our lives.

The Cu Chi Tunnels , like the War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace, are the major sites of the circuit of war tourism in the Saigon area. Tourists can be counted upon to always behave like tourists so there was no visible hesitation in snapping photos in front of US tanks on the grounds of the War Remnants Museum, or in posing with broad smiles with arms draped around the VC mannequins at Cu Chi, etc. And of course we videotaped many of them doing so. And since it was Tet a great many of the tourists were Vietnamese—not just Westerners. These monuments (and others, scattered here and there, like the small street-corner memorial to the first monk who immolated himself, which is venerated on a daily basis by passersby) give Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City an ever-present ever-past sense of doubleness also hinted at by its double name.

There is much more to say but these are the themes we are reckoning with right now so far: the resonance of names, the deception of chance, and the persistence of burning—as we continue.

MEN MÖTENA FICK EN TRAGISK VÄNDNING
Did some performance exercises with the students today, like Mother May I?-Yes You May! We worked on opening our touch and voice chakras with gang massage, throwing voice and conjuring voice in the spirit. We did some mummification sculpting and value currency repeating the phrases: ”I am the most beautiful and talented in the world, I make the best choices and i am a visionary. My excrement doesnt stink, I can go a year without taking a bath and i have absolutely no b.o. I can eat raw onions and maggots and still have sparkling minty fresh breath.
Later in the evening i attended a happening by one of the students which was a great experiment in sensory deprevation, by forcing people to spend 2 hours in pure darkness.
Woke up Saturday morning thinking about the beautiful Matt Dike, one of those boys I liked back in the 1980s who got away from me. Matt Dike was one of the owners of a rap label out of LA called Delicious Vinyl that gave us Tone Loc and Young MC. Matt was also the third member of The Dust Brothers who went on to successes producing Beck and the Beastie Boys. Matt in fact was crucial in the production of the Beastie Boys seminar and highly influential album Paul´s Boutique. When I first met Matt in the early 1980s he was a recent transplant from New York City. He had pale skin, light colored hair and the sexiest most kissable ruby lips imagineable. He use to DJ an underground club called Nairobi Room that i would frequent that was on Third Street near Crescent Heights. Matt was a closet dinge queen, who had a strong desire for black boys but wasn´t able to express it. We exchanged google eyes with each other, but he was way too uncomfortable with his sexuality to make a play for me. Plus i think i scared him a bit because of my drag persona. He was flirtatious with me and playful when i was dressed in boy wear, but he found my femininity problematic. Maybe there could have been something there between us, but in my youth i was just too dogmatic in my belief system to give Matt a chance, and looking back now i regret that. Over the years he would DJ the Rhymthm Lounge on Melrose Avenue and Larchmont and Rhythm Lounge SoHo in Lincoln Heights. He also was the main DJ with Bradley Bransome´s Power Tools Club. Bradley was a cute photographer form ID and Face Magazine, very cute tall and blonde. Later he wound up having a serious drug problem. Wonder what ever happened to him, he was very adorable looking in the mid – late 1980s. But getting back to Matt Dike. I remember when he had a studio on Santa Monica Blvd near Vine Street. At that time I lived on La Mirada Avenue at the famous Karnak Apts. There use to be some great parties at the Karnak as members of the bands The Nymphs, Lazy Cowgirls and Fiends lived in the building not to mention a slew of other bands. There was also a lot of hot parties at the Happy Malaga Castle, an old building in Hollywood not far from The Karnak where Greta Garba use to have many a rendevous with her lesbian lovers.
Matt wanted me to play Funky Cold Medina in the Tone Loc video and i was horrified that he would suggest such a thing. He didnt even ask me personally but got one of his co-horts Mickey Petralia to do the dirty deed. I liked Mickey though he was very cute. I think Mickey works in music in movies these days. The last time Matt & I had a flirtation was in around 1994 at a big opening at ACE Gallery on Wilshire Blvd on the Miracle Mile. I felt like he was trying in an awkward way to open up to me, but i took his hesitation for arrogance and was rude to him. A few times i saw him from a distance in Silverlake in the late 90s. At this point he was working a Rick Rubin look of a long greasy billygoat gruff beard and basically looking like he was homeless, and living up in the Silverlake Hills in a big house that some people dubbed the Cocaine Compound. If any of my faithful readers out there know what happened to Matt Dike please drop me a line. He was always the boy that got away from me, and it was mainly my own fault. Vaginal Davis is definately a bitch goddess.

ELPRISET RUSAR-MED FLERA TUSEN
After a full week of screenings with my Malmö Students. The second week started with studio visits. Karen Gimle works in photography,short electronic media and performance. She is involved with a spirited art collective called Fine Art Union. Impressed with her rock n roll tableaux vivant set ups featured windsweptshe hair in face. Its a very high concept version of Helmut Newton ala Eyes of Laura Mars.
I adore cute and hunky Iraqi student Zardasht Faraj who came to Sweden as a refugee when he was 14. Zardasht does some stop motion animation art porn that would be great for the Porn Film Festival in Berlin or in Paris, must introduce Zardasht´s work to Jurgen Brunning in Berlin or Maxime Cervulle in Paris. I think they would love what he does. His stop motion animation videos are inspired Swedish artist Natalie Djurberg. He also has this marvelous series of Love Letter paintings that I find intriguing.
Ihra Lill Scharning is a very bright and sensitive Norwiegan girl who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheel chair. I adored her the first moment i saw her, and her art practice involves craftwork like knitting large sculptures, and obsessions like the one she has with these two young Norwiegan soldiers of fortune who are being held captive for murder charges in Africa. Ihra also has a crush on eccentric Hollywood actor Crispin Glover, which means the girl has good taste. She also works in photography and has created a wonderfully vulnerable series which features these beautiful boys from her hometown who function as substitutes to various aspects of her psyche. Its quite brilliant and done in an organic way that i relate to.
Young and pretty Catherine Helberg screened for me a delightful video with accompanying stills about eating ones femininity. I think she is on the way to creating a brand new feminist discourse. It feels so great to discover new emerging talent.
***
I find myself seriously falling in love with this hot young French actor Tahor Rahim who just won a Cesar Award for the Jacques Audiard film Un Prophete. I can´t wait till I am in Paris with The Bad Breast in July. More about this relationship later, as I don’t want to jinx it.
***
Tuesday i spent time with Jessica Sanderheim who works in sculpture, video and photography. She has an interesting background having lived in Iceland, Spain and Ireland. She is working on a series where she will create this underwater world via assemblage. She has also done this project where she has braided grass and made patterns in knolls and cornfields using an epilady. Don’t blame the aliens its actually Ms. Sanderheim. She also sewed a cheshire cat smile with thread into her palm as if it was stigmata. Take that you modern primitives.
Stine Midstaeter who is Norweigan, has a lovely Kenneth Anger obessession. Mr. Anger, the godfather of experimental film would appreciate a sweet little ditty that Stine has devoted to the superstar. She also is working with an art boy band. I loved her presentation with Maxmillian Ockborn called Washing Horses to Be Able to Understand Their Past. She also does performances as a duo, and these funny pieces remind me of Chicks on Speed crossed with NO BRA and that wild Berlin girl group Cobra Killer.
Petite Maria Norman has been working on this very personal project about a distant relative who was a silent film starlet in Hollywood during the 1920s under contract to Paramount between 1921-1925. She left Hollywood and married in Australia where she spent the rest of her life. The Silent film star’s name is Sigrid Holmquist and she was Maria´s grandmothers cousin. She also showed me a film about this movie palace that was run by her grandfather and grandmother. The movie theatre is now a national treasure.
Elsine Hoff Levinsen is very young at 18 with long Repunzel like hair, she has only been painting for a short time in oils, very old school but has a very distinct style and a fantastic voice that comes through in a mature fashion with a series of humous self portraits.
Helena Olsson, treated me to fruit and juices as we talked. She was a little bit in crisis mode and needed some encouragement that only the Doll can provide to students. Really loved her photo shape shifting series where she impersonates friends and acquaintances wearing their clothes and doing portraits as them in their homes. Also her staging of parental portraits is quite startling and moody.
Johanna Stillman is quite personable and sparkly. She showed me some epic pencil drawings that play off the Manga universe and the pop music world of Japanese and Korean boy bands and their homoeroticism. This is certainly work up my alley, as I am a perenial tween who has never managed to mature into adulthood.
One of my students came down with the flu so we werent able to have a studio visit. But this morning I saw some of Natalie Sanchez´s work. Natalie is Chilean via Bulgaria and Norway. She comes from a very politically active family in South America, and works in sculpture, photography and assemblage. Her work has a mischieveous edge to it. Some of her photocollages are strewn with poetic manifestos.

