KEIN SCHNICK SCHNACK

KEIN SCHNICK SCHNACK
Nich kieken, koofen
To catch a thief of a glimpse of a strapping Arabian lad freshly gym pumped and eyebrow plucked, i sprang into full throttle stalking mode following discreetly behind him and his delicious rump roasterierre to Bostonian Market perfection.

I got ahead of him to gaze a plenty on his handsome hawk like face and bodacious tat-as - heavy on the cleveland with the most divine musculature West of the Rhine. I thought I lost him when he scurried through a construction sight at the end of Yorkstrasse and Potsdamer Strasse. Alas our glorious jeanne jeannie had only sat down in a bus enclosure to wait for the 185 to the Haupt Banhoff.I kept close eye on him until he and his muscles boarded and off he went Forever Amber out of my life just like Linda Darnell in the 20th Century Fox adaptation of Kathleen Windsor's scandalous novel.

My teutonic patrician cousin Norman Ghoulsen von Holtzendorf sent me some wonderful reading material via post in the form of Duncan MacLeod's Agnes in the Fifth Bordo. Mr. MacLeod besides writing novels is a singer / songwriter in the alt country indie rock sensations The Acres. His other books are 5150: Transfer, Half, M3x1 (0, A Quarter and Seventh Avenue South.  He also mailed me Amanda Brainerd's Age of Consent.  Lord Love a Duck Choate/Rosemary's Bleacher Creatures from the 1980's.

On my nightstand is also A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell sent to me by artist supreme and Art Forum's number one journalista Alex Jovanovich .

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Here are some more art exhibitions I recommend you check out:

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff
German Theater 2010–2020
Fri Art Kunsthalle , Friborg, Switzerland

September 5 - November 8, 2020
Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff
in
Lost in America
nbk , Berlin, Germany

September 10, 2020 - January 17, 2021
Opening: Wednesday, September 9, 12pm
Wu Tsang
in Radical Passivity: Politics of the Flesh
ngbk , Berlin, Germany

11 September - 1 November 2020
Hannah Black in
The Refuge: Waiting for New Beginnings

Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff
in The School: The Sonorous, The Audible and The Silenced
Venues: Bar Le Perrin, Chez Fun Funk, La Brasserie Communale
MANIFESTA 13 , Marseille, France
11 September - 29 November 2020

Seth Price
Dedicated to Life
Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, Germany
12 September - 17 October 2020
Gallery Weekend:
Saturday, September 12 and Sunday, September 13
12pm - 7pm

Juliette Blightman and Anthony Silvester
in BOUNDARIES (for your dance)
Fridericianum , Kassel, Germany
Performance / Concert is part of FF - Live at the Fridericianum
24 September 2020, 7am - 8pm

Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
in MONOCULTURE - A Recent History
M HKA , Antwerp, Belgium
25 September 2020 - 24 January 2021

NACHRUF

NACHRUF
Faule Ausrede

The weather warmed up a bit, but not too much, and our heroine Ms. Molyneaux found herself mysteriously at the Skater Anlagen in Park am Gleisdreieck where she became enthralled by a tight bodied little minx of a blondine boy juggling white puffy balls on the basketball court. Didn’t expect such a sight at 11am on a Wednesday. The lad was shirtless with a mindlessly flat stomach and valley girl coum gutters you could laundry a small village upon. Lest one forget to mention his convenient bubble asstrovar. A derrière to build a dream on.

For those in Berlin proper looking for something fascinating to partake in during the waning days of summer you would be doing yourself a giant favour to check out the latest instalment of the the performative film series by the art collective Discoteca Flaming Star. Below is the 505:

Discoteca Flaming Star

Continuous Rehearsal (Public) / (Ingrids Web_Hospital install 2)

Sunday, September 13, 18.00 -21.00

District

Bessemerstraße 2-14

12103 Berlin

T +49 30 547742-35

http://www.district-berlin.com/en/Subject line: The Gay Divorcee

Starting from a design that thought about the mixing of bodies in space at a distance and their digital transmission, the injured collective Discoteca Flaming Star will create a WEB_HOSPITAL, or a third test for it. It is for its imaginary member INGRID, a place for new forms of closeness for the collective and the audience alike, a setting for a (scattered) body that cannot be whole at the moment.

With the WEB_HOSPITAL we would like to create a hospital together with and for our performance figure INGRID. As a partly fictional figure, partly a real group member, tragedy, comedy and pathos overlap in her, as in the individual layers of a Max Beckmann painting, she is multifaceted and unrhymed. The hospital forms a metaphorical space in which the injured body of our collective can be placed under care. A space for action is created in order to act in the concrete context and semiotics of the current crisis - a crisis of care and a crisis of the commons. Here we treat current events and aspects of the crisis of care not as a mere topic, but as a series of socio-political conditions that influence our bodies. "Politics are a book of fiction in which the book is our own body" (Preciado).

In an institutional hospital, patients are kept apart to prevent infection. A similar isolation is demonstrated by windows in video chat and web screens. We will experiment within this framework, overcoming them conceptually and aesthetically with artistic operations. The WEB_HOSPITAL will be a reservoir for fictions and testimonies of our crisis experiences.

We want to discover new forms of proximity, of working and living together. We will respect our fears of encountering each other and the audience in order to overcome them together.

Link Trailer WEB_HOSPITAL: https://vimeo.com/422143732

Link Trailer INGRID: http://www.discotecaflamingstar.com/arbeit/ingrid-2/

Discoteca Flaming Star (DFS) is an interdisciplinary and collaborative collective of artists* using songs and other forms of oral expression, understanding them as a personal response to historical events and social and political realities. Through conceptual, visual and musical translations, DFS has been creating sculptures, performances, video works, drawings, stages and situations since 1998. Current members: Sebastian Bodirsky (video editor), Cristina Gómez Barrio (concept, music, live performance), Sofia Lomba (concept, video-acting, music, live performance), Wolfgang Mayer (concept, texts, live performance), Sara Pereira (concept, sound design, music, live performance), Anike Joyce Sadiq (video, display, special effects) and Lorenzo Sandoval (production, mediation, display, texts)

In recent years we have been intensively engaged with the performance and film figure INGRID as a kind of palimpsest of the possibilities of being. The figure is embodied by one of us in the film, but so far without a voice of her own. She develops in live performances with improvised music, sounds and her read biographical notes. Ingrid refers in part to the late B-movie actress Ingrid Rabel, in part to the characters and fictions played by her, in part to the fictional extensions we add.

2018-2020: Ingrid (live): FFT Düsseldorf, Diaphanes, Foreign Countries, Savvy Contemporary Hamburger Bahnhof (all Berlin). Vampire Thrillogy: Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Rio de Madrid Tier Space, n.b.k Berlin (both Berlin). Sticky Stage: Hospitalhof Stuttgart, District Berlin. 2061 Inmoral Lidos: Performance Project NYC, Grüner Salon (Volksbühne Berlin), Finish Research Pavillion (Venedig).
_________

Please register by email under press@district-berlin.com

(the event is limited to 40 persons)

Hygiene concept: The event takes place in a well-ventilated 400 m² hall. At the entrance we provide disinfectants. Please keep the minimum distance and wear mouth and nose protection.

http://www.district-berlin.com/en/
_________

Um Anmeldung per Email unter press@district-berlin.com

wird gebeten (Die Veranstaltung ist auf 40 Personen begrenzt)

Hygienekonzept: Die Veranstaltung findet in einer gut durchlüfteten 400 m² großen Halle statt. Am Einlass stellen wir Desinfektionsmittel bereit. Bitte haltet den Mindestabstand ein und tragt einen Mund- und Nasenschutz.

http://www.district-berlin.com/de/

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Also the Dice Forum has an upcoming event on the Black perspective that looks promising.

DICE FORUM #3
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Edna Bonhomme + Daddypuss Rex + an exclusive mix by ETTA
The third edition of DICE Forum will take place at Prinzessinnengärten in Neukölln on September 17th with guests Dr. Edna Bonhomme and Daddypuss Rex. Our guest mix will be made by Detroit-based DJ ETTA.

DICE Forum is a nomadic event series which explores artists’ personal biographies and artistic practices as well as their relationships to larger cultural movements and art forms. Each installment represents a different artistic perspective, delving into working environments, socio-political influences, creative processes, and more.

Each in-depth artist talk is followed by a DJ set, in changing venues throughout Berlin. All talks and DJ mixes will be made available online shortly after each event, to allow everyone to participate regardless of location or current restrictions.

The event will take place outdoors in Prinzessinnengarten in Neukölln with a limited audience, incorporating social distancing measures. Entry is free with RSVP. Please note that in compliance with government regulations pre-registration is strongly recommended.

Tickets here: https://www.universe.com/dicebln

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That sizzling young art photographer Matt Lipps who is not only one dazzling beauty, but an extreme talent of original film works has a few new exhibitions that one must venture to short of madness or death. Here is a note from the artist:

Dear Friends,

First, and above all else, I hope this email finds you and your families safe & healthy & working toward racial equity and social justice! Second, I'm excited to share some details below about two solo exhibitions opening this month. All details & links below.

Opening today at Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York, I am sharing an excerpt from my new series (see below) alongside an expanded version of Where Figure Becomes Ground, shown in 2019. This series merges iconic 1990s fashion images published in Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar with documentary photographs from the male-dominated U.S. Camera Annual (1936-1972). By exploring the roles of fashion photography and photojournalism in structuring identity, the work questions notions about both genres: shallow commerce versus deep investigation; ephemeral style alongside timeless documents; and a challenge to the feminine/masculine binary.

