DIE MUSKELSPIELER

My handsome escort Daniel Hendrickson the Jewish Muslim was riding his bicycleta at 100 mph as I desperately tried to keep up with him in my despair of being in bad shape as we made our way to the Schwules Museum to see Hans Scheirl and Jakob Lena Knebl perform as part of the opening for the new exhibit Trans*Homo:von lesbischen Trans Schwulen und anderen Normalitaeten curated by my former Weissensee student Justin Time. The rainstorm seemed like it would abate several times but somehow the waters kept flowing. At the museum we were met by Piero Bellomo the lovesexxxy ItaloDeutsch lover of Mr. Hendrickson who was trying to get away from a randy American tourist who had his hairy eyeballs set on Mr. Bellomo as his juicy prize.

The performance wasn’t going to start for another 90 minutes so we escaped to the Eisenstein Coffee house around the corner before returning and meeting up with fearless leader of CHEAP collective Susanne Sachsse and film historian Marc Siegel and the Gaysien House of Perpetual Beauty that this evening was starring gorgeous visiting scholar Eng-Beng Lim from Brown University who specializes in theatre, high drama and performance studies with a focus on transnational Asian and queer issues.

Was in awe of the fab performance that was part Vienna Akshunist and meditative deconstruction of Performance Art archetypes. Scheirl and Knebl were aided and abetted by the gentle Ring giants Fasolt and Fafner aka: Andreas Riegler & Markus Harsleitner resulting in hilarious stage hijinks. Also seen about: video artist Liz Rosenfeld and her KreuzKoelln posse, curator Frank Wagner, art photog Annette Frick, transgender Love God Del Grace Volcano, Tavia Nyongo arriving fashionably late, and Sissy Magazines pretty boy editor Jan Kunemund expertly avoiding thine enemies.

***

Letter from Elly Clarke of the Clarke Gallery:

Birmingham, 2nd August 2012

Dear All,

This is to introduce a new development of Clarke Gallery. Clarke Griffiths Levine is the teaming up of Clarke Gallery with two Birmingham based arts practioners - artist/curator Caitlin Griffiths and independent curator Charlie Levine. This has been set up to enable the three of us to share skills, knowledge and ideas whilst maintaining our own identities (i.e. coming together without merging). Our first collaboratively organised exhibition, Joint Stock, opens in Birmingham on 12th September. (See below.)

The next solo Clarke Gallery project is FRAME. This follows on from the six month exhibition BERLIN / BIRMINGHAM / BEYOND / by providing a showcase for one work at a time, but installed this time in a variety of businesses across the city of Birmingham. With a planned launch of late October, the premise is about taking art to its audience rather than expecting the audience to come to it. As with the mac show, all work is for sale.

BEYOND / runs at mac birmingham until 9th September. So there's still a chance to see it, or to buy the current work - Sue Dodd's Lick Stix (Hot Bikini Bodies) - in person or remotely.

Finally, I'm about to launch a new selling project of my own pictures. Birmingham to Beyond will see the sale of 36 new 6"x4" Single Edition photographs via Ebay and announced via Twitter. So if you'd like to get your hands on one of these (starting bid of 15GBP), follow me @elly_clarke. Or, if Twitter isn't your thing, send me an email and I'll make sure you're kept up to date. Or keep an eye on my website.

Thanks for reading. I hope you're well and enjoying the summer and to see you at some event or other before too long.

Best wishes,

Elly

--

ellyclarke.com / clarkegallery.de / @ClarkeGallery / @elly_clarke / Clarke Gallery on Facebook

From Azteca Warrior in Los Angeles

Ms Dumb As Dog Shit Davis,
(I Love Daddy Athey for coming up with that)

I am set to take photos of a new hottie. He sent me a text asking if I would mind if he came in CD. I said, sure bring ur own CD and I can transfer the images to the Disk.He said, oh, I'm sorry, I meant Cross Dress. WTF. Ok, he's a Hustler and he CD's.He has a Smoking hot body and a big Thick Chorizo, pretty white boy face, along the lines of a McCauley Kulkin type.

We shall see in the name of Art! (Arturo Castaneda that is!)

WARRIOR

Fetcha,

Well, its all for the Sake of Arturo.

The Hustler/CD shows up at my door with a light Auntie knock. I open the door and I find a young High Yellow Black Boy.I looked at him and I was a bit confused. He said, If I would have said I was Black u may not have wanted to Photograph me.

I said, What, I may not want to photograph u cuz u lied.

He was sweating and not sure where to look. I told him, come in. Served him some water and said. What r u trying to do. He's a CD DJ and needs some prof photos. He also Hustles but has not had his first client yet. We chatted for a bit. I told him I was a little concerned with his approach and his story. I told him, put urself together, tell me what kind of images u want and I will take them.

He then asked me if I wanted to Fuck. I said, No, that would disrupt my vision of how I was going to capture his image. He bought that.

OK, he is a pretty Black boy with Vanessa Williams color and a Bootie for days on a Slim narrow waist.So there u have it. He wants to be a model as well.

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

UNTOTE WIE WIR

Been receiving several emugs about Tenderloin and our song titles. Well here are the titles to the new ditties we wrote for Antony’s Meltdown: “Das lied von der Glocke”, which is based on text by Schiller that I read in Otto Preminger’s autobiography and I Vaginalized after I had it translated into English from the original Deutsch. “The F*cking of Major Shtars” is from one of my 1980s spoken word poems and “Polyglot” I wrote after attending a conference at Berlin’s Haus of World Cultures listening to a lecture given by a cute young Iranian academic. “Redemption” is the only one of our new songs that I didn’t write. The music and lyrics are from Tenderloin guitar player Landgraf Jan Klesse and Joel Gibb sings the song and plays drums at the end accompanied by Jan on bass and Felix Knoke on keyboards with Dagmar Hopfisterei doing vocal soundscapes.

I was so afraid to be in London during the Olympics, but it actually turned out A-ok as all the sports stuff was in the east of the city and I was situated convienently in the city center where I could easily walk to the festival. Meltdown and Southbank Center took very good care of us. Our meals were catered by the same company that did Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebration and it was most delicious comfort food. Our last dinner was Asphalt Baked Salmon with Honey Neutered Chicken, Celestial Brocolli, Dirty Braun Rice and Silly Pudding for desert. There were so many gorgeous young boy pieces of eye candy floating around London that I was doing overtime lighthouse duty and turning myself into a drunken hairyeyeball Cornelius from Planet of the Apes.

Working with the lovely Antony Hegerty and his crew was a dream come true. Antony is so sweet gentle and beautiful in every way, with the most bewitching eyes in Christendom, and this Meltdown will certainly resonate for many years to come.

Our accomodations at the boutique Hotel Citizen M. at 20 Lavington Street was wonderous. The bed in my room was huge—large enough to accommodate a whorgy of water polo players, and the staff very professional and helpful. Special shoutout to Miss Ruth who was our favorite Citizen M. Guest Artist Ambassador. Ran into lots of old friends and acquaintances including one of the girls from the late 90s teenage rock band The Grown Ups who is now 30 years old. I first met her when she was 14 and performing at my club Sucker at the Garage in Silverlake. The lead singer of the Grown Ups looked like Belinda Carlisle from The GoGo’s and there was a sweet black girl in the band who played saxophone who came to my Getty/Pacific Standard Time event,and on guitar was the teenage son of Mark Hamil of StarWars. The younger Mr. Hamil is now a famous illustrator or something like that. Also chit chatted with some old New York pals who are now living in London so my time in merry old England was filled with lots of sudden reunions. The weather was picture perfect with no rain the entire time and temperatures in the high 70s farenheit. Tenderloin has already been asked to perform some more gigs and also to contribute a track to a Chicks on Speed Girl Monster #2 compilation.

Now I need to concentrate on my solo visual art exhibition that opens Nov 4th at Participant Inc. in New York. There is going to be a lot of work involved in making this happen so I have got to focus focus and focus some more.

Had gone to a screening months ago of the Aliens prequel Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott. The only thing that scored for me in the movie was the smokey come hither between Charlize Theron and Idris Alba, the humpy AfroBritish actor who harkened back a bit to Yaphet Kotto from the original Aliens. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when those two got together for fornications bliss.