ELPRISET RUSAR-MED FLERA TUSEN
Took a day trip to Copenhagan which is only 30 minutes by train from Malmö Central Station. Copenhagen is major Ms. Gorgeous in all its Nordic splendour. Was really impressed by how lovely a jewel of a city it is. The weather was bright and sunny with the bluest of blue skies. Chilly and crisp but warmish in the direct sun. I came back to Malmö at 9:30pm just in time to catch a march through the city center by a nice group of young ladies intent on smashing patriarchy. Lovely way to end a lovely day on International Women´s Day.
Continuing on that thema you might appreciate knowing that New Zealand was the first country to give women the voting right in 1893 followed by Norway in 1913. The tired USA didn´t ratify the 19th Amendment until 1920 giving women the rights to vote.
Madame Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and in Chemistry in 1911.Madame Curie was portrayed by Greer Garson in the 1943 film. The blind/deaf activist Helen Keller was not only a radical socialist but a supporter of birth control, a suffragette and the founder of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920, besides being an advocate for people with disabilities.
Gabrielle ”Coco”Chanel introduces her signature little black dress in 1925 making female elegance simple and accessible to more social classes.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead publishes ”Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies” challenging western assumptions about gender relations. Simone de Beauvoir in 1949 publishes the controversial ”Le Deuxieme Sexe”(The Second Sex) which argues that society has branded women as inferior to men and outlines how women can shift the balance of power.
The Birth Control Pill is introduced in 1960.
Betty Friedan publishes the Feminine Mystique and Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union becomes the first woman pilot in space in 1963. Abortion becomes legal in Britain in 1967, and six years later with Roe vs Wade it becomes legal in America.
Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei is first woman to climb the top of Mt. Everest as part of an all-female expedition. Isabel Peron becomes first woman president of Argentina and first woman to become a head of state in the western hemisphere.
***
Those of you who like me worship singer, songwriter Nina Simone will be delighted to know of a new book about her called Princess Noire-The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone by Nadine Cohodas.

And please check out the latest event by Elly Clark

Scroll down for English

Carte Blanche
Ausstellung / Salon / Performance mit
Elly Clarke, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez, Linda Franke, Anne Kathrin Greiner, Elisabeth Jugert, Anna-Myga Kasten, Katja Kollowa, Michelle-Marie Letelier, Silvia Marzall, Lätitia Norkeit, Bettina Rave, Karen Scheper De Aquirre, Miriam Steinhauser, Kymberley Ward

Samstag, 13. März 2010 von 16.00-22.00 Uhr

Wer glaubt, Salonkultur sei Vergangenheit, irrt. In generöser Manier lädt Clarke Gallery 15 Damen ein, ihr aktuelles kuenstlerisches Schaffen, ganz im Sinne der Salonkultur des 17. bis 20. Jahrhunderts, zu präsentieren.
Die Kuenstlerinnen, diesjährige Stipendiatinnen des Goldrausch-Projektes, formierten sich im Januar 2010 zu einer neuen Schicksalsgemeinschaft. Es ist dies die erste gemeinsame Ausstellung, die sie auf eigene Initiative realisieren.

Der Anlass mit dem Titel Carte Blanche bietet den Kuenstlerinnen die Möglichkeit, in den Räumlichkeiten der Clarke Gallery –eine Privatwohnung - zu schalten und walten wie es ihnen beliebt.
Neben Videos und Arbeiten auf Papier werden auch Positionen, die direkt auf den privaten Wohnraum Bezug nehmen, zu sehen sein. Die Grenze zwischen Mobiliar und Kunstwerk verschwimmt, da das gesamte Interieur von den Künstlerinnen vereinnahmt wird.

Des Weiteren werden mehrere Performances stattfinden, das genaue Programm wird ab 12. März auf der Website www.clarkegallery.de abrufbar sein.
Fuer Speisen, Getränke, einen Hauch Anarchie und Noblesse ist gesorgt.

Wir freuen uns auf Euren Besuch!

Clarke Gallery und die 15 Salondamen

Elly Clarke
Pauline Curnier Jardin
Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez
Linda Franke
Anne Kathrin Greiner
Lisa Jugert
Anna-Myga Kasten
Katja Kollowa
Michelle-Marie Letelier
Silvia Marzall
Lätitia Norkeit
Bettina Rave
Karen Scheper De Aquirre
Miriam Steinhauser
Kimberley Ward

translation for carte blanche: Unrestricted power to act at one's own discretion

Die Clarke Gallery befindet sich in einer Wohnung im 4. Stock des Hinterhauses an der Friedelstr. 52 in Berlin/ Neukölln (Nähe Hermannplatz). Sie wurde von Elly Clarke im Oktober 2008 gegruendet.

ENGLISH

Carte Blanche
Exhibition / Salon / Performance with
Elly Clarke, Pauline Curnier Jardin, Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez, Linda Franke, Anne Kathrin Greiner, Elisabeth Jugert, Anna-Myga Kasten, Katja Kollowa, Michelle-Marie Letelier, Silvia Marzall, Lätitia Norkeit, Bettina Rave, Karen Scheper De Aquirre, Miriam Steinhauser, Kymberley Ward

Saturday 13th March 2010, 4pm - 10pm

Anyone who thinks Salon Culture belongs to the past is mistaken! Generously (perhaps foolishly?) Clarke Gallery opens its doors to fifteen Ladies, inviting them to present their work in the style of a Salon - as practiced during the 17th-20th centuries.

These fifteen artists met in January 2010. They brought together through their shared "fateful destiny" of the Goldrausch Kunstlerinnen Projekt - of which they are all Stipendium recipients this year. This is the first exhibition these artists have done together and is organised independently of the programme.

With the exhibition title Carte Blanche artists are offered free rein to do whatever they want within the private apartment of Clarke Gallery.

Alongside videos and works on paper are other works created in direct response to the immediate environment of the gallery. The border between furniture and art becomes blurred as the whole flat is monopolised by the artists.

Performances and readings will also take place. The complete line up will be published on the Clarke Gallery website on Friday 12th March.

Food, drink, a touch of anarchy and a sense of nobel refinement will all be present.

We look forward to seeing you!

Clarke Gallery and the 15 Salon Ladies.

Elly Clarke
Pauline Curnier Jardin
Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez
Linda Franke
Anne Kathrin Greiner
Lisa Jugert
Anna-Myga Kasten
Katja Kollowa
Michelle-Marie Letelier
Silvia Marzall
Lätitia Norkeit
Bettina Rave
Karen Scheper De Aquirre
Miriam Steinhauser
Kimberley Ward

Carte blanche definition: unrestricted power to act at one's own discretion.

Clarke Gallery was set up by Elly Clarke in October 2008 and is located in a 4th Floor Hinterhaus apartment in Neukoelln, Berlin, near Hermanplatz.