On September 26th, at Marc Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angeles, I will debut The Body Wants to Live, a new series of 26 small-format gelatin silver prints that reframe MoMA's The Family of Man exhibition catalog (1955) through the lens of Richard Avedon's fashion campaign for Gianni Versace from the 1990s. The series proposes intersections between seductive advertisements and institutionalized propaganda, capitalism versus community, and the merger of style and substance encoded in all photographs.

An essay by William J. Simmons accompanies the exhibition.

And, last but not least, please take 15 seconds to make sure you are registered to vote at vote.org; make a plan on how & when you are voting; and, ask people in need how you can help them vote.

Thanks for reading. Take care.

xoxo, Matt

ZWISCHEN KOSMOS UND PATHOS

ZWISCHEN KOSMOS UND PATHOS

Bilderatlas Mnemosyne

20 sunsets at Haus der Kulturen der Welt the mid last century preggers oyster in the Tiergarten ended Sunday August 23rd with a collaborative event with HKW and Arsenal Institut für film und Video Kunst.

The site specific performative film event Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome hosted and curated by Vaginal Davis and Daniel Hendrickson, the Jewish/Muzlim kept the publicum in high spirits with a surprise screening of Davis' La Petite Tonkinoise (2001) along with Werner Schroeter's 1968 film Neurasia that features his muse Magdalena Montezuma. After introductions by the lovely Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Davis and Hendrickson took to the stage in the form of a quarky deconstruction of the Hal David/Burt Bacharach song “A House is Not a Home” with a cheeky subtitle of “Bildungs Burgeliche”

Here is a bit of the text: ...cities are not just theme parks for the rich where everone else is cast in a menial service role. Cities are not architectural showrooms for haughty bank branches. Cities are not apartheid states providing raw material for the prison industrial complexia.

Cities are not matte painting backdrops for tired Amazon's new headquarters building. Cities are frenetic tapestries that bring rich, poor, young, old, artists, business people, students, retirees und stricher (hustlers), sex workers together facilitating unpredictable relationships. The delusion of endless economic growth and financial fertility-natty neo liberali neebobs and nimkumpoops...

Contemporary Vinegar Syndrom is part of a new movement and way of looking at film, life, culture and politics from the skew of a decrepit patina.

Here is a list of the beautiful people both seen and heard socializing before and after the event: Margarita Tsomou - the HAU discourse supercurator,Rafa (Rafaela Wahl), Russian speaking Chilean wonder woman and maker of things both digital and analog, AK Knoll, lesbian artist working from Printeretto, her risograph studio. Ms. Knoll was also one of Ms. Davis' talented students when she taught at Weissensee Art Academy in 2007/8, Natalie Lettenewitsch, a true blue cinéaste, expert on underwater and animal films, a generous and gorgeous friend to the world, and a new researcher at Filmwissenschaft FU. Sabeth Buchmann (art theorist from the Akademie in Vienna) Elfe Brandenburger (filmmaker, and one the women behind the great new bookstore Paul & Paula in Lichtenberg), Michaela Wünsch (film and media scholar & psychoanalyst part of bbooks collective) Anja Lückenkemper (great curator, feminist zine publisher, history of plant expert and radical ceramics artist), Sirkka Möller, independent curator, she did the open air films at HKW last year but she also works at Panorama Section of Berlin Film Festival for the pre-selection, that divine lovesexy and super smart lady known to the world as Nanna Heidenreich, baby diaper of Canada's Hidden Cameras music group Joel Gibb with a cute pal from Los Angeles DJ Chris Cruse of the warehouse Spotlight Party Series, and Saskia Hahn the former guitarist in Peaches' band, Catherine Sullivan dancer Assaf Hochman aka: Gisele, Diedrich Diederichsen & Raphaela Vogel(great young artist), the cute British artist Rob Cross with Jane from Sternberg Press, La Famiglia de Isabella Bortolozzi Ms. Davis' goddess gallerist with Leila Hekmat, Marco Bruzzone, Michelangelo Corsaro, Aisha Butt, Maria Pilecka, Philip Reinartz, Kamilla Pfeil Gardiner, prima ballerina Beatrice Cordua aka: Trixie von Schonherr, Piero Bellomo(handsome husband of Daniel Hendrickson), film historian Marcuse Siegelstein, Fearless Leader of CHEAP Kollektiv Susanna Sachße, artist extroidinaire and legendary great beauty Pola Sieverding, hunky German film stars Maximilian Brauer & Jonas Dassler with Gotthard Lange (Einar Schleef ChoralDirector and now the celebrated CHEAP Choral Director), Ludwig Schönherr archive assistant José Segebre + artist boyfriend Francois, philosopher king Matthias Haase, and celebrity choreographer Laurie Young, Cashmere Radio hostessa, Prinzessin Ute von Hala'sz who gave Ms. Davis a beautiful present of royal fabrics that have been in her family for centuries, Eirini Fountedaki and Pia Chakraverti-Wuerthwein the bright young curators of SAVVY Contemporary's Residing in the Borderlands series that Ms. Davis participated in back in January, artist Monica Bonvinci, juicy Hannah Hurtzig of Mobile Academy, Stephan Ahrens, Petra Palmer (works at Forum Section of Berlin Film Festival, Abina Manning (Video Data Bank), filmmaker Liz Rosenfeld, Nathalie Knoll & Markus Ruff, Arsenal Archiv, Linda Winkler of silent green, Andreas Werner, of Kino Arsenal, Shiaz Legs (Berlin Drag personality) artists Andrea Hackenberg, Josi Brinkmann, Jimmy Robert, artist/ professor at UdK performance/scultpure department, young Israeli artist Renen Itzaki who is one of Ms. Davis' students at Work Master HEAD in Geneva, the 13th Gwangju Biennale Team of Natasha Ginwala, Defne Ayas & Krisztina Hunya.

Special thankx to Laura, Jason, Adrianne, Henning, Matchie, Martine and Rene at HKW support services for being so helpful and on top of every little thing, and of course Stefanie Schulte Strathaus who invited Ms. Davis to be a guest curator at Arsenal back in 2007 and has been digging around in the archive being a 'nosy nelly ever since and CVS production coordinator Gerrit Woltemath who besides working at Arsenal also works on the Panorama Team of Berlin Film Festival. With the pandemic still raging don't know if there will be another CVS. Ms. Davis has a lot of pre existing health conditions and so she is forced to curtail her schedule down to the bare minimum of activities while under strict doctor care.

ER LIEß DAS BADEWASSER AB, INDEM ER EIN LOCH IN DIE WANNE MACHTE

 Der geneigte hellgelbe Fliesenboden des Badezimmers leitete das Wasser zu einem Abfluß

Once again Ms. Davis is in major apology mode for not writing in this very blog even after being gifted a wonderful brand new Mac Book Air from some very generous admirers here in Berlin.  The ladies  benefactors who want to remain anonymous not only bought her a streamlined lap top which is so light an airy its like typing on a mist cake.  The Vagimule doll is feeling very Polychrome the Rainbow's daughter. They also came to her rescue in getting the woman DSL internet as her old flat from 1860 wasn't able to accommodate high speed.  The Davis creature has lived in Berlin since 2005 with no internet. Don't ask her why or how, as she remain forever "Tunte und Technique".

For those of you who still haven't watched CHEAP People Are Other People the first CHEAP Collective feature film in five reels.  You can still see it for free streamlined from 10pm-6am Germany time every day until August 20th on the Academy De Kunst of the World Cologne website.  The film was made while all the CHEAP members were in isolation in March and April with  fearless leader Susanne Sachße editing all the parts together from various CHEAP contributions.

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Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome, the performative film event will make a special site specific appearance at the HKW Sunday August 23rd 9pm with a social distanced open air rooftop terrace screening of Werner Schroeter's 1968 film Neurasia starring Magdalena Montezuma.  The last CVS was December, 2019 so this will be the first time Berlin  audiences will get to see Vaginal Davis and Daniel Hendrickson back in action.  This is a joint cooperation between HKW - Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Arsenal Institut für Film und Videokunst.  There will be some special surprises so do yourself a favour and come on down and be ready to get down and dirty.  For more info go to:  arsenal-berlin.de or hkw.de

COME BLOW YOUR SHORN

Forever Amber and Limber.

So sorry my lovelies in blogland for keeping you in the Johnny Darko all these many months of  quittangy quarantining. To explain: I don’t have a working laptop so writing using my olde iPhone presents itself as quite a chore, but I will anyway, just this once, and hopefully soon I will have a working Mac Book, and get back to a regular blogging schedulina.

Please forgive me, thank you for your patience.  Hope you enjoy this tiny excerpt from my still unfinished novel Mary Magdalene:

Mrs. Jeffrey Burroughs also known as Thing, of Ventura Highways Homo House 1, 2 and 3, had a great sense of adventure. I don’t  remember the year he died, just that he was renown for flexible genitalia in the performative party trick of “Doing the Turtle”.

Sometime in the late 1980’s he was down in Hollywood visiting the Melrose Avenue Retail Slut gang, and managed to take a solo detour into deepest darkest South Central Los Angeles.  This was during the height of the crack epidemic when Los Ang was at its crime peak. Jeffrey Burroughs was a  five foot nothing blondine surfery looking creature who wound up partying with three roughnecks in a late model Impala sedan.  Copious amounts of narcotics and alcohol was exchanged before it was decided to venture into the Hollywood Hills.  Did it occur to Mrs. Burroughs that perhaps he was in a dangerous situation?  Yes and no.  If he wound up murdered and left in some high chaparral at least he was going to get a righteous buzz on, and some unbelievably aggressive jack hammering of the sugar wall shattering varietè.