EL COMBINADO PERFECTO

My blogging just took a computer glich tumble and only half of what I wrote got posted so I have to finish the rest by thanking the South Banky staff, so here goes the Academy Award list of gratitude: Event Managers: Judew Bowder aka Jude the Obscure, Gemma Broughton, Neil Mackinnon, Hattie Garrard, Alexia Higgs, Karen Petersen, Linzi Gibbs, Rachel Porter, Steve Thomas. Artist Liaison- Meergan Tovey Front, Transport Coordinator -Miss Mel Green, Production Managers: Mick Shenton, Adrian Rutter Jake Seaman, Konrad Watson, Simon Wingfield, Rick Eggleton. At the Citizen M. Hotel lots of kissy kissalia to Missy Ruth the lovely concierge who was most accommodating and hospitable in the grande British tradition.

So many celebs came to check the show out, here is just a partial list of everyone: artists Tracey Emin, Franko B aka: Franko Black with his child bride Thom, Kira O’Reilly, Ron Athey, Orthon Mataragas, Ernesto Tomasini, Oreet Oshery, Jason Graham, Manuel Vason and Marisa Carnesky whose new theater extravaganza Tarot Drome will debut at the Old Vic tunnels Sept 4-13th. With Ms. Carnesky was her lovesexxy rock god husband Raspe Thorne of The Briars who gave me a copy of his latest EP called Debutante Warnings that I can’t wait to add to my play list when I DJane. Also seen British “It Girls” Poppy Pelevingne, Jessica Brown Findlay, CoCo Sumner, Suki Waterhouse, Lykke Li and Annabelle Wallis, French actress Virginie Ledoyen with House of Carven designer Guillaume Henry, Glenn Martens the Flemish design star, Olympic swimmer Anthony Bandit Rubio with bon vivants Carlos Crespo, Manuel Lopez and Pietro Ditano escorting young Atlanta de Cadenet the supermodel daughter of Amanda de Cadenet and John Taylor of Duran Duran. The patrician record producer Ivor Guest aka: Viscount Wimbourne must be a dinge queen tranny chaser as he was all over the Vagimule doll, but isn’t he Grace Jones’ boyfriend? Getting into the Tenderloin/Karen Black mood was musician Patrick Wolfe, Pet Shop Boys 2Men Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe whose new album is called Elysium, tight bodied cutie pie Stuart Comer of Tate Modern with visiting American royal Steve Gizicki who is the right hand musical supervisor for George Lucas Productions in Marin County, portraiture artist John Lee Bird, junior art shtar Lewis Church with his gorgeous girlfriend and youthquaker posse, academic Dominic Johnson, David Waddington of Bistroteque, and legends legend Nicola Bowery the wife of the late great Leigh Bowery.

Went to see last night Kembra and Lilly of the Valley aka Claywoman the ancient extraterrestrial entity which was delightful. Ms. Kembra talked in stream of conscienceness fashion about availabism, anti-naturalism and future feminism and was hilarious in her demeanor and wonderous in voice and stage presence. The elderly black man who was the stage hand moved so slowly taking props off the stage it was as if he was in a Jack Smith performance transmogrified via Robert Wilson during his Berlin cocaine period.

In the morning I stuffed myself silly at breakfast chatting with the divine Lori E. Seid who is New York moxy perfection and a lesbian dream girl.

DIE VERHANDLUNG UEBER DAS TABU
I am exhausted from the Lou Reed/Voluptuous Horror/Tenderloin after party that was at the Function Room of the Royal Festival Hall.  Everyone was in joyous spirits not just last night but for the entire run of the festival, something that Ron Athey who has gone to all the events has duly noted.  The Vagimule was holding court as usual, sweating up a storm from the heat and humidity.  My make-up artist the gorgeous Miss Lydia from MAC Cosmetics beat me such a wonderful face, I looked like Monica Belluci.  Lydia  and her cute assistant Miss Nikki were also doing the Girls of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.  The Divine goddess Lady Kembra and her band were in fine high art form.  Kembra was sprouting Finian Wakeism on stage that had the audience in stitches and her performance was utter genius.  The music and visuals dazzled the Londoners, and it seemed surreal that this was the first time that England was experiencing this kind of alchemy.  Everything that Kembra does is juicy and profound.  It is no wonder she is a religious leader, Cosmotantra, and philosopher Kingdom all to herself.  Special thanks to the brilliance that is Antony Hegerty as curator suprema.  During the photo sessions conducted by the Guardian photographer I loved how Antony art directed everything and of course his choices were spot on.  So wonderful seeing Lilly of the Valley who performs tonight with Kembra in a special event called Kembra Pfahler:  Availabism and Anti-Naturalism + a Conversation with Claywoman at 7pm at the Purcell room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.
My performance with Tenderloin went really well though i lost my energy half way through the set because of the humidity in the building and the fact that i havent been able to get a good night sleep for the last few days because of nerves.  The Baby Diaper Joel Gibb was really in his element playing not only drums, but guitar, keyboard, singing and masturbating all at the same time.  The fag element in the crowd also loved that Joel went commando on stage letting his giant Canuckian genitals flop in the wind.  Its also so much fun playing with Jan and Felix Knoke. Jan's girlfriend Marie and her young mom also came to the show and were having a lot of fun. Marie's father is a sports journalist so he was in London with his family covering the Olmpics.  Special kudos to Love Camel aka: Andrea Novarin who did a kickass job with the video projections during the Tenderloin set.  I also want to give shout out to the South Banky staff including their fearless leader Jane Beese and Ms. Lori E. Seid, the tech director, who also introduced us on stage, event managers: Jude Bowdler aka:  Jude the Obscure,

FOUR-CALENDER CAFE

Its so warm in London.  I am sweating like a Mongeary piglet.  Taken to a nice luncheon with Love Camel who made me a t-shirt of the phrase "four drops from the cashew".  The Baby Diaper Joel Gibb has been busy running around town meeting big peniled men and tight tusche twinks but also conducting Hidden Cameras business as well. 
Dinner at the Royal Festival Hall Function Room was a delight.  Had a lot of fun with Meltdown curator extroidinaire Miss Antony, Samoa, Gida Gash, Miss Alice and the entire VHofKB gang, plus Lady Jane, Jude the Obscure, Lori E. Seid, Miss Mel and the SouthBanky's.
Got to see Marc Almond of Soft Cell fame perform Marc & the Mambas' Torment and Toreros.  Very exciting as the last time I saw Mr. Almond live was in LA in 1982 at the Hollywood Palace. At that time one of my galpals Alicia Plaeke jumped on stage and stole a piece of his jewelry that fell off and he yelled at her saying,  "Give me back my bracelet, its the only thing of value i have left!"  Thrilling evening of music and high drama.  Miss Antony even joined Ms. Amond on stage to joyous affect.  Seen in the audience:  Johanna Constantine, Ernesto Tomasina, Orthon and posse.  Went to the after party for one drink and met Lady Jane Beese's handsome hubby.  Together they make a dynamic British power couple.  Left early as I am exhausted from not having slept very well the night before because of nerves and feeling a bit flu-ish.  Too bad i missed CoCoRosie, Planningtorock, Elizabeth Frasier of Cocteau Twins and Joey Arias who i heard was performing fellatio on a man right in front of the entrance of the Citizen M Hotel.  You get your girlish gnut Miss Joey!

HEITER BIS WOLKIG

I forgot to let you know that British Airways flight to London was almost empty.  Couldn't believe it.  That never happens anymore, so the ride to Meltdown was very comfy for me and Felix Knoke.  Also going through customs was a breeze, and the limo that picked us up at the airport was quick and high falutin.  Our boutique hotel The Citizen M. is brand new and very close to the venue of the Royal Festival Hall.  The pretty front desk girl Ruth was ever so charming in accomodating us and the fabulous Ms. Mel Green of Southbank and New York's downtown lady of  lovesexxxy juicyness Ms. Lori E. Seid were  on hand to make sure everything was going smoothly.  I feel so taken care of, and running into Ms. Kembra of the Divine, Samoa and Miss Alice, the veterana of VHoKB was perfect daytime glamour for an old tranny like myselfsis. 

WARUM HAB`ICH JA GESAGT?