Text: Miriam Steinhauser, Translation to English: Elly Clarke

--

FICK TRÄFFA SIN FAR EFTER FLERA ÅR – UTNYTTJADES
I’m on my fourth day teaching at Malmö and i am having a marvelous time with the students. Yesterday i screened my last Josephine Baker film Zou-Zou (1934) where she goes from laundress to theatrical sensation in a single heartbeat. This film co-stars the great French actor Jean Gabin when he was super young but still tough and rough around the edges. Zou-Zou went nicely with Karim Ainouz´s Madame Sata, which is a Brazilian period piece set in 1932 about the infamous and volatile queen Joao Francisco dos Santos, a disciple of La Baker who staked his claim on the mean streets of Lapa. Day 2 at Malmö i presented Josephine Baker in Princess Tam Tam followed by the ensemble cast of MGM’s great Dinner at 8 where the students seemed to be fascinated by not only Jean Harlow and her outrageous blondine looks, but also Marie Dressler playing the dowager actress and Billie Burke as the brittle socialite. When i explained that Ms. Burke also played Glinda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz, just a few years later in 1939 something really started to click.
Today i will show Harlow in Red Headed Woman, (1932) and Bombshell (1933) and tomorrow we will end the series of screenings with China Seas (1933) and a documentary on Harlow narrated by blondine Sharon Stone. Next week it will be all about studio visits and figuring out what kind of performances they will want to do as a final class project.
Last night i met up with some of my students at the Kunst Hall Malmö where there was an art opening and performance by a nutty British artist who lives in Frankfurt who shares with me a fascination for Gnomes. My favorite Gnome of all time is The Gnome King, Ruggedo created by L. Frank Baum who wrote the Wizard of Oz and its sequels from 1900-1919. On display at the gallery was a short film from 1972 made by John Baldassari. I really didnt expect to see a piece by Baldassari in this show.

SÅ MÅNGA SKVALLRAR PÅ SINA GRANNAR
In Malmö, Sweden teaching my block seminar Platinum Jungle-Screen Goddesses Josephine Baker & Jean Harlow, Caught Between Black&White to the lovely and sweet young students of Malmö Art Academy which is part of Lund University.
For the first day of class i received an apple, and screened Josephine Baker´s silent classic The Siren of the Tropics and the Jean Harlow/Clark Gable potboiler Red Dust. For all you movie buffs out there Red Dust was re-made by MGM in 1953 with Gable once again playing Gable, Ava Gardner taking Ms. Harlow´s place and Her Serene Highness Grace Kelly in place of Mary Astor as the snooty upper crust wife. The images and action in these very similar pictures really fired the students imagination and i felt my first day went really well, though i was completed exhausted having not gotten any sleep the night before leaving Berlin. As usual whenever i take a plane ride i am plagued by anxiety and nerves and can never get any sleep. Thats why it was so nice to be given such a joyous welcoming by Administrative Secretary Annikle Michelsen and several of her collegues and after the first day of teaching Maria Hedlund an analog art photographer from Stockholm who has been teaching at Malmö for some time and has also lived in New York and Berlin treated me to a fabu dinner at the Asian fusion restaurant Lemongrass. We were the first ones in the place and the last chit chatting for hours on end.
My faculty flat is charming and cozy and 5 minutes walking distance from the academy. The best part of my apartment is the giant deep sunken bath tub where i have already spent quality time in luxurious bubbles.
*
Received some info from old pals including one of my Bricktops at the Parlour Girls Christiane Cegavske. If you are in the San Francisco area I am sure you will want to check out this event:

Mark Growden’s Saint Judas national release celebration featuring the
premiere of “Coyote”, a stop motion animation video by Christiane
Cegavske, the creator of the award winning film "Blood Tea and Red
String" and a special screening of “Martyr” by S.F. Filmmaker Thad
Povey.

Thursday, March 11, 8 pm
Friday, March 12, 8 pm
Saturday, March 13, 8 pm
Sunday, March 14, 1:30 pm family matinee show
Sunday, March 14, 8 pm closing show

Porto Franco Art Parlor
953 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94110

I will be attending the Saturday and Sunday 8 pm shows.
I hope to see all of you there!

More details:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=322452386428&ref=mf

www.markgrowden.org
www.portofrancoart.com
www.portofrancorecords.com
www.christianecegavske.com

*
Those of you in Berlin will want to investigate this happening that features handsome kJohnny Blue of CHEAP kollective. kJohnny is a masterful experimental musician who along with his older brother Tim Blue performs every other month accompanying the silent films i curate at Arsenal Institute fur Film und Video Kunst.

Here is the info:

Dear friends, please join us ...

The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was In It . A Fashion Performance by Juan Chamié and Mad Kate, adapted from the story by Carl Sandburg
Designs by Juan Chamié
Concept and Choreography by Mad Kate
Music by John Blue, Mimosa Pale, Margita Zalite, Petra Flurr, Bad Kat and Special Guests
Narration by Gabriel Walsh
Sunday, 7 March 2010
14.00 Uhr @ Let It Bleed
Wienerstasse 36, Kreuzberg
(U Gorlitzer Bahnhof)
Afterparty at Wonderbar Performance Space (information below)
This Sunday, Let it Bleed (www.letitbleedberlin.com) presents a fashion procession and performance wrapped in the wide-eyed fantasy of American poet and writer Carl Sandburg, whose 1967 illustrated version of the children’s story, “The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It” serves as the inspiration for this season’s design collection by Juan Chamié(www.myspace.com/djjuanofakind). Choreographed by Mad Kate (www.alfabus.us), this dynamic performance procession will feature narration by Gabriel Walsh and an eclectic mix of live music by the multifaceted experimental musician John Blue(www.bluesoundcut.com), electro punk artist Petra Flurr (www.myspace.com/petraflurrr), singing saw master Mimosa Pale(www.mimosapale.com), magical cabaret vocalist Margita Zalite (www.myspace.com/barenzunge), hiphop MC Bad Kat(www.myspace.com/badkatmc) and special guests.
And who marched in the procession? The spoon-lickers, the sleepyheads, the tin-pan bangers, the chocolate chins and more—over 40 of Berlin’s best performers and artists, including ReveRso, Polly Pinkerton, Cindy Wonderful, Clea Cutthroat, Bobby Jules, Joniffer, Ginger Synne, Natalie Grier, Nikolaj Tange Lange, Sereina Winters, Mademoiselle Kla, Tallulah Freeway, Goodyn Green,Karina Rocktäschel, Lola VonDage, Toni Cavaco, Faggot Matador, Helen Suhr, Celine Robinet, Anna Natt, Margarita Tsomou, Anna, Bana Banal, Layana Flachs-Rickards, Aleksis Seriös, Sarah Adorable, Juliet Gabriel, Bee Fatal, Al-ex Plush Anders, Jasmin Dickerson, Metzgerei, Sandro Piras, Sarah Lewis, Nuria, Emelie Luostarinen, Johnny Gunfodder and Walter Crasshole

Don't miss it!

>>>>>

The Fashion show after party!

Sunday 7th march, directly after the show until late!

Wonderbar performance space, Wienerstr 45 xberg
with special guest from Tel Aviv:
LIAD LIAD, spoken word/cabaret/burlesque
‘I focus more on less on 2 types of performances, the first being more of a drag with burlesque, very raw and sometimes raunchy but rather short - pieces the length of a song, and spoken word pieces that are accompanied by a performance for some visual stimulation. Lately they've all been on the subject of sex work (I’m a sex worker and a sex worker activist-organizer, the first outed sex worker in Israel Palestine). They have each a strong performative element in them, and often times much use of the body in a physical or sexualised form.’with refreshments, cocktails and more!
www.letitbleedberlin.com
www.myspace.com/letitbleedberlin
www.alfabus.us
www.bluesoundcut.com
www.mimosapale.com
www.myspace.com/petraflurrr
www.myspace.com/barenzunge
www.myspace.com/badkatmc
www.myspace.com/wonderclub