(To be continued)

KULTURKONTRASTE

KulturKontraste
Profil der Arbeitseinheit

I am a little behind in writing about the misadventures of our heroine the little tiny demure lady known to the world as Ms. Evelyn Venable. Going back to the beginning of the Whoring Twenties and by that I mean January, Evelyn Venable our protagonist was invited by the delightful folks at SAVVY Contemporary to curate a film program for their series Residing in the Borderlands which happens every Wednesday of the month creating a new cartography of Berlin. 

Some of the other participating personages have been Liz Rosenfeld, Eli Cortinas, Ali Moraly, Niusha Ramzani, Can Sungu, Malve Lippmann and Amelie Umuhire. Our Miss Venable choose the Todd Haynes film Velvet Goldmine and what a great choice it was. Perfect for the winter month. 

The gallery space was packed to the rafters and beyond with a multigenerational crowd that even the curators didn’t know. I only recognized Wolfgang of the art kollektiv Discoteca Flaming Star and actor Jonas Dassler of the film The Golden Glove. SAVVY family members present and accounted for: Kamila Metwaly, Kelly Krugman and Ola Zielińska. Special thankx to gorgeous curators Pia Chakraverti-Wuerthwein, Eirini Fountedaki and handsome coordinator Jorg–Peter Schulze.

A brilliantine time was had by Evelyn Venable with the beautiful Berlin gallerist Isabella Bortolozzi. At her gallery was a juicy exhibition of the work of Enrico Baj who died in 2003. The two pretty ladies then took a taxi to The Martin Gropius Bau to see Boychild and Josh Johnson perform some eclectic endurance style interpretive dance. All hail the intense power behind Boychild and the lovesexy Mr. Josh. They were both wearing costumes of whirling dervish proportions and cyclona styled coiffure ala the Orange Ruffian Tetrarch of what was formerly known as the United States of America. My daughter Wu was a bit under the weather and left right after the performance. Afterwards we all convened inside the Gropius Bau Restaurant for tea and dainties. The Bortolozzi familia of young sweeties is a most bright shiny firmament.

It was wonderous to see that my former Malmo Art Akademy student Stine Omar of art band Easter is part of the Boychild beauty gang.

The gracious and glorious Ms. Bortolozzi also surprised Miss Venable with a birthday cake after the closing night at her galerie space of the performance piece Crocopazzo by Leila Hekmat. Upon entering the galerie and seeing the emblemic curtain of characters, such detail orientation was a harbinger of something special this way cometh and there was no disappointing in that proclamation.

A Nancy Grace/Gayle King TV presenter nicely played by rubber faced delight Mj Harper welcomes the followers of a Davidian Branch/People’s Temple Cult led by charismatic leader Mother (Roman Ole) who is part Dolly Parton, Julia Childs, Maggie Smith and Jo Briathe rolled into one big clitoral amalgamation. The disciples were a mass of Felliniesque faces you want to buy and chew with names like Felvis, Lemon Drop, FlipFlop, Aphasia, Harpy, Toto and Tutte played with verve and lovesexy conviction by Finn Ronsdorf, Cassie Augusta Jorgenson, Nicki Fehr, Noah Lietblau, Shade Theret, Gina Maiwald and Weiland Schonefelder.

This pistachio pastiche of Carson McCullers, Jean Genet, Brecht, Offenbach and Marat-Sade makes all the sense in the world upon realizing that Ms. Hekmat who wrote the play, did the sculptural costumes and production design is a young lady who hails from Los Angeles, Cali. Heaps of praise should be leveled also upon her collaborators with music by Roman Lemberg, wigs and makeup by Franziska Presche, tailoring by Elsa Leguevaques and Grace Kim.

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Miss Venable missed the opening of Forum Expanded this year because she was teaching at Work Master HEAD in Geneva. It was the first time she has missed the opening since moving to Berlin. Was able to make it the next evening to the Canadian Embassy Marshall McLuhan Salon for Forum Expanded’s exhibition of Thirza Cuthand’s NDN Survival Trilogy. It was so lovely to be in the thick of it with Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus looking radiant along with the sexy sexy of Nanna Heidenreich, Angela Anderson, Uli Ziemons and his pretty ginger haired lady love the writer and curator Anja Luckenkemper.

JE SUIS TROP VIEILLE POU JOUER LES MIGNONNES

Bagarre dans les gradins

Chicago was a gigantic mega success. The Chcago Art Institute bought my video installation The White to be Angry and will be screening it till April 26th. I was invited to give a lecturina and presented No One Leaves Delilah. I never do anything the same way twice so for this iteration I didn’t take to the stage until after 15 minutes of a slide show which had many in the audience rumbling.

I was introduced by David Egeland the Society for Contemporary Art’s President and Solveig Nelson the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow in Time-Based Media.

The Fremont Hall in the Art Institute was packed with 500+ in attendance including my old pals from HomoCore Chicago Joanna Brown, and her girlfriend Caroline and Mark “Ears” Frietas of Spectra Sonic Records, along with sexy Circus Trainer extroidinaire Tera McBlaine, my hot and humpy ex student Stevie Hanley who is now the midwests leading musclebound art schtar, Albina Manning of VTape, David Getsy who is a studly professor at the School of the Art Institute, Mar-Teen of the punk band Limp Wrist, Ann Goldstein the Deputy Director, Chair and Main Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute, curator Hendrik Folkerts who hails from Holland, Chicago Bulls basketball star Zach LaVine, Malia Obama and her British beau Rory Farquharson. Will add more about Chicago and all the events I had in another post, so stay tuned.

Two of my beautiful New York children of high art Jonathan Berger and Aliza Shwartz will have big solo exhibitions soon. Do yourself the biggest favour and go check them out as they are beyond brilliant.

From Jonathan:

Greetings,

My new exhibition, An Introduction to Nameless Love, will open at Participant Inc on February 23rd. I have attached the announcement and you can also find a press release with more information here. The exhibition is co-organized by Participant Inc and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, where it was on view this past Fall.

This project is of great personal importance to me and was made possible through the generous collaboration of an incredible group of contributors, over the five years during which it was produced. 

There will be no standard evening opening reception at Participant, as the pieces are very fragile, instead the gallery will be open 12-7pm on opening day. All details are below!

All the Best,

Jonathan

_______

In brief:

An Introduction to Nameless Love

Jonathan Berger 

In collaboration with Mady Schutzman, Emily Anderson, Tina Beebe, Julian Bittiner, Matthew

Brannon, Barbara Fahs Charles, Brother Arnold Hadd, Erica Heilman, Esther Kaplan, Margaret

Morton, Richard Ogust, Maria A. Prado, Robert Staples, Michael Stipe, Mark Utter, Michael

Wiener, and Sarah Workneh.

On View

Feb 23 - April 5, 2020

Participant Inc. 

253 East Houston Street

(Between Norfolk and Suffolk Street)

Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, Noon to 7pm

participantinc.org

From Aliza:

Dear Friends,

Please join me for the opening reception of Purported on Thursday February 20, from 6-9pm at Art in General. 

I have been told throughout my life to “use my own words,” as though the language of theory could never be mine. I’ve been told to believe in a feminism of “speaking for oneself,” as though such an act carried no risk. What both these injunctions communicate is how much is at stake in the belief that the language we use transparently represent an authentic, unchanging self—one that is easier to capture or prosecute.

Instead, we might think about how words and images misbehave. They diverge, always, from the body they purport to represent. This divergence, when acknowledged, becomes a medium with which to make visible representation’s disciplinary function. More importantly, that non-identity between ourselves and our words becomes an alibi for doing what we want.

This exhibition spans the past decade of my practice, and it is my first New York solo show.

So please do come have a drink with me :)

Aliza Shvarts: Purported

Curated by Laurel Ptak

Exhibition: February 21, 2020–May 9, 2020

Opening: Thursday, February 20, 6-9pm

Art in General

145 Plymouth Street (Map)

Dumbo, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Wednesday–Sunday, 12–6pm

Hope to see you there!

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DEATH ON THE NILE

Death on the Nile

Love's Labour Gnost

The Vagimule Doll is gutted with news of her beloved Afro Sister "Pop That Cherry" Jefferson's death yesterday morning at her home in Oakland, surrounded by family including her film director son Immanuel Martin and University professor daughter Mira Bai plus grandkids and her ex girlfriend the lovely Ghislain de la Falaise.  Cherry Jefferson whose real name was Priscilla Hazelwood was the niece of Hollywood golden era star Richard Widmark.  Vaginal Davis and Ms. Hazelwood lived in the 1980s at the famed Karnak Apartments on La Mirada Avenue.  Other residents included members of such notable LA underground bands as The Fiends, The Shadow Minstrels, The Lazy Cowgirls and The Nymphs.

Priscilla worked in the art department of the LA Weekly in the 1980s and in the 1990s was art director for Klinger International, a gay porno empire run by Casey Klinger. She moved back to the Bay Area in the mid 90s and headed her own feminist advertising agency called Begonius Creative.  Priscilla was featured in the famous photo of the Afro Sisters taken by Albert Sanchez that graced the pages of a special edition of Interview Magazine from April, 1986.  It was the last issue of Interview Magazine that Andy Warhol personally supervised.  Priscilla had a wicked sense of humour and was always involved in some mischief deflating the egos of the pompous and overbearing.