Just two more day before  Tenderloin takes the stage at Antony´s Meltdown Festival, with goddess Kembra Pfahler and the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black and Future Feminism in London, UK.  Joel Gibb the baby diaper of the Hidden Cameras is already painting the town several shades of heliotrope with Stuart Comer of the Tate Modern and hanging out with legend Buffy Saint Marie as well as recording with the Pet Shop Boys.  Tenderloin is staying at a cute boutique hotel and will be trying their best to keep Dagmar Hofpfisterei from OD-ing before the performance or getting into a cat fight with Tiffany Middlesex.

Very sad that Gore Vidal died.  I met him in the late 90s in Italy with writer David Leavitt and believe you me he was a trip.  He could drink enough liquor to float Fire Island, and had a beautiful young boy adornment who said nothing the entire time i was in his presence.  The kids main purpose was as eye candy and he did his job brilliantly!  Also composer Marvin Hamlische died age 68.  He adapted the music of Scott Joplin for the 1973 film The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford and won his first of three Oscars that year, and he wasn´t even 30 years old.  Also the film critic Judith Christ died, age 90. I can remember reading her reviews in TV Guide Magazine in the 1970s.

LUSTGROTTE

In 90 degree fahrenheit weather i did a short presentation at the Radical Cross-Currents in Black Berlin one day symposium at Humbodt Universitat that was organized by Eva Boesenberg and Tavia Nyongo of NYU. The event gathered a very large crowd of artists, activists and scholars to consider the radical black presence in Berlin since the 1980s.
The keynote address was“White Brothers With No Soul?” The Racial Politics of Techno in Berlin by Alex Weheliye, Northwestern University moderated by the very sweet Eva Boesenberg
At 2pm I presented “Wir haben kein Zimmer für Auslander”: Vaginal Davis, Susanne Sachsse, CHEAP & more. Susanne who is on the jury of a film festival in Poland made a wonderful Skype appearance. Tavia was the moderator. I was completely excrement for brains, which always happens when i have to make an appearance in hot weather, but Susi was very eloquent. Got to meet Tavia´s young animated lover from Texas and we bonded the way southern girls are known to. I was surprised that there was such a SRO turnout as I figured that on a nice summer day everyone would retreat to the lake country. I had a marvelous time and it was very lovely to be at an event with a large amount of black folks which is such a rarity in anglo Berlin. It seems like a few will take me up on the offer of a dialogue through written correspondence the olde fashioned manner via the poste.
If you are visiting Berlin the perfect place to go is Arsenal Inst für film und video kunst for their Blaxploitation salute. I highly recommend seeing Cotton Goes to Harlem 1970 directed by Ossie Davis starring Godfrey Cambridge, Super Fly 1973 directed by Gordon Parks Jr. Starring Ron O´Neal, Cool Breeze 1972 featuring a young Pam Grier with Paula Kelly and Judy Pace who is also in Cotton.

Sherman Hemsley who starred as George Jefferson in the long running black TV sitcom The Jeffersons died age 72. Few people knew that Mr. Hemsley was a big old queen like another actor of the era Paul Winfield.

Was listening to NPR Berlin´s Marketplace Money program that featured my old LA Weekly collegue Queena Kim. You girl girl!

Was treated to a delightful breakfast at East London-God Save Brit Food with Joseph Hawkins  the Executive Director of LA´s One Institute who is in Europe to attend a conference in Amsterdam. So grateful he made a Berlin pitstop and we had a hoot of a girlish time gabbing about a myriad of subjects that include Mishima, Miwa Akihiro of the Black Lizard fame and the Knights of the Clocks which was the original Black & White Men Together group from back in the 1950s. Mr. Hawkins is a southern gal fluent in Japanese. He is also the boss of my dear Afro Sister Clitoris Turner aka Bud Thomas.

Just received this note from Hector Martinez who along with his lover Erica Pierce are in Israeli on holiday:
U would love this place. The Men are Hot! At every street corner u see a hot Rabbi doing Helicopters with their big Kosher Chorizo's!
This travel emug from Ernie Larsen of Sherrie & Ernie Fame:
Heat conspired with exhaustion to make the train ride from Thessaloniki to Athens seem cruelly extenuated.  We could only blame ourselves. We’d stayed up all the previous night preparing our video for an exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Art .  By the time (on the way to the train station) I’d dropped off the newly-burned  DVD at the museum I was beginning to regard the exhibition’s title, “It’s the Political Economy, Stupid,” as a direct accusation. 
The cabdriver, even as he was helping us grab our bags from the trunk of the taxi, was still gamely trying to persuade us to allow him to drive us all the way from Thessaloniki to Athens.  Was he desperate or sensible?  At what point in the affective economy does desperation become sensible?  We were tempted by the cabbie’s offer but we were meeting our friend and comrade Nikos at the station--and still imagined that a few hours of softly-rocking slumber in an air-conditioned  compartment would be renewing.
From Athens we took the crowded metro to the port of Piraeus. While crossing the street to pick up our tickets to Chania, Crete at the ferry office, Nikos pointed out a troika of dumpsters.  The graffiti read: ballot, ballot, ballot.
Over 35% of the Greek electorate decided not to vote in what’s considered the single most important election in a generation.  We were reminded of Saramago’s prophetic conceptual novel,  Essay on Lucidity (published in English under the mis-title Seeing), which (in case you haven’t read it) begins with an election in which nearly all the citizens of an unnamed city return blank or unmarked ballots to the ballot box — thereby causing a massive and ever-increasing crisis among all the political parties, not least within the governing party.  Voting by not voting, essentially.
Whoever in Piraeus produced this three-part visual essay on lucidity has in common with Saramago a sardonic awareness of the lethal delusion that continues to safeguard and perpetuate representative democracy.  Over 50% of Greek voters supported anti-austerity parties (including the 7% who voted for the fascist Golden Dawn). Contrary to international media reports, the pro-austerity ‘victory’ was on another level, an ignominious defeat, a legal fiction, not dissimilar to Saramago’s depiction of voting, a rank waste in the sense that the anonymous graffiti artist maintains. Doesn’t the recent Greek election demonstrate that the ballot box is more accurately a dumpster?
In the US, in which the political class lacks nearly as much credibility as its Greek counterpart, we are repeatedly urged by pundits and shills and liberals not to waste our ballot by refusing to vote.  The legal fiction of the Greek election (Victory to the losers!  Put the corrupt back in office again!)
is experienced by everyone we speak to here as a depressing aporia.  One indicator of an irreparable crisis: when legal fictions begin to proliferate like the vermin circulating around a dumpster filled with waste and ripening to a faretheewell in unbearable heat.  Or are we delirious?
 After we picked up our tickets we had plenty of time, before boarding, for a freddo capucchino.  The only café in the area was a Starbucks, which faced our waiting ferry.  Stupidly or not, we bit the bullet.  What choice did we have?  Three freddo capucchinos, please.  Voting in an election is also known as exercising the franchise.  However, Starbucks, now the world’s largest coffee shop chain, thanks to a billion or so people like us, is a corporation, not a franchise.  In the U.S. even though a corporation is, legally speaking, a person, it does not have the right to vote, though everybody knows that capital owns the capitol—all the capitols, in fact.  However, for what it’s worth, a franchise does not have the franchise, as such.  As Marx (Chico) pointedly and repeatedly asked during the depths of the last depression (1929), in a disquisition on real estate fraud (The Cocoanuts), “Why a duck?”  Still the most important question.  
And another missive from my god daughter Scarlet Rouge who is the child of Michele Lamy and Richard Newton:
Dear One and All
Since my last show took place in Torino, IT and many were unable to see it in the flesh
here are a few angular tastes of Origine Oscura in the gardens of La Venaria Reale. Modeled in the ceramic arts of ancient practices and cut in the industrial age of robotic hands, Origine Oscura is the united product of mythological stories and technological advancement. Origine Oscura is a goddess of ancient times distorted and affected by contemporary ailments. Initially created out of clay, she was laser cut into the disappearing marble of Vert de Mer, and as she searches for a soul in a seemingly soulless world, she unifying the "Goddess Triplicities". Personifying fertility, the cosmic womb, and the destroyer of illusions, three become one, Origine Oscura embodies the lost feminine, a disconnection with nature and owing to the anger of feeling abandon in abusive use she craves to consume. Helpless and face-less she asks you to reconnect to your deepest darkness and truest nature within. Vert de Mer and Black Marble, 30x30x192cm. HOP.E Art Jungle in the Giardini of La Venaria Reale  July 7th -September 2nd, 2012

