Du bist der Gauner

There isn´t anyone on the 13th moons who likes icky, grifty Sarastro. Wherever he goes doors are slammed shut to him, yet he can´t see that he has burned every bridge in Madison County as well as the bridges of Toko Ri. He will forever be joined at the drip to Werner Erhard and Buckminister Fuller in their Lifespring journey which started in Hawaii years ago and was made Dudley Do Right in the Aleutian Islands. Evelyn Venable is delighted to never have to see that thyroid eyed liver lipped foolio ever again. Evelyn is a very patient woman, just like Madame Mao. Miss Venable doesn´t care if it takes fifty years, she will meek out justice for every slight upon her person. No one holds a Mexican grudge longer or more deadly than Evelyn Venable.

Wenn es anschwillt, fahren Sie damit

The Vagimule Doll is taking tiny baby steps in rejoining cafe society. During the pandemic Ms. Davis who hates going to the dentist refrained from sitting in that olde torture chair. Her last dentist she liked but the lady was always having trouble keeping staff and when you go for a dental appointment the last things you want is to see your mouth care professional all high strung and anxious. So after three years of putting it off, La Ms. Davis started to go to La Susanne Sachsse´s dentist. The Fearless Leader of CHEAP goes to a feministiche dental zentrum run by a gaggle of wonderful women who know exactly how to deal with people who are pain sensitive. Because Vaginal Davis has late onset type one diabetes it has caused some difficulties with the periodontal work that she needs. So after an intense surgery she was in the depths of throbbing pain and more pain. In Germany the strongest medication that one can get is over the counter tylenol. Whats a lady to do when she needs to attend some Art Weekend events. Well she kindly relies on art world gurus who came to her delicious rescue providing some Paracetamol with the magic of codeine. I won´t name any names because its so under the table and I don´t want anyone getting convicted for being a pusher of hard narcotics. But your tasty heroine Vaginal Davis, Herzogin von Omnium und Gatherum was able to to attend the opening exhibition I´m Not Coming Back Here of the gorgeous and magical Diamond Stingily at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi. Ms. Stingily is an ethereal creature of the highest order. She is so stately and imposing, one of the most royal and talented of art beauties. In other words she is SUPREME and SUBLIME. Her work opens up many zesty mythic portals and after viewing it you will know why the caged bird sings and will come in direct conflict with the mirror and its two faces. The exhibition runs from April 29th till July 1st. You owe yourself the pleasure of a visit.

Besides the Art Weekend hordes spotted at the Shöneberger Ufer galerie was novelist Travis Jeppeson looking rock schtar chic with entourage that included some dazzling visiting Canadian dignitaries.Mr. Jeppeson is back in Berlin after teaching for many years in China. Also on hand the glamorous German philosopher Juliane Rebentisch, critic Diedrich Diederichsen looking dapper with his stylish acolytes on hand, and Prada´s Raf Simons.

After the opening the artist dinner took place in a West Berlin flower shop where home cooked Vietnamese cuisine was served in one of the most stylish and idyllic atmospheres in Christendom. Leave it to Isabella Bortolozzi to turn supper time into an art installation of joy and generosity. You couldn´t get more Spring Awakening or Some Other Spring than being surrounded in cascading posies. What better place for fervent socialising and magnificent company, not to mention scintilating food.

The Herzogin was seated across from the guest of honor Ms. Stingily who sat next to her BFF the lovely and vivacious Olamiju Fajemisin who is quite the admirer of the writings of the late great Jose Muñoz. Ms. Stingily and Ms. Fajemisin were taking turns holding little baby Francis Farmer, the six week old precious bundle of artists Leila Hekmat and Roman Ole who sat across from sleek David Velasco, the editor-in-chief of Art Forum with his delightful companion Bennet Bergman. Next to them was musician and artist from Portland Oregon now living in Berlin Colin Self, with his fetching comrade Christian Oldham who is a Berlin "It Boy" originally from Woodland Hills, California. Ms. Stingily´s other compadre Hamishi Farah provided Ms. Davis with juicy eyecandy and someone she could shamelessly flirt with. Lady D also found the two Vietnamese boy hosts utterly lovesexy and charming along with their blondine buddy who was floating about all evening. The Bortolozzi Famiglia of Philip, Luzie Kamilla and Cuno are always pure delights along with Maurin Dietrich, Rüdiger Maaß, Philomena Schurer Merckoll, Dan de Norch, Martin McGeown, Monika Senz and Stephen G. Rhodes.