THE EXAMINED LIFE
Went to a delightful spontaneous soiree for Arsenal Experimental´s Nanna Heidenreich who not only got married to a hot humpy Brazilian man, but also successfully defended her dissertation receiving her Phd Magnum Cum Laude. Nanna is not only super smart but super lovesexy with a buttocks that is the prize of Europa. Seen celebrating with joy and laughter Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Tim Blue, Daniel Hendrickson and beau Piero Bonhomme, Nadja Talmi, Ulrich Ziemons and delicious scholar Nicole Wolfe who cooked a vegetarian feasta fit for a Rhodes Scholar.
***
Had a quiet and joyful bruncheon at the compound of intermedia actress and curator Susanne Sachsse whose sweet mother Ellen from the small East German town of Jena bestowed upon the doll an amazing array of birthday delights. Frau Sachsse is one of Europes most gifted hostesses and cooks with quite the gourmand slight of hand. A pleasant afternoon of gossip and frivolity abounded with film historian Marc Siegel, Daniel Hendrickson and La Sachsse´s charming and über handsome 16 year old son Richard Gershe.
Later met with NYU Performance Studies Professor Tavia Nyongo at Silver Future where we had a dwinkypoo. Tavia hired me to do an illustration for a new Social Text book. At the Future in KreuzKölln the genderfuck musichall ingenue Hans Prinzessin was performing wearing a beautiful crown with nicely applied eyeshadow. I´m not a big fan of genderfuck bearded man in a dress drag, but i did love how Fraülein Hans was belting it out in a whimsical Liza With a Z! like fashion with no regard to pitch or key. I really adored his accompanyist on keyboards. The queer writer and performer Malte was one of the organizers of this evening.
Mr. Nyongo and i quietly slunk out of the bar to meet British live art shtar Richard Hancock and his wondermint performance partner Miss Traci Kelly at Frankenstein 5000. Hilarious hijinks ensued. Hancock & Kelly have some upcoming gigs so please check them out below:
'DERMOGRAPHIA', 'IN SEASON' & 'POSTURES A-TO-M' (FROM 'LONE DUETS'), PERFORMANCES AT KÜNSTLERHAUS MOUSONTURM, FRANKFURT
The first three performances in Hancock and Kelly's series of Lone Duets will receive their German premieres in Frankfurt-am-Main on April 29th and 30th, 2010.
(see www.mousonturm.de for details)
'MY BODY TRIES TO CRY', WORKSHOP/LABORATORY AT SCHWELLE7,BERLIN
Richard Hancock and Traci Kelly will be returning to Schwelle7 in Berlin to facilitate their third annual winter workshop, from March 1 - 5, 2010. Places can now be reserved.
(see www.schwelle7.de for details)
***NOW AVAILABLE***
NRLA 30TH ANNIVERSARY CATALOGUE/BOX SET
The National Review of Live Art celebrates its 30th Anniversary in 2010. This historic event is marked by the release of a special limited edition Box Set, containing written contributions from over 70 artists, 3 specially edited DVDs of live art drawn from each of the festival's decades, and an archive section, with interviews, and listings from all the Festival's brochures.
(see www.newmoves.co.uk for details.)
ENCOUNTERS: Performance, Photography, Collaboration - MANUEL VASON
Encounters is a new and extensive collection of Manuel Vason's photographic collaborations with artists working in performance. Published by Arnolfini to accompany the first major exhibition of Vason's work in the UK, and edited by Dominic Johnson, Encounters brings together exciting new critical essays on Vason's collaborative images.
(see www.thisisunbound.co.uk for details)
info@hancockandkellylive.com
http://www.hancockandkellylive.com

DIE BRAUT DES BÖSEN
One of my favorite film star sopranos died recently, Ms. Kathryn Grayson who was under contract to MGM back in the 1940s and 1950s, and starred in such films as Anchors Aweigh, Showboat,Lovely To Look At,The Toast of New Orleans,The Desert Song,Kismet,and So This is Love? Ms. Grayson was lovely, but always seemed a bit self-conscience on film and shy because of her rather pert and perky busom. She was most effective in the 3-D film version of the Cole Porter hit Broadway musical Kiss Me Kate in which she co-starred with the handsome Howard Keel along with Ann Miller, James Whitmore and a very young Bob Fosse in high fag mode. The director of Kate George Sidney knew how to coax a good performance out of her despite her limitations. Her singing voice had a nice tremor to it that gave her songs a certain undefinable richness.
***
One of my talented Wiesensee students Katja von Hellsdorf is in an incredible music project with the young Argentinian artist Cristian Forte. Below is info on something he has put together that you Berlin readers of this blog may find interesting.
Caosmos – visuelle Poesie von Cristian Forte
und fotographischen Register von anonymen Autoren.
Ausstellungseröffnung
Am Sonntag 28.02.2010 18-23 h.
Montag und Dienstag von 17 bis 21 h.
Kotti-Shop , Adalbertstr.4 , Kreuzberg
www.kotti-shop.net
***
I am saddened to relay that the gifted LA Times writer, and Silverlake resident Mary Herczog who had been battling cancer has died. I enjoyed reading Mary´s life affirming blog where she coined the phrase “food porn”. Mary had dropped kicked that olde krab 12 years ago, but it came back with a homocidal vendetta.
I lost my mother Mary Magdelene to cancer in 2000,my sister Gloria Jean in 2007, and my oldest sister Gracie Lee is at the moment on deaths doorknob from the disease, so reading the Pollyanna positive words of Ms. Herczog over the years has been a true comfort. I will always remember when Mary visited my club Bricktops at the Parlour and brought her underage niece who was a 1920s fanatic. Being the rebellious woman that I am I eagerly ignored the rules sneaking Mary´s relative into the club where she had a night she will never forget, and Mary was all decked out looking radiant in period garb borrowed from rock goddess Abby Travis. My mother a black French Creole is from New Orleans, Louisiana which was one of the favourite stopping grounds of Mary and her handsome music writer hubby Steve Hochman. I have been crying my eyes out over Mary´s death. Her last posting said that her goose was cooked, but somehow i was refusing to believe it hoping that she would somehow recover and continue with her writing and travels.
For all you many Mary Herczog fans here is the beautiful piece about her in the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-mary-herczog19-2010feb19,0,1310821.story

I miss you Mary, I love you Mary!
***
The weather has warmed quite a bit in Berlin and the awful sludgy snow seems to be melting.Thank god.I can´t wait till its Spring again. Its been a very difficult winter in Berlin.
I forgot to let my faithful readers know what a wonderful Forum Expanded program I saw last Thursday the day before jetting off to London. That’s right The Silence of Marcel Duchamp a live film /expanded cinema event by Ela Troyano and Uzi Parnes featuring original music by John Zorn which had some of the SRO crowd fleeing. What pussies! I really loved how Ela popped in some footage from her narrative feature Latin Boys Go To Hell that starred the narcissistic photographer Mike Ruiz, plus some other gems of her from the 1980s and Uzi´s photos of Jack Smith, plus Susanne Sachsse reading Jack Smith text live. It was a perfect way to end the 60th Berlinale for me.

SLOAN POWER RANGERS
The Vaginal Davis doll celebrated her 440th year on the planet in merry ole queen mumdom of London England. Dominic Johnson the dashing young Queen Mary scholar and performance art darling hosted a gala celebration at his Miami on the Thames home in Hackney. Dom also cooked a divine vegan feast of the Magi, and the alcohol never stopped flowing. The guests included: Newlywed Ron Athey and his handsome Argentinian husband Alfredo Hunter, mega art schtar Franko b and his lovely art bride Tom Qualmann, dapper Martin Hargreaves of Dance Theatre Journal, lovesexy Gavin Butt of Goldsmith College, hunky Italian fashion and art photog Manuel Vason with actor James Purefoy,live artist Marisa Carnesky and her rock god husband Rasp Thorne of the band The Briars, orthodox Jewish drag king legend Oreet Ashery, aka: Marcus Fischer, The Love Camel, Andrea Novarin of the BFI, dynamic Brazilian bombshell Nando Messias with hubby Lawrence and gorgeous gal pal Bel Domingues visiting from South America, club kingpin Lee Adams and beau Chris, visual artist Thom Shaw and companion Ryan Ormonde.
Saturday Camel and Dom took me to dinner at the yummy Mexican eatery Pacifico in Coven Garden, and in the afternoon Dom treated me to the beauty of Broadway Market with coffee and dainties at La Bouche and lunch at The Premises. The weather was sunny and a bit warmish. I even saw some big footed men wearing flip-flops. Can you imagine beach thongs in February? Being an anglophile I adore the English beauty roses with their peaches and cream complexions. Like Germans, the British are either major Ms. Gorgeous or uber fugly with very little inbetween those two options. Saturday night Dom took me to long running performance club Ducky, the brainchild of the great Simon Casson. I can’t believe Ducky has been around for 16 years and still going strong. All the irregulars were there like host Amy Lamy, DJ’s the Readers Wives and the guardians of the gate Jay & Father Clothe. The performers for the evening was the Berlin based Scandanavian duo Nuclear Family which features Nicolai Tange Lange who DJ’s at Pork at Ficken 3000. I loved their first song “I Hate Everything” but the second ditty “HIV is the new Virginity” sort of fell a little flat. But it didn’t matter as the crowd was happy to be anywhere. The first performers Owen Parry & Elena were a hoot. Mr. Parry was wearing an oversized sweater ala Ann-Margaret’s reverse strip in Bye Bye Birdie and the sheer nuttyness of his music hall style short format piece was hilarious, plus he has a nice pair of Birkin Bag sized testicles, and is such a sweet looking humpy dork. At Ducky Dom scored the evenings beauty prize picking up a young Swedish aerialist and circus performer named Leo. I left the club and went to Chariots of Fire Sauna which was packed with muscle studkins all zoned out in a K-hole and drug deluze adaize. Didn’t get my nappy dugout worked on, but I talked to some interesting people including an Afghan, an Egyptian, an Iranian and a Jamaican jubas jubilee who hates people who wear dreadlocks.
Before coming to London I stayed up all night at the Forum party at the Volksbuhner. My date for the evening being NYU scholar Tavia Nyongo. I actually had a great time at that party flirting with tall, young, cute blondine German actor types who were unusually flirtacious, and getting excited by Chinese pop starlets.