loveScarlett Rouge

www.scarlettrouge.com

STÜMPEREI

"We´re milking applause instead of milking a cow. . . cuz we´re Babes on Broadway now!"  Hearty sentiments indeed at Rising Stars, Falling Stars-We Must Have Music with a screening of the 1941 Judy &Mickey flicker directed by cocaine addict extroidinaire Busby Berkeley with assist from Vicente Minnelli.  I hadn´t seen the film since the early 1970s, and boy was I in for a shocker with the final production number "Waiting on the Robert E. Lee".  I knew there was going to be a blackface minstrel number but wasn´t prepared for it being so long and tedious with icky Mickey Rooney mugging way beyond what is normal even for him.  And i had forgotten that Judy was in ugly blackface in male drag.  Later she switches to tanface along with the chorus girls which turned them all into variations of Shirley Bassey.  The movie is beyond ill but with standout performances from baby dyke Virginia Weidler, twinky hoofer Ray McDonald and handsome Richard Quine before he became the famous director of Bell Book & Candle.  There was even a cameo by a young Ava Gardner who was Mrs. Mickey Rooney at the time.  Kino 2 of Arsenal was packed to the rafters.  Among the Judy worshippers  Berlin legend Zazie De Paris looking like a juicy ingenue fresh from finishing school, art shtar Ali Jenka of the Austrian art kollektive Gelitin with his lovesexxy lover Baby Papi aka Gunther Gerdes and Bob Ostertag of the Kronos Quartet, Manuel Schubert of Filmhighlights Radio Magazine with posse, NYU scholar Tavia Nyongo, Aussie fashion stylist Catherine Baba, model Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor who is the daughter of Amanda de Cadenet and Duran Duran bassist John Taylor with male hooker/waitress/model/actress Noah Mills, singer Clair Boucher aka: Grimes with humpy young artist Christophe DeRohan Chabot fresh from his Um die Flache performance, Argentine model Melissa Stasiuk with skater boi Brian Davenport, the sizzling gaysian contingent of  Korean powertop Dredge Kang, forever bottom beauty Nguyen Tan Hoang and gorgeous music blogger Zackary Ching.  Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus was looking very well rested from her hiking holiday on a secret island paradise.  Miss Stefanie was surprised to see Phillip Krippendorf at RSFS with his 8 year old son.  She hadn´t seen him in over 18 years when he worked at the Academy Der Kunst. Everyone needed a drink to recover from the blackface and Mickey Rooney during the wine reception.  Uli Ziemons was his usual  charming charming self chatting with Julian Radlmeier of Chocolate Grinder Kollektive and his radiant Ukrainian wife while chanteuse Binki Shapiro from New York aggresively flirted with crooner  Bosco Del Rey who was wrapped up in the house of Daniel Hendrickson channeling Roger Edens on klavier during the intro portion of the film presentation. 
Hollywood Golden era film star Celeste Holm died age 95.  She started her career on Broadway in the early 1940s receiving much acclaim for playing Ado Annie in Oklahoma which led to a contract with 20th Century Fox under Daryl F. Zanuck and roles in musicals like Three Little Girls in Blue and Carnival in Costa Rica before landing meaty roles in Gentleman´s Agreement and All About Eve.
Daryl Zanuck´s son Richard D. Zanuck died age 77.  He produced Jaws, The Sting and Driving Miss Daisy and tried to pick me up in the late 1970s at the Backlot  of Studio One Disco in West Hollywood.  I was just a teenage queen at the time, and i think Mr. Zanuck thought i was a genetic girl.  Or maybe not.

GENEROUS CLITORIS


Tavia Nyongo the NYU Performance Studies professor who is here in La Berlina on a fellowship through the Humboldt Universite took me to the C/O Berlin Gallery for the Larry Clark Retrospective. I hardly ever go to Mitte the trendy section of Berlin, but had a nice time looking at the Clark show which is actually more revealing then one can imagine. The second floor collages featured a few made especially for this retrospectacle. You have to love the fact that Larry Clark wears his JoanJett Blackheart on his knotted veinsleeve. Seeing Corey Haim, Kristy McNicol, Matt Dillon and a young Terry Richardson interspersed with a Brad Renfro Memorial Room was a hoot and a half.
Jonathan Velasquez the nubile Latino skater boi is beyond beautiful and well worth the obsessive documentation. What I didn´t realize until seeing this exhibit is that Mr. Clark has literally known young Mr. Velasquez since he was a toddler. It seems as if its one of those classic Silverlake relationships where an older white dude lays title to an entire Latin familia ----taking care of parents, children and extended relations. Mr. Larry Clark is certainly one consistent everlasting secret horneliad.  How has he managed to get away with it all?  He must hold some major dirt on someone high up in the captals of industry or even the State Department.  Lord Love a Duck!

After the exhibit Tavia and I scarfed down some hate cake and coffee at the Cinema Café where we oogled a bunch of lovely French tourista boys and later ran into Uli Ziemons of Arsenal Institüt für film und Video Kunst who was out jeans shopping with his BFF Canadian artist Marc Pennock. Last night Uli was my date at the Arsenal´s Blaxploitation program which was packed beyond the rafters. It was wonderous seeing Cleopatra Jones and Coffy starring Tamara Dobsen and Pam Grier. Tonight I think I will return for the screening of Shaft and Shaft in Afrika. Earlier Friday Muslim warrior Daniel Hendrickson and I spent the entire daytime hours burrowing through the Arsenal Archives and discovered some rare gems that I can´t wait to present as part of Rising Stars, Falling Stars-We Must Have Music. 

Last week I saw a behavioural piece by the gifted young French boy beauty Christophe DeRohan Chabot, that wasn´t a traditional performance at all but a warm and carefull trek through Oranienplatz making situational discovery.

I very much loved how Christophe gently nudged his audience into a participatory role without being dogmatic and shrill and got them to break down their Berlin distance barriers----even my own. Christophe is becoming the male Lucia Joyce of the 21st Century moment and I am very proud of him as one of my former art students from Weissensee Art Akademy.

Received this cute note from Ernie Larsen:

In Berlin each morning we woke to the improvisations of little Domingo in his cage ringing changes from the basic canary songbook. Was Danny’s pet canary a genius? We couldn’t pretend to know why this caged bird sings so well but we could see this banner from Danny’s balcony in Neukoln.

Downstairs, a neighborly woman saw me taking this photo and would have narrated the history of the last decade of local resistance to landlord depredations if I understood much more German than widerstand and verboten, which I don’t. As it was she tried. She pointed to the balcony of her own apartment, four floors up. It was overflowing with well-tended plants and flowers. Despite the language barrier she made it clear that she was resisting her landlord’s campaign to eliminate her garden, which he inexplicably regarded as dangerous. Later Danny said that this landlord’s fear of nature run amok on balconies was becoming a phobia endemic among landlords in Neukoln. Since there is concerted resistance and spontaneous song even in Germany, could it be that conditions are less dire than we’ve begun to think? A rhetorical question.

***
This cute CHEAP note from Marc Siegel:
 
Dear CHEAP Friends,

it's not everyday that one gets a chance to see a Judy and Mickey musical, and one directed by Busby Berkeley no less (with Judy's numbers directed by her gay hubbie Vincente Minnelli)! And it's an even rarer treat to get to see such a musical not merely in the presence of but presented by Miss Vaginal Davis! So don't miss a great event this Sunday, July 22 at 9pm….
Vaginal Davis's Rising Stars, Falling Stars: We Must Have Music!
with BABES ON BROADWAY (Busby Berkeley, 1941)
starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney
…and featuring one of those greatly disturbing Blackface sequences that mark a number of Hollywood's musicals!
It must be seen to be believed!
And it must be seen with Vaginal Davis
on July 22 at 9pm
at the
Arsenal
Potsdamerstr. 2
http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/
http://www.vaginaldavis.com/
To prepare for the special event listen to Vaginal Davis's radio interview with Manuel Schubert at: http://i.mixcloud.com/CB9vnu

…and if you're not sick of Miss Davis by now, then go to the Meltdown festival in London on Aug. 10 for a special concert of Miss Davis's new band TENDERLOIN (which premiered at Camp/Anti-Camp) on a double bill with THE VOLUPTUOUS HORROR OF KAREN BLACK (who you loved or missed at Camp/Anti-Camp)
http://meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk/
warmly,
Marc

JALAPENA MARTINIS

Jewish Muslim Daniel Hendrickson cooked a quiet intimate Bastille Day menu at his NeuKölln compound that was just out of this unholy world. Enjoying the feast: Susanne Sachsse and Marc Siegel who are off to Kassel for Documenta and Ms. Sachsse after that will be in Poland where she will be on the Jury of an international film festival thats puts her up at a five star hotel.

here is the Bastille Day menu:
blue moon martinis
croutons with duxelles
green Levantine olives
steak tartare
Provençal gratin
cheese and onion pudding
apricot-cherry crumble
the last three all being recipes from the famous
San Francisco vegetarian gourmet restaurant
Greens.