Also dying this week was the great German actor and director Volker Spengler.  Known for his roles as part of the Fassbinder ensemble of the 1970s.  Ms. Davis met Volker in 1999 in Los Angeles when Volker was performing with the Berliner Ensemble that included Martin Wuttke, Margarita Broich, Constantine Ahcmed Berger and Susanne Sachsse.  This meeting propagated the forming of THE CHEAP Kollektiv in Berlin in 2001 with the performance piece CHEAP Jewelry at The Volkbuhner, which led to Vaginal Davis moving to Berlin in 2005 and the rest is herstory upended.  Vaginal Davis will always remember the high times with Volker at his favourite watering hole Deane at Savigny Platz and hanging with him at the hustler bars in the Nollendorky Platz area of Schoneberg.  She remembers Volker saying that certain liberal types were "Nazis without a spine".

RIP Volker Spengler and Priscilla Hazelwood. You will be missed by many. 

DAS EISMEER RUFT

Das Eismeer ruft

Der Teufel moeglicherweise

It saddens me to report that Jim Lehrer of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report on PBS and News Hour has died age 85. Mr. Lehrer was one of the standardbearers in broadcast journalism unlike what passes for journalism today. I grew up watching him on the telly. One can only imagine my chagrin to realize that he was a fan of my Fertile La Toyah Jackson zine and its supplement Shrimp, the magazine for licking and sucking bigger and better feet. Meeting Mr. Lehrer was one of those instances that an idol doesn’t disappoint. We were introduced by Los Angeles Times film critic Kevin Thomas at The Spotlight Pub a downscale watering hole on the Cahuenga Corridor at Selma in Hollywood proper right off of the Blvd. I don’t know if he was pulling my leg or not but Mr. Lehrer could flip a couple of swell phrases and ruminations on above average penis sizes and the fine art of Fargot Fellatio. Whenever I tell people I was the editor of my high school newspaper no one believes it, but Mr. Lehrer completely did and said it makes sense. RIP.

When it comes to journalism the super hotsy totsy little stud of a journalista Michael Scaturro can’t be beat. He just wrote a new piece for New York Times food editor Mark Bittman and his new publication, Heated.

It's the story of how two British birds captured 90% of the global market for chicken. Whether in China, the U.S., the UK, or Africa, we're all eating the same two chickens. (It's a market not unlike the Apple/Android global smartphone duopoly.) It's also a story of how chickens came to be named like sports cars, how their industrialization is responsible for antibiotic resistance,
and how they are actually threatened as a species. You can read it here:

https://heated.medium.com/how-chickens-became-like-apple-and-android-phones-85378e97799e

One of my nuttiest ex students whose art career has really developed into something very interesting is Christophe de Rohan Chabot. Christophe is a great blonde beauty boy who comes from a patrician Gallic family. Please check out his latest exhibit:

Britney/Skull

Gaudel de Stampa

31.01-28.03.2020

Christophe de Rohan Chabot (1986), lives and works between Berlin and Paris. Recent solo exhibitions include TG, Nottingham; Zabriskie Point, Geneva; Clearview, London; Treize, Paris; Gärtnergasse, Vienna; Shanaynay, Paris. Recent group exhibitions include Frac Île de France_Le Plateau, Paris; Tonus, Paris; Wiels, Brussels; Exile, Berlin.

His work will be presented at Etablissement d'en face, Brussels in May 2020 (solo show).

---

Gaudel de Stampa

49, quai des Grands Augustins – Paris 6e

T + 33 (0) 1 40 21 37 38

M + 33 (0) 6 19 55 53 69 opening Friday 31th January, 6-9pm

www.gaudeldestampa.com

COSMO PROLET

COSMO PROLET
Zum Fressen gern

Was invited to a delightful formal dinner party at the wonderful compound of the beloved Berlin artiste Natascha Sadr Haghighian who represented Germany in the Venice Biennale last year.

Natascha cooked a sumptuous feast of Persian delicacies that nourished everyone in attendance at her gracious and fanciful table. The high society guests included: film historian Marcuse Siegelstein of Kollektiv CHEAP, Haytham El-Wardany the famed writer/poet, gorgeous art starina Pola Sieverding and her hot and hunky ginger beau Jul, acclaimed artist Pauline Boudry and Marbles (dancer in Boudry/Lorenz's Venice Biennial work, Moving Backwards), curator Ashkan Sepahvand and his American huzbear, personable academic power couple Alisa Lebow and Başak Ertür. Alisa is a distinguished author, curator and award winning documentary filmmaker while Başak is a lecturer in Law and Co-Director of Birkbeck Centre for Law and the Humanities at the University of London, Rabih Mroué and Lina Majadalanie (artists, performers) and Norweigan stranger baby photog Benjamin Huseby.

The other major eventa of the winter season was the birthday happening of Ulrich Ziemons. Uli is known as one of Europas handsomest men and is one of the senior curators of the Berlinale’s Forum Expanded section. Herr Ziemons shares a glorious Kreuzberg flat with his divine lady love the
breathtakingly beautiful curator Anja Lückenkemper who created a most tasty and hearty pumpkin soup, all the dainties including a carrot cake and chocolate tort with Apricot Jam from a recipe of Tante Huberta were executed by Uli himself who is the ultimate domestic demi god, giving Miss Martha Stewart herself a marathon run for her geldenkrantz.

The cafe society punters included French artiste filmmaker Nicolas Cilliins, his hunky young student of political science Australian boyfriend Dustin, award winning French cineaste and hungthrob Guillaume Cailleau and his adorable twelve year old son Jonathan, journalist Ruben Donsbach,
vivacious Romanian filmmaker Xandra Popescu with her husband Dragos, filmmaker Philip Widmann and Canadian galloping gourmand and art preparer Mark Pennock.

DU BIST EINE DER WENIGEN FRAUEN IN GANZ HOLLYWOOD

Du bist eine der wenigen Frauen in ganz Hollywood
Sie hilft ihm ins Anzugsjackett

Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome, which is usually a site specific event had a glorious homecoming at Arsenal Institut fur film und video kunst on December 18th with a curious crowd of wellwishers excited by the French film Diva directed by Jean Jacques Beineix.

Diva features a gaggle of new wave hookers and hustlers with a robusty amount of spirited charm. When I was at UCLA in the early 1980s I must have seen Diva at least 15 times at Laemmle’s Royal Theater in West LA. I was crushed out by the films Gallic stars Frederic Andrei and Richard Bohringer, but now seeing the film I find them both quite ungainly. More interesting of course in the film is Black American opera star Wilhemina Higgens Fernandez and Vietnamese actress Thuy An Luu. Back in 1982 it was rare to see people of color prominently featured in European art films.

In the audience at Arsenal Kino 2 was a high quotient of Tutonic film stars like Florian Lukas, Frederick Lau, August Diehl (fresh from Terence Mallick's new film) and well endowed hotsy totsy David Kross. Perhaps the upswing of Schauspielers was because CVS was mentioned in Art Forum and Monopol Magazine. Also seen the divine Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus of Forum Expanded, Hyejin Lee and Gerd Werner Schnabel of Forum with beau Sophos.  Forum celebrates its 50th anniversary as part of the Berlinale Film Festival.  Also at CVS filmmaker Clarissa Thieme, young artist and one of my Work Master HEAD students Renen Itzhaki with posse, Piero Bellomo, CVS Production Coordinator Gerrit Woltemath, lovesexy little Bloomberg News reporter Michael Scaturro, Baby Diaper of Canada’s Hidden Cameras Joel Gibb, Egyptology student Aramis, CHEAP Fearless Leader Susanne Sachsse with visiting great American Artiste extroidinaire and NYU professor Jonathan Berger, and handsome stage designers Senol Senturk & Martin Siemann, the lovely elderly activist and Arsenal regular Ute von Halasz.

Jewish Muzlim Daniel Hendrickson beautifully played on klavier Vissi d’arte (I Have Lived for Art) and E lucevan le stelle(And the Stars Were Shining) fromTosca by Puccini as la Dona Vaginal Davis sang a high C Susie original song channeling not only Grace Moore, but Kathryn Grayson and Jane Powell.

Special thankx to Kasse guardians Milan & Klara and projectionist Ina.

Saturday was a rambunctious going away cocktail soiree at Victoria Bar on Potsdamer Strasse for gorgeous Jonathan Berger in town to work on an upcoming exhibit for the late Ludwig von Schonherr.

The glam Victoria Bar in Schoneberg was all a buzz with Susanne Sachsse, her main man film historian Marcuse Siegelstein, Daniel Hendrickson with hubby Piero Bellomo, Senol Senturk, Ms. Vaginal Davis and ballerina Beatrice Cordua aka: Trixie von Schonherr. Check out the latest CHEAP FUNK Reboot FM radio broadcast called CHEAP Trixie,Trixie

http://reboot.fm/category/magazin-talk/cheap-funk/

 At Victoria bar The booze kept flowing way into the holiday strewn early morning hours as we all partied with the no nonsense hostessa of the pub and its cute and cuddly mixologists.

*

HEY KIDS!  Its that time of year again to support the work of the fab Lia Gangitano and her Participant Inc. Gallery on the lower eastside.  No one does programming like Lia but to keep it afloat we must all contribute bigtime so please send in your donations.  Its important and vital.  If you prefer a tax deductible contribution by check please send to:  PARTICIPANT INC ATT:  Lia Gangitano 253 East Houston Street Ground Floor NYC, NY  10002

http://participantinc.org/support

Les Nobel Genevois a l’honneur

Entarteurs, allez voter!