EINMAL IST KEINMAL
Had a delightful time with Daniel Hendrickson of CHEAP hosting the Green Intermission Forum Expanded shorts program. Daniel looked very masculine and handsome in his early 1960s tux, and he designed for me an op art green caftan that had the audience ooohing and ahhhhing. Was introduced to and took a picture with some cute young German actor named Jacob Matschenz who isn’t my type but I wouldn’t kick him out of bed if he climbed in with me. So lovely seeing Ela Troyano and Uzi Parnes from New York, whose program The Silence of Marcel Duchamp will be screening 2nite at 9:30 and I cant wait to see it.
Saw the intriguing Paraguayan documentary Cuchillode by Renate Costa with downtown legend John Heys who is a riot to see a movie with. I adore the wonderful Mr. Heys. Caught the Japanese film Parade directed by Isao Yukisada that featured an adorable cast of hot twentysomethings, then rushed off across town to catch Cheryl Dunye’s kollective film The Owls featuring Guin Turner and a great cameo from one of my LA children Michael Lucid of Pretty Things. I love this new project of Cheryl and her producer Alex Juhasz and company. The screenplay was co-written by the great Lesbian writer Sarah Schulman and the proceedings reminded me of the situations surrounding the all girl band The GoGo’s which was founded by out lesbian Margo Olivera and the Canadian dyke band Fifth Column. That hot Cheryl Dunye is my girl. Her movie will have its world premiere 2night at Cinemaxx with an after party at Chantal’s House of Shame.

DINGLISH SPOKEN HIER
Continuing my Berlinale Report Card: Saw Plein Sud(Going South)the new film by super dimunitive French director Sebastien Lifshitz who made the movie Wild Side(2004) that i liked about a hot buttery tranny who has two lovers- a Russian and an Arab. That film also featured a product placement cameo by Antony of Antony & the Johnsons. Plein Sud has some remarkable eye treats in the masculine form of square jawed buckshot Yannick Renier, Gallic surfer studkin Pierre Perrier and upturned nose twank Theo Frilet. Unfortunately the morose and soppy storyline feels flat and contrived. Lea Seydoux as a low rent LoLita came across as the most intriguing character even though its clear she isn´t supposed to. I enjoy a movie with lots of beef jerky in it, but Ms. Seydoux brought out my latent lesbian tendencies-she´s just that entrancing. Nice try Mr. Lifshitz, but teenage roadflick crossed with mournful character study as a new genre just doesn´t jive. The proceedings here are all skillfully painted thanx to a talented female cinematographer whose name escapes me. During the Q&A with Kiki Petersen i couldn´t help but smirk as the directors face fell when he realized how grande a dilletante error he made with this folly.
Monsieur Lifshitz should take lessons from the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Cinema School. The screening of 1973´s Welt Am Draht was delirious, and I am all crushed out on the films star, the humpy pud Klaus Löwitsch. I hate seeing movies at Urania which reminds me of a new age high school auditorium---yuck! Welt Am Draht is so timely today as many people are leading computer simulated lives. The two part drama was first shown on German television. I missed the second part sadly as i went to a screening at Zoo Palast(See Below)
My favorite scene is in a nightclub where the entertaintainment is provided by a bevy of muscular black bodybuilders wearing the scantiest of scanties, flexing to the muzak beat. Can you imagine the dexedrine casting couch that Fassbinder used for that scene? In the F-binder future we will all be treated to a dinge utopia.
Speaking of dinge the Brazilian feature Besouro looked pretty with its nubile cast of sexy Capoiera movers and shakers. Yes i understand that Brazil didn´t outlaw slavery until the late 1890s, but the heavy handed paint-by-tumblers approach to filmmaking that tiny director Joao Dante Tikhominoff uses left me very Hoagy Carmichael. Swarthy Portoguese colonialists are bad & racists, while the tight tittied Negrettes are good and mystical. Hilarious hijinks ensue!
***
Nina Blanchard died this week. Ms. Blanchard owned the famed Nina Blanchard Modeling Agency whose roster included Cheryl Tiegs and Rene Russo. One of my old girlfriends Lauren Pine who nows works in Manhattan as a nurse pain use to be employed at the Blanchard Agency on the Sunset Strip,and regaled me with tales of how everytime Nina would appear on Entertainment Tonight some wingnut would write the office requesting some of her soiled big white panties. She looked like she would wear big white cotton panties. RIP.

MOIST FARMING
Went to see one of my talented students from Weissensee Art Akademy-- Katja von Hellsdorf, aka Katja Maya sing in her new musical art project Leisyelento at a nutty space called HBC which was very difficult to find. Katja is also a visual artist and filmmaker and i loved the song she sung in her short film and hearing that same song live was a nice treat. The band is usually a duo with Katja singing and playing the kazoo and saw, and Christian a lanky Argentine who reminds me of a South American version of Momus on guitar. At this performance they supplemented the music with a visiting Argentine on keyboards providing subtle soundscapes. Their sound is very music hall, filtered through Kurt Weill and Serge Gainsburg with a little Magnetic Fields thrown in like a fairies eyeball. The atmospheric music was sung in Spanish, German, French and English and I am curious to see them develop. Also watching the group was one of Katja´s musician friends, a very cute, vivacious German boy named Vincente who has a band called My Sister Grenadine. Conversing with the vivacious young Vincente makes me want to see him perform, and hear his musical output as well.
Received a lovely, unusual Valentine from The Aztec Warrior in Los Angeles:

My Dearest Black Mombasa,

Happy Valentines Day. I am home in Lago de Plata, I gave my Valentine a Mac Book Pro and it is now being set up to work. I was thinking of my 5th grade Valentines Day.

Your Azteca Warrior had already started to break out with acne in the 5th grade. Only God knows how many deals with the Devil I made to get rid of my Acne, none of the deals worked! So it was Valentines Day in 5th grade and we had to make Valentine paper bags out of standard brown lunch bags to hold the cards we'd be receiving from our classmates. I had my Mom go with me to 3 different stores before I picked out the box I wanted, Glittery cards for the special boys in my class and regular cards for everyone else, including the teacher.

So it was finally time for all of us to start passing out our cards, the teacher had all of us going around the tables placing our cards on the desks of our classmates. So the frenzy started and the class got a little out of control with the kids running to the different tables to place a VD card. I was delivering my cards with my baby poker face on and keeping an eye on my desk to see who was leaving cards at my table. I kept looking and there were no cards on my table, but I kept delivering mine. The First card I delivered was to Petie Rodriguez, he was beautiful with long hair and bright blue eyes! Then Gibby Gomez, already a hot lil Cholo with perfect skin and green eyes, then Angel, Rudy and so on… I glanced back at my desk when I was half way through my cards and I had one card on my desk, it was from Gibby, I saw him place it on my desk. So the class settled down and the teasing of what boy gave a card to what girl also settled. I made my way back to my desk and I had two cards for me. One from Gibby and the other from Mabel, who in Kindergarten I thought I would marry because I thought nobody else would marry her with her short arms.