Tavia Nyongo the NYU Performance Studies Professor took the doll to Santa Maria Mexican boite for a stylish meal the other day before I had to vamoose back on tourina.  We didnt drink Margaritas as I have been a tea toddler since April.  Congrats to me! 
Tavia is actually related to US president Barach Obama. Tavia´s father is a black African from Kenya and his mother is Anglo. I guess back in the 1960s a bunch of big peniled Africans came to study in the US and their dinosour dicks were so exquisite that they enchanted a host of impressionable white liberal American girls who were coming into their own element during the radical spirit of the 1960s. Ole´!!!!

When i went to my Weissensee student Christophe DeRohan Chabot´s art show at Oranianplatz I ran into my other ex Weissensee student Joanna Coppi and her personable Ozzie beau Axel from the band Team Plastique. Joanna is quite the young beauty with her sensous Ava Gardner lips. She is working on her Phd so is kept very busy these days. Joanna and Axel live exactly above Santa Maria Restaurant in a spacious flat that Joanna has decorated with very unique shelving units of her own design. The location of the flat is perfect in thats its close to everything fun in the Kreuzberg area.

GALOPOGOS ISLAND
Went to see my incredibly talented Weissensee student Christophe DeRohan Chabot´s graduate exhibition at Oranienplatz 17.  The curator of the show was the independent Berlin gay curator with a capital G-Frank Wagner.  I taught a block seminar at Weissensee back in 2007 and after meeting young teenage Christophe at the time i had him star in one of my short film portraits which was a huge hit in New York back in 2010 and elsewhere.  Christophe´s work is completely out there and one of a kind. 
About two years ago this local euroasian bon vivante named Nathan aka: Sick Tranny came to one of my Rising Stars events and swooped on Christophe, and the poor naive French kid hasn´t been the same sense.  Sick Tranny who has a rich elderly German boyfriend reminds me of Bobby Trendy in LA.   
Christophe told me Sick Tranny fed him so much bullshit lacquered in fake gold that it made his head spin, and now that he  has escaped the Sick Tranny´s clutches he needs to go into rehab from all the atrocities of too much gayness.  I wish i could have protected him, but what doesn´t kill you makes you stronger.
Spent a lovely time with big Daddy Ron Athey the other day at East London-God Save Brit Food.  We hung out at the boite from 4 to 10pm having father/daughter catch up.  Ron is in Berlin to get away from the insanity of London´s summer Olympics build up.  He took a club gig at Gegen which is part of the icky Kit Kat Klub.  Ron did a variation on his Trojan Whore piece.

UNDRESS CODES

Was invited to breakfast the other day by Richard Newton the ex husband of Michelle Lamy and filmmaker/performance artist of "Touch a Penis" fame.  I´ve known Richard and his Somali wife Lydia for ages and it was lovely meeting with them.  He was in Europe invited to a celebration of Ibsen´s A Doll´s House in Norway.  I starred in a LA Fringe Festival production of A Doll´s House  and subsequent experimental film that Newton adapted back in 1985.  The production also featured Nancye Ferguson, Glen Meadmore, Brian Doyle Murphy, with cinematography by Eric Engler (The Color Purple)and a 3 year old Scarlette Rouge(the daughter of Newton and Michelle Lamy).  It seems that the good people of Norway have rediscovered Newton´s version and consider it a stellar rendition of the play.
Saturday I braved the deluge venturing to Haus der Kulturen der Welt´s pregnant Oyster to see their Europen Festival.  My good friend the beautiful Italian artist and curator Janez Jansa aka:  Davide Grassi who lives with his producer wife Marcella in Slovenia presented his lecture performance: NAME Readymade where he and several other Slovenian artist have appropriated the name of the right wing  conservative prime minister Janez Jansa since 2007 with hilarious hijinks resulting.  Davide´s presentation was nothing short of  brilliant, and he has such a charming manner on stage that immediately illicits the sympathies of the audience.  Also from Slovenia was a lecture by artist Misko Suvakovic called Asymmetries-Concepts, Metaphors and Ideological Diffferences-which was hyterically funny and profound. The last lecture I listened to was by a handsome, small boned Persian man whose name was not on the program who presented an insightful and humorous talk called Reverse Joy disecting the  Shiá rituals in the month of Muharran.  Very unusual for Germany is that the presentations were all clocked in under 30 minutes which should be adhered to more often.  Afterward i hung out with Davide and his lovely friends in the Haus der Kulturan Cafe and talked to Christin Lahr a Berlin based artist who works with independent curator Frank Wagner.  I loved her concept of using bank transfers as a mode of art commentary.  Ran Flemmish royal Koen Claerhout who is part of the programming at Haus der Kulturan and he told me a short cut to Potsdamer Platz through the Tiergarten to catch Eunice Martin´s Living Archive presentation at the Arsenal called "Pieces for the Archive" a live concert with Mehmet Can Özer on live-electronics.  Ms. Martin was in fine form playing both klavier and harmonium and the choice of films including the famous Richard Serra short of the Portland Oregon turnbridge transporting.  After the film concert there were more lively discussions in the atrium of the Arsenal with Markus Ruff, Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Daniel Hendrickson, Marc Siegel, Susanne Sachsse and the Gregors. 
Bob Ostertag of the Kronis Quartet was in town and came to the Living Archive event.  I hadn´t seen Bob since we shared a brief flirtation in the late 90s in San Francisco for Wigstock West.  

ES LEBE DIE LIEBE

Attended the first two days of the Independent Arab Short Films and Media Art Festival at the Arsenal with Jewish Muslim Daniel Hendrickson and fearless leader of CHEAP Susanne Sachsse.  Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus has scored a coup with 61 Arab Films that will be distributed through Arsenal Experimental.  Miss Stefanie  and the Schulte Strathaus dynasty has far reaching tentacles  in the Arab world and Cairo, Egypt in particular that is very intriguing and Stefanie has matered Arabic which she used to great affect on the opening night during her introductions.
My favorites so far in the program has been the films The Valley by Firas Taybeh and With Soul,With Blood bý Rabih Mroue also Children of Fire by Mohammed Hawajiri was quite lovely and the forelorn Rice City by Sherif Al Azma which featured the illest histrionic queen with overly plucked eyebrows speaking Italian in a film noir villa along with a glum young woman in a designer dress and an andrygenous African refugee. 

ARM ABER LOVESEXXXXY
Piero Bellomo and Daniel the Jewish Muslim put up some shelving in my Cheese Endique Trifecta and it looks amazing with my high ceilings.  Afterwards we went for coffee and cake at a new Italian cafe on Akazien Strasse that was very charming.
Later i went to HAU for their Abschlussfest end of the 2012 season and farewell to itendant(spelling?) Artistic Director Mattias Lienthal.  It was definately the end of a Hera for Berlin with Mattias´departure for greener pastures and a lot of his staff were overcome with emotion like Stefanie Wenner and Anna Mülter.  It was way too hot and humid for me to stay inside HAU 1 for the programblauf and speeches by Berlin´s dull gay Burgermeister Klaus Wolvereit.  I just came for the free nosh that included tasty vegi-burgers.  Hanging out with my CHEAP comrades Marc Siegel, Susanne Sachsse, Daniel Hendrickson and kJohnny Blue Tenderloin´s blondine hunk Felix Knoke and his posse of young cuties.  Enjoying the warm summer evening Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Uli Ziemons and his ladylove, Nazli Kalerci, Senol Senturk, Haus of World Kulture´s Nadja Talmi & Koen Claerhout, HAU´s Katrin Dod and Meike Harmsen.  Seen dancing during my DJane set late in the evening, the delightful British artist Phil Collins and crew, the lovely Mrs. Harum Farochi who is such a personable good time Sally and white wine affecionado,handsome Israeli artist Yael Bertrana and wife Saskia, Peaches and her big peniled beau Connie, dancer/choreographer Jeremy Wade and my sizzling talented NYU graduate art students who are in Berlin for a workshop before going back to Paris for a summer fellowship.
After DJaning the thunder, lightening and torrential rain made it impossible for me to get home so i took a disco nap in my dressing room till things subsided.  The party raged on and was the most crowded I have ever seen the WAU cafe.  Everyone was in a joyous mood even the most sour of Teutonic types who never smile and look like they are in a perpetual state of glum und drang loosened up.
The new regime at HAU will most likely make it more normative so that means that a door has certainly closed there for this lady and kollective CHEAP.  I was doing pieces at HAU from its beginnings as a new Berlin art bastion so i have some great memories, or is that mammaries.