That train set go getter Ms. Vaginal Davis Jr. is now back in Geneva at Work Master HEAD teaching her Perverse Assemblages labzone/seminar with Olga Rozenblum.

Our Autumnal Rohypnol lady has had quite a season with giving an artist talk and screening as part of the Fringe Queer Film and Art Festival in London. The multigenerational audiences seemed to adore her 1990 short subject Dot where the diva impersonates with a bad mid Atlantic accent the famed wit Dorothy Parker co-starring with her is a former crush Alfredo Botello playing Robert Benchley.  Mr. Botello is now a married man with two teenage sons and fluctuates from being a bar owner in Oakland and screenwriter.

The other films screened were VooDoo Williamson the Dona of Dance and The White to be Angry. All these films made their UK premiere decades after being made in Hollywoodland back in the1990s. La Davis’ screening and artist talk were surprisingly sold out. The lady also had a private viewing at the Stoke Newington Library Gallery of her new painting series In Search of Gnost Time.

The celebutant quotient was high with appearances by Narcisister, Bishop Black http://www.instagram.com/thebishopblackx - the handsome blue movie star of Bruce La Bruce’s last omnibus flicker with the galpals of Erica Lust, gorgeous artiste Elly Clarke, and partner Roux Malherbe, Helen de Witt (Programme Advisor for the Experimenta strand. She is also a curator and lecturer in Film Studies at Birkbeck and University of the Arts London. Helen was previously Head of Cinemas at the BFI) and Bart McDonagh (Senior Project Manager at Domino Records), juicy artist and scholar Lewis Church, Jen Smethurst (performance producer), Alex Eisenberg from Live Art Development Agency, Phoebe Patey-Ferguson and Nichol (arts producers), Christa Holka (an awesome photographer) and Adriana Disman (artist), Hunky ginger English cricketer Ben Stokes, actor and renowned art collector Russell Tovey, Canadian filmmaker Kevin Hegge, young artiste Chris Cole who works with Kembra Pfahler and Billy Miller of STH, Love Camel aka Andrea Novarin, and soap opera male ingénue Parry Glasspool. Ms. Davis sends special thankx to everyone at Fringe Festival including Muffin, Alek and Marta, Dan Gunn Gallery London, plus the Goethe Institute who paid for the lovely stylish boutique suite Ms. Davis enjoyed at Kip Hotel in Hackney Central.

After London Tante Vaginal Davis was off to Frankfurt am Main to host and DJane the closing party of REMAKE. Frankfurter Frauen Film Tage at the Goethe Universitaet. This amazing feministiche Film Festival is the brainchild of the great and glorious team of Heide Schluepmann & Karola Gramann of KinoThek Asta Nielsen.

Ms. Davis was housed at the glamorous Hotel Villa Orange on Hebbelstrasse which has the most delicious Bio breakfast in Christendom and a gracious staff.

Ms. Davis was so excited to be engulfed in the incredible atmosphere of the screenings and being around so many accomplished women. La Ms. Davis felt so fortunate that she got to meet one of her feministiche heroines in the form of the badass B. Ruby Rich who lives in the Bay Area now after years in New York City. Ms. Rich was regaling Ms. Davis of how she can’t stand the San Francisco Yoga culture and has traded in her mat for boxing which keeps her looking youthful and fit. If you get into any hassle B. Ruby Rich has got your back girls. 

 Lots of laughs during luncheon with Ms. Rich, Heide Schluepmann, Karola Gramann, and the beautiful and talented Hindle Wakes. Ms. Davis enjoyed the screening of the films of Ella Bergmann-Michel introduced by a teenage looking Bettina Schulte Strathaus. During the closing night party Ms. Davis Djaned along with locals Han of the Safe & Sound who spins vinyl with cassette tapes and Djane Karaj who spun Afro Beats and Grime. Ms. Davis loved seeing former students from Geissen, Offenback, Mainz, The Steadeschule and Goethe Universitaet and would love to send heartfelt thanks and give shout outs to Heide& Karola, Gaby Babic, Esra Kartal and her marvelous rock steady crew.

MAHZEITEN

Empfehlung

One of my brilliant former students C. Maria Norrman from Malmo Art Akademy is doing a performance very soon. If you are in Sweden you owe yourself to see this fabulous artist in her element. Check out the info below:

Performance: Time Travel Entertainment: Millennium Star Lip Syncs For

Their Life* 2-3 November, 1-4 pm
Lorensborgsgatan 8, Malmö

<https://www.google.com/maps/search/Lorensborgsgatan+8,+Malm%C3%B6?entry=gmail&source=g>

*The performance takes place in and around an empty former hair salon in

Lorensborgs shopping center (look for the ICA Nära Stadionköp grocery

store, enter the shopping center, location is opposite the ICA)*

Fictional travel agency Time Travel opens the new temporary beauty salon

Beauty with a performance by Millennium Star. The beauty salon offers free

make-over and a relaxing trip in Virtual Reality.

Millennium Star is the artist Maria Norrman's drag character. At the

beauty salon Beauty, Millennium Star will perform selected songs in

different languages such as Farsi, Portuguese, German and English.

Millennium Star dresses in different styles for each song.

Time Travel and the beauty salon Beauty are part of the fictional

corporate group Worldtrotters ™, which is the world's best fictional VR

travel company group. Since 2018, they have offered fictional travel

experiences to hundreds of people in both Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark

and the Czech Republic.

The project is run by Gallery Extra with support from Bästa Biennalen, MKB

Fastighets AB and BoostHBG.
www.galleryextra.com

Maria Norrman works with video and photography, in combination with

performance and costume. The works explore the meeting between her and

other people's fantasies and conceptions on topics such as gender, war

history and sexuality. Norrman was born in 1987 and graduated from the

Malmö School of Art in 2013.
www.marianorrman.net
*
Also if you are in the Tri State NYC region you have to go to the opening of my dear colleague and collaborator the genius woman of talent, hot sexuality and mystery Baseera Khan for her solo exhibition. Miss Baseera is a major gift and divine treasure. See below for info:

Please join us on next Sunday for the opening of:

Baseera Khan

snake skin

November 3 – December 22, 2019

Opening: Sunday, November 3rd: 7 – 9pm, After Party tbd.

Please join me for this super important moment in my practice. I haven't had a solo since iamuslima at Participant Inc in 2017. This will be the first solo I have with Simone Subal Gallery who is now working with me and has taken on the task to represent me and my brown ass. Def don't miss this, I need your support and want to witness the night with you. Bring your dancing shoes, tbd joint afterparty with Participant Inc.
–––
Simone Subal Gallery 131 Bowery, 2nd floor // New York, NY 10002

www.simonesubal.com // info@simonesubal.com
917-409 0612

One of my delightful new students at Work Master HEAD in Geneva is involved in a very interesting project that riffs on the daytime chat show as performative art installation.  If you are in Berlin I recommend you check it out for yourself:

Dear friends,

I’m delighted to invite you to the new video installation “The Morning Show of Celine and Renana”.

Presented in the frame of “OPEN SPACES” festival at Tanzfabrik Berlin, this is a new season of the successful morning show, where Celine and Renana deal with daring and enthralling matters of art. In their show, the famous hosts from the showbiz industry invite choreographers, artists and cultural workers to give a glimpse into their working processess in order to understand the hidden meaning behind the sublime practice of art. 

When and where: 1^st-10^th November 2019 at Uferstudios, Badstr. 41a, Studio 13 

Viewing the installation is free of charge.

Episodes 3+4 of the new season will be shown in February 2020.

Although as their agent my part in the production is minimal, I hope to see you there, I'm sure you will enjoy!

For detailed hours and the full program of the festival: https://www.tanzfabrik-berlin.de/de/festivals/open-spaces

All the best,

Renen 

************
www.whoisrenen.net

LEISTUNG MESSEN UND STEIGERN

Die besten Methoden aus dem Profisport

Another one of Ms. Vaginal Davis´excerpts from her upcoming novel Mary Magdalene:


Mountain Greenery

Nagel was a muscular piece of burnt ember from the Islands. Don’t ask me which Island. All I know is that when Coen and I reached the cruise bar on a Saturday night sometime after midnight Nagel and Leander were locked in conversation. Actually Nagel was doing all the talking and Leander was just nodding his head. I didn’t know Nagel that well, but Leander and I have been friends for over 25 years, though we hadn’t been getting along very well of late.

It wasn’t difficult to notice that Leander was besotted. Well yeah on the surface Nagel was dishy. He was tall, broad shouldered, fit and quite a spectacular Nubian specimen in his early fifties. Leander was an olde school dinger from before the Rains of Ranchipur. Part of me wanted to spare Leander the heartbreak of psoriasis, but I wasn’t sure if it was my place to intercede. You see Nagel had gone out with my colleague Frit for almost two years. Frit didn’t like to be thought of as a purveyor of the nitty gritty even though all his past beaus were of the dark hued variete´.

When Frit first met Nagel I thought oooh what a good match. Nagel was very grand, from an upper middle class background. I thought Nagel could shake Frit from his crusty trappings and maybe get him to bathe a little more often and perhaps brush his teeth. Frit’s slogan for avoiding soap and water being that we are all animals and need to accept our animal scents and odours. That kind of rant was lame when I first heard it back in my twenties from street punks in San Francisco. You can somewhat get away with being stank and slatterny when you’re young and cute, but not when you’re a grizzly salty dog in your late forties.