I put my two cards in my bag, but not quick enough for the teacher to see that I only had two cards. So Ms. Tracy asked me if I got all my cards, I said yes. She said let me see your bag, I remember giving her a look that upset her, and she said, I asked you a question. She took the bag and pulled out the two cards, and then she yelled to the class for everyone to shut up! She asked the class, there are 26 of you and lil Aztec Warrior only has two cards… everyone was super quiet and she went on to ruin the fun and start some sort of lecture, finally Iguana, her name was Luanna, but we called her Iguana said, I ran out of cards. Everyone else was just quiet. Ms Tracy made everyone pull out some paper and make me a card. I remember breathing because I thought I was going to cry but at the same time I didn’t feel like I needed to cry since I knew that Gibby gave me a card and that was all I needed. So the rumbling started and a few of the kids started making cards. So one by one the students starting passing their class made cards to my desk. Gary Peck drew a Pizza with pepperonis on it depicting my acne marked face, there were a few other cards with similar jabs from some of the other boys. It wasn’t until everyone gave me a card that we were able to eat our cupcake treats.

Class was over and we were all making our way out the door. I wore something special that day, but I don’t remember what the outfit was. As we were all filing out the door I grabbed all my home made cards from my paper bag and tossed them in the trash can on my exit! Ms Tracy saw what I did and went Ape Shit! She grabbed me by the neck and called me an ungrateful.

I ended up having to stay after class and write some non-sense on the chalk board for about 30 minutes. Once I finally made it home I opened my cards, I started with Mabel’s card. Mabel wrote a lil paragraph about how we had been best friends since Kindergarten and that we’ve been through a lot together! I then opened up Gibby’s card; I was hoping for a long note as well. All he wrote was Gibby, in 5th grade style cholo script. I held on to that card for a long time. When I finally moved this last time I found the card, I threw it out and then dug it back out, so it’s in storage somewhere with a bunch of other junk.

So there you have it my Crenshaw Rose. A Valentine’s Day to remember.

Azteca Warrior
p.s. my Valentine didn’t have time to get me anything, so I will buy myself a hot piece of ass!

SIE SIND HERZLICH EINGELADEN
Ms. Berlinale International Film Fest is back in Berlin, and yes it is exciting. Too bad “I´ve got flu” as they say in England. Before venturing to my first screening I had a sweet little get together with some of my NYU art students who are taking part in the NYU/Humboldt Berlin exchange program. Sweet little 22 year Alex and his 20 year old roommate Sam came by The Cheese Endique Trifecta Studio and we had a lovely time. Alex had helped me in New York with my big installation at Participant Inc. Gallery.
Now to my first screening-Making The Boys a documentary about Mart Crowley and his stage play and film The Boys in the Band. The film The Boys in the Band directed by William Friedkin(The Exorcist) is one of my all time favs. The documentary was a pretty standard talking heads vehicle, there was some excellent footage of young Mart Crowley in the 1960s at a Malibu Beach Party hosted by Roddy McDowell featuring the crème de la . . .A stunning Sal Mineo and a juicy Ms. Judy Garland among other luminaries. And a peak from a TV pilot that Bette Davis did produced by Dominik Dunne. I didn’t know about Crowley´s relationship with Natalie Wood and her faggot husband Robert Wagner.
I thought I had an irritating gay accent, but the films director Crawton Robey really takes the pie´s cake, plus he comes off as a total industry queen---yikes. His name is certainly appropriate because the lady is a Craw.
Was sitting in the theatre snuggled between two hotties, German film ingenue David Cross who has huge hands and feet, and American film star James Franko who seems to be obsessed with all things queer. Franko has two short films in the Panorama section of the Berlinale and stars as Alan Ginsburg in Howl.
Was so happy I got a chance to see The Lights of Asakusa by Japanese director Shimazu Yasujiro from 1937. The Forum will be showing quite a few of his 30s output and I want to see them all.
Usually Berlinale parties are quite dull, but the one held for experimental film great Wilhelm Hein who won the 2010 Manfred Salzgeber Preis was fantastic! A wonderful buffet, flowing drinks and a cute and cuddly crowd that included The CHEAP gang with fearless leader Susanne Sachsse, film historian Marc Siegel, Tim& kJohnny Blue. Great seeing Beatrice “Trixie” Cordua, Vassily Bourikas and Cheryl Dunye and her Parliament Film Collective which also includes lovesexy Candi Guterres, my production designer for Platinum Oasis back in 2002. Candi is major talent and has taken care of the design for Cheryl´s new film The Owls which features everyones favourite party girl Guinevere Turner. The Berlinale world premiere of The Owls is Thur Feb 18th 8pm at the Cinemaxx 7. Can´t wait to see it!

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ERHALTEN SIE DIE LETZEN
Saturday Tim Blue cooked me a ferocious meal at his Neu Kölln paddy cake. Mr. Blue sure knows his way around a kitchenetta. Later we were joined by his younger brother kJohnny, who works part time as a bartender at the east side touristrappen White Trash Au GoGo and then we all headed straight to the Wilhelm Hein exhibition "Es gibt kein Bier in Hawaii"at the Fischer & Fischer Gallery. Wilhelm Hein is one of my favorite Berlin artists. He is also the ultimate authority when it comes to experimental film. His paintings are deliciously lovesexy—just like Herr Hein himself, and the videoinstallation of collapsing TV monitors was equally delightful. Was feeling a bit run down from all the ice cold weathervale so i called it an early Golden bird chicken night.
***
That darling Love Camel, Andrea Novarin had sent me a movie I had been wanting to see for ages. The 1983 James Bridges film Mike´s Murder starring Debra Winger. The movies theatrical release was extremely short lived, which is a shame because the flicker has a quality unlike any other movie. Ms. Winger´s performance is extremely subtle, so subtle is seems like she is doing nothing, but it is all in her eyes and her body which morphs from boyish to feminine. The film also captures a certain kind of LA sleepy fever. A way that LA was in the late 70s and early 80s which was such a part of my youth. It is hard to explain. What is really fascinating about this film is that it is based on a true story of a relationship that a woman i worked with had with a young hustler/tennis bum who hung out in the Santa Monica/West LA area. A little bit of this is captured in Mike´s Murder through the Betty Parrish character played by Ms. Winger who portrays a bank officer living in Brentwood. The actual Betty Parrish was named Kathy Lovell and we worked together in Santa Monica at an insurance investigating firm called Equifax. Equifax is still around but they do mostly credit checks now. Kathy had a brief affair with a sexy young hustler boy that wound up getting killed because of some drug related nonsense. The movie follows the details of the true story almost too well, at least the details that i remember. This was over 30 years ago when the incident happened. I don´t remember how James Bridges got ahold of the story, but Debra Winger really captured a quality of Kathy who was a good time Sally of a blondine. The movie also features my friend Mari Sol and Spaz Attack, who was the sexy punk boyfriend of Toni Basil who sang the song, „Oh Mickey You´re So Fine, You´re So Fine You Blow My Mind . . .“
And Paul Winfield is in the movie wearing a caftan as a black gay record producer who has kept the boy toy in question. That reveal scene is classic.
***
Here´s some gossip that most people don´t know: Dave Matthews of the bland rock band The Dave Matthews Band is a card carrying homeysexual. If that isnt enough he is also a major dinge queen. Don´t tell me you´re not familar with the term dinge queen. Well i will tell you, a dinge queen is a white guy who only likes to have sex with black men. There now, don´t act like i never told you nothing.

ZERSTÖREN COMMUNITY-PORTALE DIE SZENE?
Judy La Bruce and Anna Muelter of HAU threw a bad breast dinner at the yummy Kreuzberg bistro Gino´s. La Bruce regaled BB cast members with stories about his recent trip to Paris where he interviewed the Kaiser of high fashion Karl Lagerfeld for Vice Magazine. Vice has gone super corporate and upscale under editor Jesse Pearson who use to be a junior editor with Index Magazine when I was a regular contributing editor for that downtown NY rag under the auspices of the wonderful Bob Nickas. I always thought young Jesse was super cute with his lanky rabbit rooted big dicque arrogance, and sloopy junky/hustler manner.
Herr Lagerfeld and BLAB got along quite well so I´m anxious to read the article which will hit the stands in April under the subtitle: A Coupla Elderly White Chix Sitting Around Talking.
At the Ginos table a lot of juicy tongue wagging with the talented Jeanine of PlanningtoRock who just performed at the Transmediale Festival, humpy Senol Senturkk who is busy working on designing Berlinale installations, lovely Lisa Schmidt and the beautiful Susanne Sachsse. Sitting near our klatch was Hearst International Fashion scribe Suzy Menkes chowing down on a slab of lamb with a gaggle of faggot assistants.
The next evening John Heys, Marc Siegel and Frau Sachsse curated and hosted an enchanting and hilarious Evening for Superstar Taylor Mead at Arsenal Institute für Film und Video Kunst. The 85 year old Mr. Mead is an underground treasure trove of wisdom and moxy, still going strong living in his tiny cluttered Ludlow flat on the lower east side of Man!hattan. Actor and fellow downtown New York luminary John Heys is one of Mead´s dearest friends and led the curatorial team in spontaneous readings of Mead´s incredible poetry and prose texts with music and zany, whimsical surprises including the 2005 documentary Excavating Taylor Mead by William A. Kirkley. Seen enjoying this special tribute Mead´s number one fan, German experimental guru Wilhelm Hein, feminist filmmaker Evelyn Rüssler,Daniel Hendrickson the translator to the shtars, musical siblings Tim & Kjohnny Blue and Susanne Sachsse´s beautiful 16 year old twins Salome & Richard Gershe who were on their winter break from high school. I love the Gershe twins like they came out of my own womb. Both of them could be supermodels or teenage acting superstars, and would be much more interesting on TV or in the movies then the Jonas Bros or Hannah Montana. It was great to hear that their best friend Jakob who is in the US as an exchange student was able to free himself from a crazy uber fundamentalist religious family and transfer to a secular clan where he will be living until June. With Jacobs sweet demeanor I am sure he will meet lots of American girls who will go wild for a pretty & sexy German boy from Berlin.
***
Had a wonderous time rehearsing for a new film project with the dynamic art filmmaking duo of Pauline Beaudry and Renate Lorenz. Pauline is a stunning Swiss/French beauty and musician who had a major following with her band Rhythm King and Friends. Renate is a handsome and intelligent butch. Their filmic aesthetic is similar to mine, and we spent a few jubilant hours working in the morning and late in the afternoon at the studio of vivacious and talented Spanish dancer/choreographer Arantxa Martinez who will be performing in this upcoming film in the s tyle of Jane Avril a dancer from the 1890s and turn of the last century. The Vagimule Davis creature will be interpreting the movements of great Black vaudeville star Aida Overton Walker. More on this as it develops.
***
In the evening little Tele´macos Alexiou of the Chocolate Grinder Film kollective hosted a saturnal feast at his Mehringdamn compound to celebrate his experimental short A Dream of Norma being accepted into the Forum Expanded section of the 60th Berlinale Film Festival. I star in the film as a deluded R&B singer in the mode of Etta James or Whitney Houston. The flicker will screen everday at 4pm at the Temporäre Kunsthalle Schlossplatz in Auto Kinoi by Phil Colllins starting Feb 11th until Feb 21st. After dinner we watched Sweet Charity directed by Bob Fosse starring Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr., Ben-Vereen, Chita Riviera and Pauly Kelly. I hadn´t seen the movie in over 25 years, and love i ts Fossesque razzle/dazzle. I use to hate this film, but somehow it has grown on me and I adore it. So much fun hanging with the Choc Grind rock steady crew of little Alex, Julian Radlmaier, and Mourning Becomes Elektra. Little Alex´s Israeli boyfriend Assaf Hochman and Anna Muelter were also part of the frivolilty.
***
Received a screening copy of the magnificent experimental documentary film Scrap Metal by Jason Byrne. Jason was a loopy, mega juicy blondine neighbor of Professor jennifer Doyle in Silverlake. He was also a Cal Arts film student. He is all grown up and has been living in Tanzania, Afrika working on a project documenting war crime tribunals. If he ever comes through Berlin for a visit, I will have to give him a tongue bath from head-to-toe YUMMY!
***
Received this emug from the sweet and lovely Ms. Elly Clark the gifted British art photog based here in Berlin. Check out her gallery and help her get a new camera, her´s was recently stolen. I know you readers of Speaking From the Diaphragm are generous patrons to us grassroots types. I cant tell you how many times my readers have sent me much needed $moula to get out of my financial scraps.

Dear Friends,

This is the first mail from Clarke Gallery this year – so although we are (finally!) in February, Happy New Year!

The first Clarke Gallery show of 2010 opens on 13th March. Put it in your diaries. It’s a group show. The invite will be sent out in a couple of weeks.

Meanwhile:

Christian is currently leading a workshop with schoolchildren in Dresden, organised by Kunsthaus Dresden. In August he’ll take part in a group show in Belgrade. He’ll also have another solo show at Clarke Gallery this year.

Elly is a recipient of the Goldrausch Kunstlerinnen IT 2010 Stipendium – and the next exhibition is with all the others on this program. Her exhibition ‘Some Places I have Been To’ continues at Melusine and next week, on Friday 12th February Elly’s participatory photo & video project ‘Moscow to Beijing’ opens at Center for Endless Progess (invite attached).

And... not so great: on 16th December Elly’s Leica was stolen from a bar in Kreuzberg. She had the camera for 6 years and travelled pretty much the world with it. Her insurance had just run out. To raise cash to buy a new one, she’s about to launch an Alternative Funding Project - selling signed Single Edition 6”x4” prints via Flickr for 35 Euros each. The link will be sent in due course – but please get in touch if you’d like to be one of the first to know about it.

Vicky curated and has work in 'Collect': a paper based exhibition featuring artists from around the UK. The show runs until 10th Feb at Westgate Studios, 55 Westgate, Wakefield, UK. Click here for more info. Plus, Axisweb.org have just made a film of Vicky talking about this show. You’ll be able to see this featured on Axisweb later this week. Otherwise Vicky is in a group show at The Rag Factory on Hanbury Street, London, called 'Danger: An Exhibition'. It opens on the 4th March, runs till 7th March. And meanwhile she’s on a residency at lumen.

Alexander is getting his website built by James Hurst, who did Antony Gormley’s site. He has also been putting in some all-night shift work painting gold leaf on ceilings in the Carlton club in London, which he describes as ‘hard core but fun.’ Meanwhile he’s waiting on news from several residency/post grad applications…

And finally, you can see photos from Liz’s December show COME here.

See you on 13th March if not sooner!

Elly

--
CLARKE GALLERY
mail@clarkegallery.de
+49 (0)176 8716 2833

MADONNA HAS A WELL ORGANIZED PUSSY
Thus quoteth international film star Udo Kier when i asked him about working with the pop star in her Sex Book from the 1990s. We were in Blimy Birmingham England and i was curating the first Visions of Excess, and the philosophy of Gifts endurance art spectacular that was part of the Fierce Festival with Ron Athey, way back in 2004. I don´t know why Mr. Kier is in my thoughts lately, but he is. Udo and his black lover, whose name i forget. Udo owns a nice compound in Silverlake that he shares with his dinge companion, and he also has a mid century get-away house in palm springs that use to be a library. I was told that he still owns a flat in Berlin, but i was under the impression he got rid of it years ago.
Anyway I just got together with artist, filmmaker and musician Tim Blue at his pristine flat in Neu Kölln. Tim cooked a sumpteous feast for me. Its been months since I´ve spent any time with Tim who has been busy traveling with Irish artist and filmmaker Paul Rowley working on their new rationalist structure architecture film The Rooms which he gave me a sneak preview of. I really liked the movie, though i thought it was just a tad long. It reminded me of the 1964 Jean Paul Belmondo film l´Homme de Rio which features grand shots of Oscar Niemeyer´s Brasilia buildings.
Friday i went to the Bruce La Bruce opening at Peres Projects. La Judy was showing some silk screen Warholian prints of blue movie god Francois Sagan sagat and also previewing his new film LA Zombie-The movie that would not Die that also stars Mr. Sagat as a creature from benearth the sea whose mission is to fuck the dead back to life. The film looks incredible, and i even got nostalgic for a minute seeing my former hometown of Los Angeles. Plus there are cameos in the film by Tony Ward, who starred in Hustler White, and my favorite Hollywood eatery Ms. Donut on Melrose and HIghland Avenue.
***
Its almost Berlinale time. Can´t wait to see Ela Troyano and Uzi Parnes who have a program in Forum Expanded, and one of my fav homegirls Cheryl Dunye of Watermelon Woman and The Stranger Inside fame will be making a pitstop in town with a new film.
Also the beautiful Janez Janza of Aksioma Institute of Contemporary Art in Ljubiana, Slovenia will performing and exhibiting some new work at Art Lab Berlin see below for details.