ICH WEISS NICHT; ZU WEM ICH GEHÖRE


Last nite my date to the Talking Eyes lecture series presented by The Research Group Visual Culture was none other then the infamous Jewish Muslim Daniel Hendrickson of kollective CHEAP who is also the favored translator to all the academic shtars of the world. A little known fact about Daniel is that he is mulatto. You can see it in his phat juicy ass and giant penile swagger. One of his nephews also has subtle Negroid features. A lot of white people from the South have black in them, but are unaware of it due to light skinned black ancestors who were successful in passing for white, but alas black features have a habit of sometimes skipping a generation and pop up at the oddest and most inconvenient moments.

Daniel and I began the evening with dinner at a cute Indian boite on Akazien Strasse that features the saddest waiter in the world, then we went peddle mad on our bicycletas to see the Berlin premiere screening of United in Anger-A History of Act Up by the wonderous Jim Hubbard of New York and writer Sarah Schulman. Mr. Hubbard was in the audience and after the screening was very gracious and looked swellegant during the Q&A. Berlin Q&A´s can sometime feature a lot of showboaters, but there were also some series questions asked. I loved that Manuel Schubert of FilmHighlights Radio Magazine asked why the Panorama Section of the Berlinale didn´t accept the film back in February.

I found the film exceptionally moving, educational and informative. The film didn´t shy away from the sexual energy at play at Act Up, and gave credit to the many women whose expertise and leadership gave the movement its gravitas as well as people of color plus the class divide in the gay world that tends to be ignored. Maxine Wolf´s voice in the film was a standout, but it was also great to see people I know like Catherine Gund Saalfield, Douglas Crimp, Greg Bordowitz and Maria Majente.

In the 1980s my New York mentor was the late former model and fashionstylist/accessories designer George Byron aka: Mommy. Mommy along with others like Hudson of Feature Gallery financed my trips to New York during that era. Mommy and his boyfriend once lived in the same apartment building as Richard Gere and his then girlfriend Penelope Milford the forgotten actress who was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for Coming Home. Whenever I was in New York I went with Mommy to the Act Up meetings and they were electrifying, so different from the west coast Act Up and Queer Nation.

The concept and organization of Talking Eyes series was based at DFG Graduate School of ´Gender as a Category of Knowledge`at Humboldt-University in Berlin with Nana Adusei-Poku, Lukas Engelmann, Marietta Kesting, Katrin Köppert, Anne-Julia Schoen and Todd Sekuler.

Earlier in the morning I was treated to breakfast at Café Berio by my handsome NYU Performance Studies Phd student Joshua Lubin Levy who was one of my young collaborators on the New York edition of VD is Speaking From the Diaphragm at PS 122 back in 2010. It was invigorating to hang out with Josh and his super hot patrician looking blondine lover and their Danish friend. After breakfast we went by the Christopher Isherwood flat in Nollendorky Platz and ran into Edwin Seth Brown a good friend and associate of Warhol superstar Bibbe Hansen. Mr. Brown is a hysterically funny black status queen who lives in Berlin only during the spring and summer, in the cold months he is back in Los Angeles where he languishes in hauteur splendour. La Seth Brown works for some kind of corporate entity the specifics of I can never remember, but he makes tons of filthy lucre---god bless him.

Josh and his posse will be going on to Leeds for an art conference but will be back in Berlin for a bit in early July.

***

Looking for something to do in Berlin?. Here are some suggestions sent to me via emug:

Yaaay!

Paper & Iron Booking, La Moustache and Marie-Antoinette present:

SCREAMING FEMALES

OPA

July 4 @ Marie-Antoinette (Bogen 47, Holzmarktstr.15-18, Berlin 10179) doors: 9pm, show: 10pm

SCREAMING FEMALES (Proper Rock/US)

Dass sich Screaming Females in den Kellern ihrer Heimatstadt New Brunswick, NJ am wohlsten fühlen, hat sie nicht davon abgehalten, innerhalb von sieben Jahren mit fünf Alben (das neuste: "Ugly" von Steve Albini produziert)und 700 Konzerten Stück für Stück die coolen Musikszenen dieser Welt und nebenbei noch die internationale Presse zu erobern. Egal, was sie machen, mit ihrer unbekümmerten Energie rütteln die Screaming Females so wild und heftig an deinem Schreibtischstuhl, dass du nicht sitzen bleiben kannst. Sängerin Marissa Paternoster wurdevom amerikanischen Rolling Stone als Antwort auf das Ende Sleater-Kinneys bezeichnet und damit könnten die verdammt recht haben. Grund genug, mal herauszufinden, was an die Wand spielen eigentlich bedeutet.

www.screamingfemales.com

OPA (Punk/Berlin)

OPA are a brand new punk outfit that you haven't heard of yet because they're clever and know that for a thrilling band like them there's no better place than the rehearsal room. They are fast and loud, straightforward and know when to keep a speed and when to let go of it.

http://soundcloud.com/eine-welt-aus-hack/opa-bosniaque-two

Presale tickets: http://www.koka36.de/Screaming%20Females_ticket_47774.html FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/307190109360078/

***

Newsletter Living Archive –

Archivarbeit als künstlerische und kuratorische Praxis der Gegenwart / Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice

In diesem Newsletter möchten wir Sie über zwei Veranstaltungen informieren. Am 1. Juli findet die Vorführung des Films ZU FRÜH, ZU SPÄT von Danièle Huillet und Jean-Marie Straub (Frankreich / Ägypten 1989) statt. Ala Younis, derzeit Stipendiatin des Goethe-Instituts, wird diesen Film gemeinsam mit dem Living-Archive-Teilnehmer Tobias Hering diskutieren. Am 7. Juli präsentiert Eunice Martins den ersten Teil ihres Projekts in Zusammenarbeit mit Mehmet Can Özer: "Pieces for the Archive", eine Live-Komposition mit Kurzfilmen aus dem Arsenal-Archiv.

In this newsletter we would like to inform you about two upcoming events. On July 1, a screening of Straub's and Huillet's ZU FRÜH, ZU SPÄT (Too Early / Too Late) will be presented and discussed by Ala Younis and Tobias Hering. On July 7, Eunice Martins will present the first part of her project in collaboration with Mehmet Can Özer. "Pieces for the Archive", a live composition drawing on short films from the Arsenal archive.

Weitere Informationen zu „Living Archive – Archivarbeit als künstlerische und kuratorische Praxis der Gegenwart“ finden Sie auf unserer Webseite: http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/living-archive/news.html

You can find further information about „Living Archive – Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice“ on our website: http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/living-archive.html

For English version see below!

ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT, Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, Frankreich / Ägypten 1980, dt. OF, 16mm, 104 min

Anschließend Diskussion mit Ala Younis und Tobias Hering (Sprache Englisch)

1. Juli, 16.15 Uhr in Kino Arsenal 1

„Über eine Revolution sprechen, wie es dazu kam, was darauf folgte. 1980 drehten Jean-Marie Straub und Danièle Huillet in Frankreich und Ägypten einen Film über verblasste und verpasste Revolutionen, ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT. Im Laufe des Jahres 2011 wurde dieser Film verschiedentlich wiederentdeckt als vermeintlich zeitgemäßer Kommentar auf die revolutionären Ereignisse in Ägypten und andernorts. Einige Kommentatoren sprachen ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT im Licht der aktuellen Ereignisse visionären Charakter zu. Das Screening im Arsenal soll diese jüngste Wahrnehmung des Films kritisch befragen; es ist als eine Einladung gedacht, seinen Ort und seine Zeitlichkeit neu zu diskutieren, und dabei auch auf seinen Produktionsprozess, seine Distribution und seine Rezeptionsgeschichte zu reflektieren.“ (Ala Younis, Tobias Hering)

ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT ist ein Film in zwei Teilen (Teil 1 : Friedrich Engels; Teil 2 : Mahmud Hussein). Teil 1 basiert auf einem Brief von Engels an Kautsky, Teil 2 auf Ausschnitten aus dem Buch „Luttes sociales en Egypte“ von Mahmud Hussein.

Engels setzt den historischen Verlauf der Französischen Revolution von 1789 – wer diese Revolution gemacht hat und wer von ihr profitiert hat – in Beziehung zur Einkommens- und Lebenssituation der französischen Land- und Stadtbevölkerung zu diesem Zeitpunkt. Mahmud Hussein skizziert die Geschichte der ländlichen und städtischen Revolten im Ägypten des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts bis zum Nasserschen Staatsstreich von 1952. Die Straubs haben die historischen Orte, um die es in den Texten geht, wieder aufgesucht und Bilder und Töne aus dem Frankreich und Ägypten der Gegenwart zu diesen Texten in Beziehung gesetzt.

PIECES FOR THE ARCHIVE

Live-Komposition von Eunice Martins und Mehmet Can Özer mit Kurzfilmen

7. Juli, 20 Uhr in Kino Arsenal 1

Eunice Martins präsentiert den ersten Teil ihres Living-Archive-Projekts: „Pieces for the Archive“, eine Live-Komposition mit Kurzfilmen aus dem Arsenal Archiv. Ausgehend von diesen Kurzfilmen, die mit Bild und Ton und deren Kombination / Abwesenheit experimentieren, entsteht live im Kinoraum ein Stück mit Eunice Martins (Piano) und Mehmet Can Özer (Live-Elektronik), das reflektiert, dialogisiert, sich abwendet oder pausiert.

Die Filme des Programms:

SUSAN THROUGH CORN, Kathleen Laughlin, USA 1974, 16mm, ohne Dialog, 2 min

TAILS, Paul Sharits, USA 1976, 16mm, stumm, 4 min

4000 FRAMES – AN EYE OPENER FILM, Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, Australien 1970, 16mm, ohne Dialog, 3 min

RAILROAD TURNBRIDGE, Richard Serra, USA 1975/76, 16mm, stumm, 17 min

LA MARCHE DES MACHINES, Eugène Deslaw, Frankreich 1928, 16mm, stumm, 7 min

EYE MYTH EDUCATIONAL, Stan Brakhage, USA 1972, 16mm, stumm, 2 min

LIGHTS, Marie Menken, USA 1964/65, 16mm, stumm, 6 min

SAILBOAT, Joyce Wieland, Kanada 1968, 16mm, ohne Dialog, 3 min

English version

ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT (Too Early / Too Late), Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub, France/Egypt 1980, German OV, 16mm, 104 min

Afterwards discussion with Ala Younis and Tobias Hering (in English)

July 1, 4.15 pm, Arsenal Cinema 1

„How to speak of a revolution, the times before, the times that followed it. Made in 1981 on faded French and Egyptian revolutions, the rarely seen film ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet was proposed through several screenings in 2011 as a timely means to open up and reflect on the events that had recently culminated in revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere. Many commentators praised the film for foreseeing the current, present, moment. However this screening at Arsenal is meant to take a critical perspective on these claims and to investigate how the film can be positioned in relation to its production process, temporality, circulation, and appreciation.“ (Ala Younis, Tobias Hering)

ZU FRÜH / ZU SPÄT is a film in two parts (part 1 : Friedrich Engels; part 2 : Mahmud Hussein). Part 1 is based on a letter written by Engels to Kautsky and part 2 on excerpts of the book „Luttes sociales en Egypte" by Mahmud Hussein.

Engels describes the development of the French Revolution in 1989 – who initiated it and who profited from it – in relation to the income and living standards of the french rural and urban population at that moment. Mahmud Hussein outlines the history of the rural and urban revolts in Egypt in the 19th and 20th century until the 1952 military coup d'état. Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub revisited the historical places mentioned in those texts and related images and sounds recorded in France and Egypt in the present to the texts.

PIECES FOR THE ARCHIVE

Live Composition by Eunice Martins and Mehmet Can Özer with short films

July 7, 8 pm, Arsenal Cinema 1

Eunice Martins presents the first part of her Living Archive project. „Pieces for the Archive“, a live composition drawing on short films from the Arsenal archive. Taking these short films as a starting point, which themselves experiment with image and sound and how they can be combined or treated separately, a performance piece will be created live by Eunice Martins (piano) and Mehmet Can Özer (Live-electronics) in the auditorium which reflects, enters into dialogue with, departs from or pauses the short films included in the program.

The following films are part of the program:

SUSAN THROUGH CORN, Kathleen Laughlin, USA 1974, 16mm, without dialogue, 2 min

TAILS, Paul Sharits, USA 1976, 16mm, silent, 4 min

4000 FRAMES – AN EYE OPENER FILM, Arthur & Corinne Cantrill, Australia 1970, 16mm, without dialogue, 3 min

RAILROAD TURNBRIDGE, Richard Serra, USA 1975/76, 16mm, silent, 17 min

LA MARCHE DES MACHINES, Eugène Deslaw, France 1928, 16mm, silent, 7 min

EYE MYTH EDUCATIONAL, Stan Brakhage, USA 1972, 16mm, silent, 2 min

LIGHTS, Marie Menken, USA 1964/65, 16mm, silent, 6 min

SAILBOAT, Joyce Wieland, Canada 1968, 16mm, without dialogue, 3 min

"Living Archive – Archivarbeit als künstlerische und kuratorische Praxis der Gegenwart" wird gefördert durch die Kulturstiftung des Bundes und die Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin. Das Stipendiatenprogramm des Projekts Living Archive wird gefördert durch das Goethe-Institut.

„Living Archive – Archive Work as a Contemporary Artistic and Curatorial Practice“ is funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation and the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin. The grant program of the project Living Archive is funded by the Goethe-Institut.

Für weitere Informationen / Further information

Markus Ruff
Projektkoordination

030 269 55 282
mr@arsenal-berlin.de oder livingarchive@arsenal-berlin.de

Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V.
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin
www.arsenal-berlin.de



Hinweis zum Abonnement / Regarding your subscription

Diesen Newsletter können Sie jederzeit auf unserer Webseite abbestellen: http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/service/newsletter.html

You can unsubscribe this newsletter on our website: http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/service/newsletter.html

Please feel invited!



*

And this little item from one of my brilliant former Weissensee Art Akademy students

WHERE: Museum für angewandte Kunst

Schaumainkai 17, Franfurt am Main, Germany

Mi 27.6., 19 Uhr Eröffnung: Entdeckung Korea!

Schätze aus deutschen Museen

Die Ausstellung „Entdeckung Korea!“ zeigt erstmals verborgene Schätze aus zehn deutschen Museen ‐ koreanische Kunst vom 6. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Dabei werden mehr als einhundert hochkarätige Werke der Malerei, Kalligraphie, Skulptur, Keramik, Textil-, Lack- und Metallkunst sowie Möbel, Holz- und Jadeobjekte gezeigt.

Zur Vernissage führen die Künstler Anne Duk Hee Jordan und

Hong Yoo ihre Performance „Das Lied der Leere“ auf. Auf der

koreanischen Traversflöte Daegeum begleitet Hong Yoo mit dem

Stück Jeongseonggok (wörtlich “das Stück mit der klaren Stimme”) die Kalligraphieperformance von Anne Duk Hee Jordan, in der sie die buddhistische Idee der Leere aufnimmt.

***
And please sign up for this hot opportunity to take a photo workshop with one of my sizzling ex NYU students who is working in New York and Paris but will be in Berlin soon.