Frit was talented and not without charm, but I didn’t want to be stuck down wind of him, and because he was also a chain smoker his breath reeked like a rodent had died lodged somewhere between tongue and tonsil.

Nagel was very controlling with Frit and tried desperately to mold him into the model white boyfriend. Nagel had lived in Berlin for many years but had never been able to connect with the precious pieces of “high snow” that were part of his regular social orbit. I imagined his haughtiness kept them at a distance. Before meeting Frit, Nagel had a longterm fuckbud in the form of a macho middle aged working class Turkish man. They shared nothing in common other then the Turk`s love of penetrating Nagels sinewy obsidian asstrovar.

Nagel saw potential in Frit and decided he would be his fixer upper. I am really surprised they lasted as long as they did. One time Frit uncharacteristically screamed at me thinking I was giving him shady lady bird over whether he could do something without Nagel’s explicit approval. It was actually one of the few times I wasn’t dropping the Venetian blinds as I have a habit of accidentally on purpose doing. I was very shockedheaded Peter to see Frit nix his casual cool guy persona, as it was something he cultivated with peptic rigour. It was soon after the incident where Frit yelled at me that he broke up with Nagel. Frit often confided in me that he felt Nagel forced him into the role of nuptial breadwinner. Frit also bragged that Nagel possessed the penis of a dinosaur, but exclusively enjoyed only a passive role. Nagel was horrified if any lover or trick even suggested that he be active. With Frit Nagel would just quietly lay on his back holding his legs behind his ears signaling to Frit he was ready to be forcefully mounted. Frit considered himself sexually versatile so his sex life with Nagel was beyond frustrating. He had never wanted to become anyone`s ideal husband. When Nagel insisted on cutting his toenails for him that signalled the end.

Of course I couldn’t spill any of this to Leander at the bar. When Nagel was in gestural monologue mode it was impossible for anyone else to cut in. Coen and I left them after about fifteen minutes to meet some friends at another pub. Two days later I got filled in by Leander that he had to sit through Nagel´s verbosity till 5am before they retired to Nagel´s flat, only to realize that they were both Elizabeth Regina´s in dire need of a robust Prince Phillip.
-->

SUSANNE SACHSSE'S ORIGINAL SIN ON NDR WEDNESDAY

Susanne Sachsse's radio play version of Original Sin this Wednesday Oct 16th 8pm.

Original Sin on NDR - German national radio and the latest CHEAP Funk at Rebooty FM.

Dear CHEAP Friends

It's been a while and I'll keep it brief. Please take 90 minutes this Wednesday, October 16 at 8pm (20 Uhr) to listen to Susanne Sachsse's first radio play, ORIGINAL SIN. DER GANG DER FRAU IM SOZIALISMUS on NDR. This is the radio play based on the story that inspired the concert Original Sin with Xiu Xiu which CHEAP has performed throughout the land. Many of the songs from the concert are incorporated into the radio play. But the radio play not only has additional music by Jamie Stewart/Xiu Xiu but also the fantastic actors:

Silvia Rieger as Luise Brand

Kathrin Angerer as Susanne's Mother

Margarita Broich as The Dramaturg

Susanne Sachsse as the Narrator and Susanne

...and many more

You can listen to it on Wednesday, Oct 16 at 20 Uhr (Berlin time) here: https://www.ndr.de/ndrkultur/livestream154.html

For a complete list of the great cast and crew and for more information.

https://www.ndr.de/ndrkultur/sendungen/hoerspiel/Hoerspiel-Original-Sin,sendung959728.html

...And, as always, don't forget that CHEAP contributes a live monthly radio show, CHEAP Funk, to the great artist radio station reboot.fm. Our latest show called CHEAP Rijun will be online on soundcloud and at http://reboot.fm/category/magazin-talk/cheap-funk/. You can also find some older shows there too. Check them out. Some are fun, some are dumb, some are goofy and some, as we Americans like to say, are interesting (which can go either way). No matter what, you won't regret it, I think.

warmly,

Marcuse Siegelstein

*

The super hot and magnificently well endowed male concubine of the stars Scotty Bower died at age 95. The handsome sexually fluid former Marine and bona fide studkin helped art direct the sex life of many of the greatest stars of Hollywood’s golden era. Scotty was a good friend of Queer Cuntry singing star Glen Meadmore. Scotty will be very much missed as a Hollywood fixture and suprema

Boulevard royale.

FAISONS DE ON REVE UNE REALITE

Faisons de on reve une realite! 

Rester connecte au reseau

Brand new semester at Work Master HEAD Ecole de Art et Design in Geneva where my Perverse Assemblages/Framing the Freakazoid Labzone joins with the seminar of Olga Rozenblum of Trieze Art Space in Paris for a big year long project. It seems that the art school and students are very excited with the prospects. I don´t want to give away too much here at this point in time.

More news from art photographer Annette Frick and Wilhelm Hein who have an exhibition in Brussels. I didn’t get the information in time to post for the opening but I think things will last for a while see below:

Thursday 3 october 2019

18:30
opening of Annette Frick’s exhibition (free)

21:00
Film screenings by Wilhelm Hein and Annette Frick + live music by moro sphinx and D’incise (5€)

Exhibition
3.10.2019 - 13.10.2019
Open on sunday 6 and 13 october, 2-6pm Or by appointment : 04 87 47 51 54

Brasseries Atlas
Rue du Libre Examen 15, 1070 Anderlecht

*

Two stars of my childhood both died recently at the same age of 84-the gorgeous Miss Diahann Carroll and loopy comedian Rip Taylor.

Diahann Carroll starred in films like Carmen Jones 1954, Porgy and Bess 1959, Paris Blues, 1960, Hurry Sundown, 1967, and Claudine, 1974, where she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She starred in her own TV series that broke ground in that she played a nurse and not a servant called Julia from 1968-1971 co-starring cute child actor Marc Copage.  Ms. Carroll played a glamorous bitchy villainess on the 80s primetime soap Dynasty. The singer/actress also was the first African American to win a Tony Award for best actress on Broadway in the Richard Rodgers musical No Strings, 1962.

Rip Taylor was known as the wacky confetti tossing rambunctuos queen on TV game and variety shows during the 1970s. I will never forget having a close encounter with the TV starina when I was with singer/songwriter Glen Meadmore waiting to be sat at the French Market Place Diner in West Hollywood. Mr.Taylor was dressed in his usual flamboyant manner and was in front of us and Mr. Meadmore said to him, “I love your rings”.  Mr. Taylor was bedecked in an array of turquise jewelry covering his entire contenance.  Mr. Taylor with that famed handlebar mustache of his turned around slowly looking Mr. Meadmore and I up and down and casually  replied without missing a beat, “Thank you, so do I”.

BRENNT'S BEIM PINKELN?

Brennt’s beim Pinkeln?
Las dich auf sexuell uebertragbare

So delighted that I was able to see the work of two of my genius Geneva Work Master HEAD students Constance Brosse and Jacopo Belloni along with their vivacious colleagues Johana Blanc, Sylvain Gewelski, Vicente Leser, Henrique Loja, Sara Ravelli, Niels Trannois and Paulo Wirz that was part of this year’s Berlin Art Week. Their gorgeous installation was a collective exhibition in Archivio Conz under the title Fridges are not Frigid. The Conz Archive is quite unique as Francesco Conz was not only a collector but worked and lived closely with artists of the main avant-garde movements of his time: Fluxus, Viennese Actionism, ZAJ, Lettrisme, Concrete Poetry, Sound Poetry and Gorgona.

The Arsenal’s retrospective on homo-romantik Hollywood golden era director Frank Borzage has been utterly divine. Loved seeing a youthful Spencer Tracy and radiant Loretta Young in Man’s Castle 1933, and Tracy and Joan Crawford in Mannequin very hardhitting in terms of the take on poverty and inequities.

Charles Farrell with his bubble butt faggy whoop de loop shined in the highly stylized Liliom 1930. The play Liliom is based on is the source material for the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. The great Lee Tracy was in high invert form as the mincing grifty villain. In Three Comrades 1938, Margaret Sullavan and a pre Father Knows Best Robert Young sacrifice themselves so that humpy beauty boy Robert Taylor can find true happiness and passionate love with hungry holed Franchot Tone in South America as fascism looms in the Germany of 1920. It could easily be the Germany of today. In A Farewell to Arms 1933, svelte matronly looking Helen Hayes not only miscarriages but also dies so that lean Ganymede Gary Cooper(substituting for closet case Ernest Hemmingway) can finally submit to the leering advances of kinky hedonista Adolphe Menjou. Really who can blame Mr. Hairyeyeball Menjou as Cooper is literally bursting out of his slacks in almost every scene in the picture. In History is Made at Night 1937, suave Charles Boyer is the object of affection of Leo Carrillo as the way too possessive plump pepperpot best friend, while poor "I only photograph good on one side" Jean Arthur is saddled to an obsessive homo-cidal Miss Priss played by brittle Colin Clive who looks like Mitch McConnell when he was young. I take that back Mitch McConnell was never young. He was born a granpa.

I’ve Always Loved You 1946, a color entry in the Borzage canon is set in the milieu of classical music where a concert pianist Catherine McLeod, (a low rent Gene Tierney doppleganger) must chose between her rather comely gay husband Bill Carter or gay maestro Philip Dorn. Well the choice should be easy for her as the hysterical maestro already has a high maintenance live-in lover in the form of Fritz Feld. Madame Maria Ouspenskaya steals the film like she always does. I adored her in Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl Dance. Madame Maria gives a great explanation of modern piano telekinesis and telepathy that is out of this ca-world. My film sister of the clothe the patrician Landgraf Stephan Ahrens, late of Zeughaus Kino gave a masterful introduction of the film in decidedly masculine ardour.