3 February 2010, 7PM
Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša
NAME Readymade

Art Laboratory Berlin
Prinzenallee 34, 13359 Berlin
http://www.artlaboratory-berlin.org

Art Laboratory Berlin, in collaboration with Aksioma - Institute for Contemporay Art, Ljubljana, is glad to invite you to NAME Readymade, the performative presentation of Janez Janša. The event will present the act of "name changing" perpetrated by three Slovenian artists who in 2007 officially, with all the required papers and stamps, changed their names to the then prime minister of Slovenia, Janez Janša (2004-08). All Janez Jansas' works, their private and public affairs, in a word their whole life, has been conducted under this name ever since.

"When the three artists changed their names to Janez Janša, they in fact adopted a critical stand to the state. To the Slovene government, in which until recently all posts seemed occupied as it were by a single person - Janez Janša. [...] Through the multiplication of Janez Janša's name, the function of the prime minister has assumed, within this specific artistic action, a similar position as the Campbell soup cans in Andy Warhol's works." (Zdenka Badovinac, Name Readymade, October 2008)

Janez Janša will take us through a series of artistic, political, administrative and media oriented actions performed by himself together with Janez Janša and Janez Janša, with a particular focus on their latest personal exhibition entitled NAME Readymade. Works exhibited in this show (valid ID cards, passports, credit and bank cards, driving licences, birth and marriage certificates, and so on) were generated by reality itself.
Janez Janša, Janez Janša and Janez Janša cut right through the midst of their own realities, using procedures typical for art - transformation, translation, representation and mimicry. They turned around the classical relational scheme between art and life as it was developed in the 20th century. Art in the previous century was defined by way of reality entering into artistic contexts without mediation (Badiou defines the 20th century as the 'passion for the real'), while Janša, Janša and Janša want to achieve the opposite, so that their methods cut deeply into their material lives and the lives of their immediate surroundings.

This event will take place in the context of the ongoing exhibtion Creative Rights. On Appropriation, Copyright and Copyleft (until 7.2.) which can be seen on 3 February from 6pm before and after the presentation.

Production: Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art and the steirischer herbst Festival in collaboration with Maska and Moderna galerija Ljubljana.
Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.

More information:
http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-event-7.htm
http://www.aksioma.org/name/


Marcela Okretič
Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana
Neubergerjeva 25, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
gsm: +386 41 250830
e-mail: aksioma4@siol.net
www.aksioma.org

***
Oh and Marc Siegel of CHEAP kollective sent me this missive today that i will pass on to you.

Hello CHEAP Friends,

This Thursday February 4 2010 we should all meet at the Arsenal cinema at 7
pm to celebrate the first star of American underground cinema, Taylor Mead.
(Mario was the first drag superstar, Taylor the first star­we CHEAPies are
not embarrassed to love our stars.) No, thankfully, Taylor did not die. But
we just thought it's high time this inimitable 85 year old beat poet and
hilarious movie star received some attention. Actually, our friend John Heys
thought so. John is in regular contact with Taylor who he knows from his
days in the New York Lower East side gay and theater scene. Ever since John
got a copy of the documentary called EXCAVATING TAYLOR MEAD (2005) he has
been set on organizing an evening for Taylor. John enlisted the help of
Susanne Sachsse and me and garned the support of the trusty Arsenal and alas
"The Movies Are a Revolution: An Evening for Taylor Mead" was born. Nobody's
got no money and we ain't go no fancy technology, so we couldn't bring in
Taylor or even bring in mayn of his over 100 films. But we do have a nice
evening of readings, some unexpected images, including a rare screening of
Gary Goldberg's PLATES (1990) starring Taylor and Bill Rice, and the
documentary to offer you! A great way to learn something about this seminal
figure in American underground film and theater and who knows maybe the
first of many Taylor Mead evenings to come!

(below you find the text that appears on the facebook page for the evening
with some description of the various videos/films to be shown).

Hope to see you there
Best,
Marc

An Evening for Taylor Mead - Thursday 4th February 2010
Arsenal - Institute for Film and Video Art
Thursday, February 4, 2010
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Potsdamer Straße 2, 10785 Berlin

85 year-old Taylor Mead is the first superstar of the American underground.
Since 1960 he has appeared in over 100 films, including over 15 by Andy
Warhol. Mead is also a poet, filmmaker and stage actor of great acclaim:
bitchy, endearing, acerbic, anecdotal and jaw-droppingly indiscreet, Mead
is very much one of a kind. (Neil Young)
To pay homage to this exceptional talent, Mead's friend John Heys, with
Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel, has prepared a fittingly exceptional
evening including a documentary about Mead; film surprises; and readings
from Mead's poetry and essays.

Program

EXCAVATING TAYLOR MEAD William A. Kirkley USA 2005 OF 88
EXCAVATING TAYLOR MEAD is the story of one s man s journey and struggle
for survival in America s independent film and art community. Known
primarily in the inner circles of New York s art historians and followers
of Warhol, Mead s resume demonstrates how he may be one of underground film
s most prolific yet overlooked artists.
Filmed over a four-year period and spanning nearly eight decades, we follow
Taylors s eviction from his lower east side apartment to co-starring in Jim
Jarmusch s Coffe and Cigarettes. Filtered through his life choices,
EXCAVATING TAYLOR MEAD is an endearing character study of someone who has
lived an unique artistic path. Best put by Taylor, It s the opposite end
of the Robert Evans spectrum .
Featuring many clips from the early independent film movement including
never before seen Warhol shootage, EXCAVATING TAYLOR MEAD considers the fate
of those who helped bring about the new American cinema of the 1960 s and
raises questions as to the sacrifice we make for art.
(http://www.excavatingtaylormead.com/aboutthemovie.html)

GLAMOUR, GLORY & GOLD USA 1988 (in extracts)
Extracts from an exclusive documentation of an event held in NYC dedicated
to Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis. Taylor Mead directed a reading of
Curtis's celebrated play and appears on stage alongside Penny Arcade,
Warhol¼s superstar Ondine and John Heys (who organized this program at
Arsenal)

PLATES Gary Goldberg USA 1990 11
with Taylor Mead und Bill Rice
In the early 1990s Goldberg produced a series of Beckettian short films
featuring Taylor Mead and Bill Rice. They are amazing as well as light and
profound comedies.

Texts by Taylor Mead, read by John Heys, Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel,
will be added to the film program. There will be drinks during the breaks.


­­­
CHEAP congratulates our own incorrigible friend WILHELM HEIN, winner of the
Manfred Salzgeber Preis 2010, presented during the Berlinale. For
information see: www.manfred-salzgeber.org/preis.html

(zur Info: obwohl ich ein Fan, Freund, und Unterstützer von Wilhelm bin und
bleibe, habe ich nicht gesagt was mir auf der Salzgeber Website
zugeschrieben worden ist. Na ja...)

You all have a chance to congratulate Wilhelm personally at the opening for
a rare show of his paintings in the exhibition "Es gibt kein Bier in Hawaii"
on Saturday, Feb. 6 2010 at 7 pm at Fischer&Fischer Gallery Straßburgerplatz
18

AND I forgot to recommend Bruce LaBruce's show at Peres Projects, Berlin,
"LA Zombie: The Movie That Would Not Die" on view until April 24 2010, a
rare chance to see BLAB's latest film, L.A.Zombie starring the adorable
Francois "Piero on steroids" Sagat, who was wowing all at the opening with
free feels of his muscular goldstück.