(info taken from: http://berlincollective.de/consultation/art-related-business)


PHOTOGRAPHY>>>>>>>>>>

WORKSHOP DATES: July 6 & 7, 2012 (Times to be announced upon registration)

POLAROID INSTANT FILM PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP

This 2 day workshop will focus on the hands-on experimentation with the newly obsolete photographic process of working with instant film. Polaroid ceased production of its legendary instant film in 2008, leading to new digital phenomenons like the Instagram App available through mobile devices, to re-live the nostalgia associated with the rich look of Polaroid photographs. This course will allow students to rediscover analog photography in a digital world without the need of a darkroom. Within the workshop we will practice image lift/transfers, classic manipulation and other creative techniques with instant film.

MATERIALS:

Polaroid Camera, PX Film Silver or Color shades, Exacto knife, scissors, hair dryer, brushes, acid-free paper

Workshop Breakdown:

DAY 1:

Introduction and brief history on the use of instant film and Polaroid photography in Contemporary Art.

Discussion of Materials, basics of analog photography: light, film speeds and contrast, composition, using your Polaroid camera correctly.

Weather permitting we will take a tour of different sites in Berlin (Templehof Former Airport now public park) to photograph nature, architecture, people, whatever your heart desires!

DAY 2:

Practice of several creative process using your instant photographs:

Turning your instant film into a transparency (works best when your film is at least 24 hrs old)

Emulsion lift technique where you will remove the image from your film and apply it to another photographic surface where you can later add other artistic materials to complete your piece.

Cost: 20 euros per day. The instructor will purchase polaroid cameras for you at a discounted rate on Ebay, if you agree. The cameras can be borrowed as well and discussed once you have registered.

Artist/ Instructor Bio:

Jessica Gispert is an artist originally from Miami, FL, works with video, photography, sculpture, and installation. Currently she lives and works in New York City and Paris. She received her MFA from New York University and has exhibited in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. Since 2009, she has specialized in photographic technique, Gispert has been teaching Black + White and Color analog photography, as well as Digital photography, at New York University Steindhardt since 2009.

Jessica Gispert: http://creeper-blog.tumblr.com

THE GENDER TROLL AND BUGGY FARM

Last nights Rising Stars, Falling Stars-We Must Have Music screening of the 1985 Chantal Ackerman musical Golden Eighties was an SRO delight.  The film which stars a radiant Delphine Seyrig captivated the crowd even though there were no English or German subtitles for this French speaking romp.  The VIP celebrity quotient in the audience was high with stellar appearances by New York royalty Ela Troyano and Uzi Parnes whose closing program of their IntroSpective at Arsenal was full of wonder and surpirse with screenings of Carmelita Gets the Spirit(1988) Loisaida Lusts (1985) and Jack Smith in the Silence of Marcel Duchamp(2010).  Seen chittle chatting with the power tag team of Ela&Uzi the gorgeous curator Dorothee Wenner, Daniel Hendrickson, Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Uli Ziemons and the stunning experimental filmmaker Pauline Beaudry with hot girl gang posse.  Also seen:  the manlische art porn shtar Colby Keller of the lovesexxxy  blogina Big Shoe Diaries.  Mr. Keller is one dynamic ginger boy who is virility plus and very John Wayne is big leggy with tragic gay mulatto actor Wentworth Miller.  Straight from Art Basel the pretty British artist Hilary Lloyd, junior art star Jeremy Shaw, dealer JeanClaude Freymond-Guth  Whitney Museum curator Scott Rothkopf, and Little Alex Telemachos of Macedonia and the Chocolate Grinder Kollective who did a fab job on Ms. Davis hair and make-up. The VD doll was sporting a Slauson Super Mall multi-colored $1.99 frock which was a gift from her West of Rome assistant Daniel Flores Estrella, on her clop hoppers Rick Owens wedgies that were especially designed for her.

NEVER TRAVEL ON A ONE WAY TICKET

Last night saw the amazing intro Spective on the dynamic East Village art tag team of Ela Troyano & Uzi Parnes.  Kudos to Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus for bringing this standout program to Berlin.  Its just what the city needs.  I unfortunately missed the opening and the La Lupe Queen of Latin Soul (2007)film which everyone is talking about.  During Camp/Anti-Camp I had already seen Carmelita Tropicana:  Your Kunst Is Your Waffen which is hilarious and stars the divine Carmelita who is Ela´s sensationally talented sister.  I feel horrible that I missed Uzi´s Structuralism & Sex Program of lovesexxxy shorts. 

Thank god I was able to see Uzi´s magnificent queer love home movies that includes the slide show Sex Piers, Queer Love Poem (1991) that features a stunning Latin youth lust object, the mad cap Seven Days with the Same Dick (1992) Happy Mother´s Day (1993) the disturbingly transcendent Batterer(1995) and triumphantly personal Memorimort (2010)

It was also a treat and pleasure to watch Ela´s 1997 feature Latin Boys Go to Hell which was produced by Jurgen Brunning who also did a fab job as moderator in conversation with Ela after the zany David Does Venus(1984-1989) and another rare short subject flicker featuring a riotious Nick Zedd.  When the brilliant Tante Jurgen is on, he is really ON!!!!!  Daniel Hendrickson was also charming during his Q&A with Uzi.  In the audience:  Empress Stefanie, Uli Ziemons and Pauline Beaudry and an assortment of German, & Greeks trying to escape from football madness.

Tonight is the last evening of the intro Spective with a joint program that includes some rarely seen classix like Carmelita Gets the Spirit (1988) and Loisaida Lusts(1985) and perhaps some surprises, so come on down to historic Potsdamer Platz for your ElaUzi fixxxx.

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My interview with Manuel Schubert for internet radio program Film Highlights:

 http://www.mixcloud.com/filmanzeiger/rising-stars-falling-stars-with-vaginal-davis-june-2012/

Manuel Schubert • filmanzeiger • filmhighlights
» filmanzeiger.de

» filmhighlights - das Kinomagazin

THE RUSHMORE ACADEMY

Just found out that Susan Tyrell died.  I adored SuSu the talented actress who was nominated for an academy award in  1972 for her role in the John Huston film Fat City.  SuSu and I starred in DeCoupage in the late 1980s the cable access TV show by the brilliant Craig Roose aka:  Miss Summer Caprice where we played mother and daughter frug champions.  The episode I believe is on YouTube if you care to see it. 
SuSu lost both of her legs about a decade ago.  I will always remember her performances in Andy Warhol's Bad, the new wave musical  Forbidden Zone where she played Queen Doris, Islands in the Stream opposite George C. Scott &Trish Van Devere, and John Waters Cry Baby. SuSu was one hell of a good time Sally and I miss her.
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I forgot to mention I had seen the new Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom which is simply beautiful to behold.  I predict that the young ingenue Kara Heywood who looks like a tweenage ZacKary Drucker will become a huge shtar.  Her male co-star Jared Gilman also shows promise. Cinematographer Robert Yeoman is a gifted artist who has lit the picture with an orange toast glow and the original score by Alexandre Desplat----Yowzina!
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Remember to come to Arsenal Inst fuer film und Video Kunst for the Ela Troyano/Uzi Parnes Retrospectacle that continues until Saturday. I missed the opening as I had a meeting with my former editor Robin Podalsky who is going to become a queer Rabbi, but I will be there tonight and I can't wait to witness the conversation between Mr. Parnes and Daniel Hendrickson the Jewish/Muslim of CHEAP kollective.  Sunday  at 9pm as part of Rising Stars, Falling Stars-We Must Have Music is a delish screening of Chantal Ackerman's 1985 musical Golden Eighties which in the States was called Window Shopping for whatever reason.

DIE FLIEGENDE DOSER

That hot experimental film duo of Uzi and Ela of the East Village are in town this week to present a
INTROspective of their work, three nights in a row at Arsenal Inst fuer film und Video Kunst. They will be showing both their individual as well as collaborative work from June 21 to 23!  So take this hot tip and do yourself a favor and see the great Ela Troyano and lovesexy Uzi Parnes.  Your life depends upon it.

Oops i forgot to mention that Hamburg based filmmaker Peter Ott was also at the Commi Biggi Art Basel presentation last week at the Kaserne Theatre.  I just can't keep up with all these celebutants.

Had a wonderful dinner and catch up the other evening with legendary experimental filmmaker Wilhelm Hein and his hot art photog girlfriend Annette Frick.  The two have been showing work all over Europe to large enthusiastic young crowds as a new generation comes under their magical/mystical spell of outsider art appeal.  Consider yourself lucky if Wilhelm & Annette make a pitstop in your town.