So recently between camera issues & computer problems, I haven’t been reviewing as much as is my habit. But I experienced a couple of wonderful pieces of conceptual artwork and I ‘d like to share even if I haven't figured out the picture features of posting this blog.
Right now in Xpo park you can walk to the other side of the street & at the UTD artists residency known as the gallery CentralTrak you can look to the right front corner of the roof & see a bronze sculpture perched up there. It appears to be a bomb with bird legs.
It was done by the artist known as Dadara Thinktank from Amsterdam. I first became familiar with his work last spring when the same gallery showed his interactive performance installation known as Dreamyourtopia. Here is a link to the website for the project where I suggest you take a look at the applications on pdf that guests have submitted when participating at exhibitions, as well as photographs from the four events. http://www.dadara.nl/checkpoint/ -or- http://www.dreamyourtopia.com/
This was not an average art opening last January. The promotional links said that a completed application from each guest would be required. It was highly dadist in questioning over two pages and they encouraged a picture or self portrait of the applicant be included in the passport photo sized box on the form.
The gallery space was modified so that guests were required to enter through the back entrance … and get in a line. One of many lines & cues I might confess.
Now you are probably thinking, why I hate lines & forms. Yes we do. Hell yes we do. & why would you want to voluntarily do so on your free time? Because this is different.
This is a social experiment of sorts. One line lead to another line & to another… Put strangers in confined places together. Make them jump thru hoops, edit their applications, read from children’s books aloud, be next in line. Tell them which way to face. Some people did not enjoy this, their torment was other’s amusement. Some of us have fun on the journey and questioned interrogators & played with the other captives & shared flasks. Social strata all removed, all applicants stood together in line.
But to what purpose are all lines & forms? With these concrete tools we have a path to flow through the system, to make things happen. And sometimes we see the loopholes & honesty that are required to subvert the system. I always subscribed to William Burrough’s theory about wearing a suit as a costume required to work under the radar of the uptight system so we might subvert & improve it. We don’t want to fit in. We want to confuse their ideas about reading a book by its cover. There are many costumes in this life.
So I got no pictures of that fantastic showing in Dallas. Not of the snaking lines of people. Not of the enclosed border crossing station that was solidly constructed of wood, reminiscent of old cold war movies. Not of the typical gallery opening that followed the at least seven earlier lines. When I arrived in the main gallery, I was overcome with the desire to do it all again, only backwards. So my friend who had wandered in the exit door & I snuck around the building housing the border crossing & did all the lines backwards. