Contemporary Cruising

by Contemporary Cruising |July 12, 2017 1:32 am

Interior Semiotics, Gabbi Colette, March 27, 2010 at Forever (21)

by Contemporary Cruising |July 11, 2017 8:38 pm

screensaver by Janine Harrington with Vanessa Abreu, Charlie Ashwell, Stella Papi, Elisa Vassena

by Contemporary Cruising |July 3, 2017 12:19 am

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Avoiding deLIFEath, Ivo Dimchev, 2017 Trailer

by Contemporary Cruising |June 2, 2017 2:32 pm

About Space Walk from Michele Rizzo with Emma Daniel & Valerio Sirna.
By Clara Amaral

I was thinking about the difference between adding a word before or after Space. For example: open space, closed space, middle space vs. Space walk. Obviously, it is possible to talk about walking a Space, but we never really say: —That Space there is really calling for a walk, I will go and walk it. Maybe the Space that is a field asks for a walk, or the Space that is a beautiful avenue asks for a walk; an anonymous space doesn’t ask for a walk. But if you ask me, that looks like the best space for going for a walk. To Space walk. And that would be the moment before the Space becomes something, before the Space becomes the highway, the beach, the football field or even the theatre space. The Space that shows and talks the invisible, the imagination, the potential.
While watching Space Walk from Michele Rizzo, I had to think, “how is it that a closed circuit becomes an open space?”

Barely a decade later, the news that Giessen-born Imhof would be representing Germany at the 2017 Venice Biennale initially divided critics — from different corners she was claimed too young, too queer or too fascist. The artist responded with a proposition, equal parts provocative and epic: a seven-month long choreographed scenario encompassing the whole German pavilion, with sculptural and painterly interventions, and daily five-hour performances for the duration of the show, called Faust.

The architectural history of the building has long proved challenging for exhibiting artists. Replete with square columns, it was designed by Ernst Haiger in 1938 under the Nazi regime. Imhof encloses the kitsch palatial structure with temporary steel security gates. A couple of Doberman Pinschers are being calmed down by their handler, a muzzled aggression that foreshadows the action inside.

As well as being the German word for ‘fist,’ the title is borrowed from Goethe’s restless protagonist who sells his soul to the devil, later inspiring the overture by 19th century composer Richard Wagner, whom Adolf Hitler famously admired. Can the latent allusions to fascism implicit within Imhof’s work maintain criticality, or do they encourage a dark public fascination with the totalitarian theatrics of power?

Within Haiger’s original knave-like interior, the artist has constructed a platform in toughened glass, a material motif of an investment bank. This architectural mise-en-abyme — sharp transparent geometries set within an austere neoclassical interior — offers a disturbing read of contemporary Germany. The nation’s dominance within today’s neoliberal framework was itself born from the uterine shell of an autocratic regime.

Around the space is a considered disarray of ambivalent objects — tubes, an electric guitar, concrete sinks, sodden towels — that evoke Imhof’s personal history working as a bouncer at Frankfurt’s legendary nightclub Robert Johnson. It’s the world of nocturnal violence with the lights turned on. Performers move languidly but with precision. Hands are on throats, tenderness contorts into aggression; simple gestures of walking are slowed down, glances become gazes. The dynamics of control pervade these actions. The micro-movements demonstrate how organic beings buckle under abstract powers and systems, evoking the current political tensions as right-wing ideologies start to take hold.

Read full text here
http://www.aqnb.com/2017/05/30/visceral-but-lifeless-violence-the-value-of-the-image-in-anne-imhofs-market-of-meaning/

by Contemporary Cruising |May 15, 2017 12:16 am

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