Cant wait to see The Mortal Storm 1940, Moonrise 1948 and Strange Cargo 1940 with Clark Gable and Joan Crawford.
*
Was listening to NPR Berlin and it annoys me to no end that the engorge media refuses to report on the Orange Roughy Tetrarch of what was formerly the United States of America’s drug addiction.  Even us punters in Berlin are aware of President Weebles Wooble But They Don't Fall Down addiction to snorting  and tooting Demerol. It’s the super elefantes in the room, and no one mentions it----so bizarre.
This just in from the art photographer Annette Frick:
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren
liebe Freundinnen und Freunde
zu meiner Ausstellung:
Abriss, Trümmertunten und Internationale Individuen - 1991 - 2010
gibt's am 26.9.2019 die grosse Trümmer Tunten Show (statt Vernissage)
unten im grossen Saal des Märkischen Museums
mit Zeremonienmeistern Patsy L'amour laLove und
Melitta Poppe, Tima die Göttliche, Juwelia Soraya, Betty Bückse, Daisy u.a.
Einlass 18 Uhr -Start 19 Uhr
Das Fotografische Kabinett zeigt im ersten Stock, erstmals Bilder meiner Serie:
Nix … meta … meta … schwupp… weg is et
oder Fortschritt und Rückbau und Auszüge aus Fuck Gender
Ich freue mich wenn Ihr kommt
Herzlichst Annette Frick
siehe auch:

https://www.stadtmuseum.de/ausstellungen/abriss-fotografien-von-annette-frick

*

One of my former NYU students the prolific Beatrice Glow has a new solo exhibition:
Happy Equinox friends and colleagues!
I am traveling to Taiwan to open my solo exhibition Forts amd Flowers on October 19th at Taipei Contemporary Art Center. This will be my first time exhibiting in my parents' homeland so this is a very significant endeavor. Please follow me on Instagram for more timely updates or come by the exhibtion!

And my dearest friend and best girlfriend Glenn Belverio formerly known as the artiste Glennda Orgasm has an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York:  Urban Indian:  Native New York Now   that runs from September 27, 2019 - February 15, 2019.  If you are in the Tri-Sexual State area you owe it to your self to run and see it.  Glenn Belverio is geniustrata in everything he does!

NEUE ZEILEN UND TAGE

Neue Zeilen und Tage
Leben und Philosophie

Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome was quite explosive Tuesday September 10th at the Vollguter Gemeinschaftsgarten on the grounds of the Kindl brewery in Neukoelln with an all Brazilian salute to Cinema Novo movement and screening of Patio 1959 by Glauber Rocha which has music but no dialogue.

Lehenga Jewish Muzlim Daniel Hendrickson and Ms. Davis read from text by humpy Brazilian queer politico David Miranda (the trophy husband of journalist Glenn Greenwald) and the late, great activist leader Marielle Franco who the evening was in tribute to. MARIELLE FRANCO PRESENCHE!

The other shorts included Amazonas, Amazonas 1966, Maranhao 66 and an unexpected film by Tata Amaral that featured John Cage and Merce Cunningham that wound up in the film canister that was marked for Viver a Vida. Sometimes the archive takes demonic possession over what is screened leaving you as a helpless curatorial victim. Our planned translation of the Amaral film subtitles we found ourselves reciting without the film, certainly a performative first!

At the end of the robust evening everyone stuck around to celebrate the 29th birthday of sexy scholar Nanna Heidenreich which continued on till 3am at a frolicsome local pub around the corner on Flughafen Strasse called Trude Ruth und Goldammer.

Seen & heard on this festive evening with a full moon: Elena Bomastae (studied Film in Frankfurt, she was at the arsenal summer school),Lorin Decarli (emergency activist, member disruption network lab), Annette Lingg and Gary Vanisian (both for the first time at CVS who are Arsenal program assistants) Charlotte Peters (intern arsenal), Sara Busnaro (architect, who was the first contact in the community garden, but is not part of the collective any longer),Mojisola Adebayo, performer, playwright, actress, teacher/lecturer - see https://mojisolaadebayo.co.uk/. She is active in Black Lives Matter movement and her wonderschoen academic gal pal the incredible Nicole Wolf, curator at Stoffwechsel a project of Archive Ausser Sich, researcher, writer, curator in Visual Cultures at Goldsmith University of London. Both ladies have been doing a series of workshops recently, on permaculture and theater of the oppressed (which fits of course the Brazil connection of the decrepit patina with vinegar syndrome. Other notables included Nuray Demir, one of the curators of District, this amazing queer/ feminist art space, with posse, Uli Ziemons of Forum Expanded, the delightful and utterly charming Jim Hubbard a NYC based experimental filmmaker, archivist at Anthology Film Archive, founder and president of MIX-The New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival and AIDS activist suprema. His most recent film United in Anger: A History of ACT UP is beyond brilliantine.

Was surprised and thrilled to see super hunk and the WORLDS favourite golden child Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, who is now the director of Museo Nacional de Arte in La Paz, Bolivia, always great to see vivacious Sabeth Buchmann a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. She co-wrote a book on Hélio Oiticica with Max Jorge, Vinegar Syndrome regular Prima Ballerina Trixie von Schonherr aka: Beatrice Cordua who at age 79 still gives off radiant youth, Todd Sekuler, the Humboldt Universitat fagademic who is part of the Europach Research Team and was one of the organizers of the Living Politics: Remembering HIV/AIDS Activism Tomorrow Congress, the amazing Margarita Tsomou, founder of Missy Magazine currently running Hebbel am Ufer's discourse / theory program - but also a performer/ curator, author, dramaturg and all around stunning creature, Manuela Schinina, aka DJane Bianca Kruk, sound designer and feminist film Specialist, Michaela Wünsch of bbooks kollektiv, Martin Grennberger (film curator from Sweden), Brazilian film couple Gustavo Jahn & Melissa Dullius, Michael Scaturro the Deutche Welle, NPR and Bloomberg News journalista who has been making inroads into television lately via his work with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Michael Scaturro's companion for the evening comic Joseph Hutchenson who goes by Joe von Hutch on MyFace. You can find him on joevonhutch.com.

Ms. Davis’ old LA palsy walsy the bubbly Michael Wilde was at the eventa. Michael just moved to Germany and is getting a second masters at the Universitaet Weimar, Piero Belomo of La Collezione who is also the husband of Daniel Hendrickson for almost 20 years now, the personable Yusuf ‘Yusi’ Etiman of Basso Kollektive who spends half the year in San Paulo, Brazil where he does work with Trans youth at risk. Yusi is also the graphics designer for the famed Berlin Techno club Berghain, he brought with him the hungthrob Argentine actor Rodrigo De La Serna plus Spains’s resident male ingénue and uber muscular pintsize hottiekin Miguel Herran and languidly patrician Jose’ Pablo Minar of HBO’s Los Espookys, Landgraf Stefan Ahrens late of ZeughausKino im Deutschen Historischen Museum who was the mastermind behind their recent Hedy LaMarr retrospectacular, Adham Hafez Artistic Director HaRaKa Dance Development and Research and Adham Hafez Dance Company www.harakaplatform.com www.adhamhafez.co with his divinely beautiful BFF Sara Soumaya Abed who is a belly dancer artiste who also writes a regular column on sex and sexuality from the Egyptian woman perspective

https://kohljournal.press/sex-workers-working-identity

Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus was looking quite scintillating being the hardest working woman in all of Europa. I can never keep up with La Schulte Strathaus’ schedulina which has her circling the globe in triplicate. The next morning she was off to Toronto to give one of her amazing talks on archives.

Special thankx to Stefanie, Gerrit Woltemath, projectionist Bodo, Nadja the guardian of the kasse, Werner of Nomad Kino who provided the portable screen, Olivia, Fabian, Inga & Tracy from Volguter Gemeinschaftgarten Collective who took care of technic and bar with the most delish popcorn. Our next Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome will most likely be in December after Christmas and before Silvester back at our old stomping Grounds of Arsenal Institut fur film und video kunst kino 2 with a screening of Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva

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Congragulations are in order to art photographer Annette Frick whose career has been all over the place with accolade after accolade. She will be glorified in a new museum show in Berlin soon. Here are the details so you won’t miss out on all the fun and action:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren
liebe Freundinnen und Freunde
ab 17.9.2019 zeigt das Märkische Museum im Fotografischen Kabinett
Fotos meiner nie gezeigten Serie: Nix … meta….meta…schwupp…weg is et
oder Fortschritt und Rückbau und Auszüge aus Funk Gender
unter dem Titel: Abriss, Trümmertunten und Internationale Individuen - 1991 - 2010
Eröffnung gibt es nicht.
aber am 26.9.2019 gibt's eine live Show mit Trümmertunten
und Zeremonienmeistern Patsy LamourlaLove
Einlass ab 17 Uhr -Start 19 Uhr
Ich freue mich wenn Ihr kommt
herzlichst Annette
genaueres siehe link
https://www.stadtmuseum.de/ausstellungen/abriss-fotografien-von-annette-frick

Speaking of fabu artists having exhibitions, thine cup spilleth over this season with juicy news from another one of oue favourite out there feminist women, Miss Rebecca Goyette the celebrated Lobster Lady: Fortuna’s Wheel: Rebecca Goyette’s Solo Exhibition at Shelter Gallery

179 East Broadway, NYC
September 25 - November 15, 2019
Opening Wednesday, September 25th, 6-8pm
Gallery hours, Wednesday-Sunday, 12-6 PM, Website: shelternyc.com
For inquiries contact Rachel Cohen, Email: rachel@shelternyc.com, Phone: 646-822-2999
Shelter Gallery is proud to present Fortuna’s Wheel, a solo exhibition of drawings, sculpture and video by multimedia artist Rebecca Goyette, that considers the artist’s specific use of what she calls “maker’s magic.”