The artist dinner reminded our Dowager Lady D of the dinners she would provide for her artists in the 1980s with her HAG Gallery-small, contemporary, haggard. Those dinner parties were always held in the Russian Quartier flat of Iris Parker of the progressive R&B group Madame X. Iris´s roommate was a Somali immigrant named Lydia who turned their apartment into an early version of a pop up restaurant. The artists and guests enjoyed the African atmosphere and home cooked Somali meals.

When Professor Dr. Davis had her gigante Koreatown compound in Los Angeles she hosted a series of formal dinner parties for one of her friends who was a chef trying to get investors to help him open up a restaurant. Ms. Davis followed in the adage of legendary party planner and dinner hostess Elsa Maxwell in never allowing couples to sit next to each other.

ÄSTHETISCH

Just received two sweet notes from my very talented former students C. Maria Norrman in Sweden and Aliza Shvarts of the United States who performed as Princess Pamina in the CHEAP production of The Magic Flute Part One: An Opera in Six Steps.

Dear friends,

Hello!
My film Jane Avril – The life of a Moulin Rouge Dancer will be screened on two occasions in Sweden this month, in Malmö and in Stockholm.

Jane Avril – The life of a Moulin Rouge dancer is an artistic documentary where I tell all the facts I have found about Jane Avril’s life in detail, starting from her birth in 1868 to her death in 1943.
I reference all the historical facts and plausible stories I had found up until 2022.
I often present info in front of places linked to the presented period in Jane’s life. The documentary was made while on a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts. It was shot in Paris and in Jouy-en-Josas, France.

The documentary is part of the larger body of work about my relation to French dance performer Jane Avril (1868-1943), who was a model and friend of artist Toulouse-Lautrec. I’ve felt connected to her personality and artistic expression ever since the very first time I saw images and photos of her in 2004.

Link to info and trailer (with French subtitles):
https://marianorrman.net/?page_id=1662

Premiere:
Jane Avril – The life of a Moulin Rouge Dancer

19 April - 18:15/6.15 pm
Free entry
Cinema Panora
Friisgatan 19D, Malmö
Arranged by: Malmö Art Museum
https://panora.se/events/jane-avril-the-life-of-a-moulin-rouge-dancer/
Language: English, with Swedish subtitles

Jane Avril – The life of a Moulin Rouge Dancer
26 April 19:00/7 pm
Free entry
Konstakademiens Hörsal/The Royal Academy of Fine Art
Fredsgatan 12, Stockholm
https://konstakademien.se/events/filmvisning-3/
Language: English, with Swedish subtitles

Upcoming in 2023:

29 April - 10 September
Nyförvärv – New Acquisitions
Homografiska Museet, Fengersfors, Sweden
https://homografiska.se/english

5 May – 6 June
ScandiLA, Galleri CC exhibits with Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles
Galleri CC, Malmö

16 June – 24 September
Exhibition at Malmö Art Museum in connection to Barbro and Holger Bäckströms grant
Malmö, Sweden
https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/malmo/images/maria-norrman-2613584

8 July – 14 August
Exchange exhibition with Galleri CC
Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Los Angeles, USA
https://www.tigerstrikesasteroid.com/

October
Residency at Zaratan, Lisbon, Portugal

--
www.marianorrman.net


*

If you will be in Berlin on Friday, April 21, 2023, please join me for the opening of An Imagination of Bodily Autonomy at Galerie im Saalbau from 6-10pm, curated by Nina Marlene Krauss and on view from April 22 - June 25, 2023.

This will be the first time I have shown Untitled [Senior Thesis]—a work I made as a student 15 years ago—since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court. For an academic year, I self-inseminated around the time I was ovulating. Two weeks later I took an herbal abortifacient, after which I would experience cramps and heavy bleeding. This bleeding could have been either a normal period or a very early-stage self-induced miscarriage—the piece was intentionally crafted so that not even I knew which.

The work highlights the histories of how people have self-managed their reproductive capacities, as well as the ways in which the biological experience of our bodies is overwritten with interpretation: our own, but also the far more consequential interpretations of those more powerful than us. Whether a viewer sees something liberatory, monstrous, or mundane in the very long—and often quite boring—footage of me sitting in a bathtub bleeding is determined by their own act of reading, which is no more or less authoritative than my own.

Making this work instilled in me a deep and enduring conviction in the body as both a creative and political tool: one that highlights how we are already vulnerable in the social, legal, and cultural spheres, but can also enact unrealized possibilities. In my case, an imagination of total bodily autonomy—that I can use the capacity of my own body however I want. Now more than ever, I understand this work as something that is at its core utopian: an imagination and brief enacting of a future not yet here.

I'm grateful to be showing this work again. If you are around for the opening, I'd love to see you!

xAliza