Embracing a fruitful multiplicity of sexual desire, Rebecca Goyette’s artwork delves into complex characters based partially in the real (scientific fact, Puritan history, the annals of witchcraft, Goddess worship and the paranormal) and partially in fiction. Goyette recounts the psychosexual dramas of her direct ancestor, Rebecca Nurse, who was hanged as a Salem witch in her “Ghost Bitch” films, while embodying the mating rituals of lobster in her extensive series of costumed “Lobsta Porns.” 

Through researching her colonial American accused witch ancestry, Goyette deepened her understanding of magic and rediscovered ritual as an artist and object maker. Goyette’s latest body of work is created through a process of sigil magic drawing. Sigils are created through a process of condensing written statements of the maker’s greatest desires, formed into charged graphic symbols. Goyette has developed her own sigil/symbol drawing technique through combining multiple sigils in intricate pictorial representations that feature eroticism, and co-mingling of human and animal realms. 

Sigils have a long history of use in magical practices, originally thought of as pictorial signatures of otherworldly entities, and later sigils reinvented as symbols created to manifest one’s desired outcomes. Surrealist artist Austin Osman Spare further developed the technique creating intricate pictorial representations. In 1936, Hitler asked Spare to paint his portrait. Spare refused Hitler, stating, “if you are what is considered superhuman, let me be forever animal.” For Goyette, Spare’s statement of resistance resonated, feeling the necessity to face current political turmoil in the United States with a measure of intuition andmagical protection, finding liberation in her erotic expressions.

Fortuna’s Wheel Event Schedule:
Thursday, October 3rd, 6-8 PM
“Crustacean Temptation” Screening/Artist and Curator Talk, Rebecca Goyette and Marie Beckmann, Berlin’s EVBG feminist video art curator/co-producer of the film.
Weekend of October 11th
“Glamour Magic Workshop in honor of Fortuna,” featuring special guest: the author of “Glamour Magic, The Witchcraft Revolution to Get What You Want” Deborah Castellano.
Wednesday, October 30th, 6-8 PM
"Sigil Magic Drink and Draw" with the artist. 

One the masculine side of things, Matt Lipps is one artist who has a lot in and out of his platinum salver. Besides being electrically handsome and devilingusly charismatic he has one of the largest pingas in Christendom. Here is the latest happening with him:
upcoming exhibitions and public engagements kicking off in Los Angeles & taking place over the next few months in San Francisco & Melbourne. All details are listed below with links. If you find yourself in one of these cities, please stop in & say 'hi!' Thanks! xoxo Matt (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=8641a710f1&e=d87c1dc3fb)

https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=2c57bb4e76&e=d87c1dc3fb

Where Figure Becomes Ground
September 12 - October 19, 2019
Opening reception: Thursday, September 12, 6-8pm
Matt Lipps in conversation with Drew Sawyer - Thursday, October 10, 6pm
Jessica Silverman Gallery (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=f1a972f8d0&e=d87c1dc3fb)
488 Ellis Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Instagram: @jessicasilvermangallery (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=a30d36d427&e=d87c1dc3fb)

https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=0276466255&e=d87c1dc3fb

September 6 - November 15, 2019
Opening reception: Friday, September 6th, 5-7pm
Matt Lipps in conversation with Catherine Opie, Thursday, November 7th, 6-7pm
Euclid Gallery at HGA Architects, Los Angeles (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=89003c1631&e=d87c1dc3fb)
1301 Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90404

Instagram: @euclidgallery (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=72a0f945cc&e=d87c1dc3fb)

Ballarat International Foto Biennale (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=7fa315a4d7&e=d87c1dc3fb)

August 24 - October 20, 2019

To The Moon and Back (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=02b43f4bbc&e=d87c1dc3fb)

Curators Rebecca Najdowski & Dr. Colleen Boyle
Ballarat Municipal Observatory & Museum
439 Cobden Street

Mount Pleasant, VIC 3350 Australia
Participating artists Vincent Fournier & Matt Lipps in conversation with exhibition curators, Saturday, October 19, 2-3pm

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Artist Lecture: Matt Lipps
Wednesday, October 16, 6-7pm
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)
Bowen Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia

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** Website (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=a86ece04e5&e=d87c1dc3fb)

** Instagram (https://mattlipps.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a42c195c5020084b4aae8430&id=58bbfd6f5b&e=d87c1dc3fb)

DON'T HOLD THE DOOR OPEN

Don’t Hold the Door Open

Break the Hinges!

Felt so fortunate to be invited to Materia Abierta an independent program on theory, art, and technology based in Mexico City that focuses on the study of the social, political and philosophical. The inaugrural edition of Materia Abierta, Novo Pan Klub curated by Natalie Zuluaga and developed with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico UNAM in coordination with Cultura UNAM, the programa de Arte, Ciencia y Tecnologias (ACT), and Catedra Max Aub held at Casa Universitaria del Libro(CASUL) and Casa del Lago Juan Jose Arreola. The faculty consisted of Yasnaya Elena Aguilar Gil, Ramon Amaro, Macarena Gomez Barris, Bethany Johns, Gean Moreno & Ernesto Oroza, Reza Negarestani and the wonderful Susana Vargas Cervantes who I met before through Jose Munoz when we were invited in 2008 to McGill University in Montreal. Ms. Cervantes gave a magnificent presentation called Pigmentocracy and Performativity: Intersections with Criminality and Visual Culture. Her talk featured her research on the Mexican Mujercitos and the tabloid publication Alarma which I remember use to be sold at every liquor store in South Central LA. I can’t wait to read Susana’s book The Little Old Lady Killer: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico’s First Female Serial Killer.

The Materia Abierta team included patrician Federico Perez Villoro who gave me a copy of his fetching  tome Printer Prosthetic: Futura on Printed Matter Press.

Assisting me in Mexico City was my dear old turkey of a friend Hector Martinez, the only Swedish man born of two Mexican parents.  Picking us up from the aeroport was that knockout tag team of Ana Rivera and Eva Posas, two of the most gorgeous girls in all of Latin America. Another stunning member of the Materia Abierta team was luscious Cinthya Garcia Leyva and that macho’s macho Edwardo Makoszay who was taking care of all my technical needs. The program will continue until December and is one of the most well crafted art specialty educational congresses I have ever been a part of. Because of the high demand of young international artists to work with me my workshop was divided into two parts.

The exercises Chingaso Fight Club and What’s Your Damage?---really stimulated the talented participants.  I gave an SRO artist talk with the creme de la of Mexican society in attendance including Diego Luna, Augusto Aguilera, and Sebastian Yatra.

I was worried that my recent operation would cause me problems in Mexico City, but other then a little bleeding I was fine. Thank goddess that it’s the rainy season in Mexico and the weather was quite cool. Prepping in Los Angeles was a different story altogether. It was quite hot and humid during the day with a nice cooling off in the evening. Was able to meet with the lovely main curators of the Hammer Museum who took me to a fab luncheon in their restaurant. The food was most excellent and so was the company. Was reading the Hammer Summer Guide and was delighted to find out that Curt Shepard is a new board member. Curt use to work with me at UCLA at the Placement and Career Planning Center. Mr. Shepard became a trophy wife marrying a wealthy conglomerist and is now part of the Nuevo art philanthrocracy.

While in El Lay I was pretty much on the downlow staying at Hector’s guest cottage in Plato Del Lago in Edendale’s Silverlake Hills. Hector did throw me a tiny little soiree with Ron Athey, Jamie Stewart, Lisa Teasley, Paula Cronan, Andrew Gould, and Norman Ghoulsen von Holtzendorf in attendance. Later I was able to spend some quality time with Craig Roose, Marlou DeLuna&Hal Marinus, Glen Meadmore, Kimberly Kim of North Korea and Emmy Award winning TV producer Meesh Mills who took me to the Slauson Super Mall in Funkytown. We also got down and dirty doing the pie puppy chow at Dupar’s.

Returning to Berlin was difficult because of the infernal heat waves which caused my feet to swell making walking difficult if not impossible. As Quentin Crisp would say, "Getting old isn’t for sissies". 

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Those who are visiting Berlin you may want to scurry to Wedding on Sept 8th 6pm to the art salon Casabaubou at Seestr 107 off the U6 subway line. Experimental film gura Wilhelm Hein and his art photog girlfriend Annette Frick are hosting a Dada evening called Dada Lebt – Das Grosse und das Kleine Tohuwabohu von Wilhelm Hein that includes skulpturen – objecte –der 80er jahre bis heute. With Annette Frick, Shirin Barthel und Ruvi Simmons, Kurze Filme – Lesungen and performances von Sissi Tax, Thorsten Fleisch, Guy Parker and gasten. 

Oh and September 10th at 8pm is the latest Contemporary Vinegar Syndrome this time at Vollguter Gemeinschaftsgarten Werbellinstr 50 in Berlin Neukolln on the grounds of the former Kindl Brewery.  We are showing four 16 mm films from Brazil.  Lets hope it doesn´t rain as its an open air cinema.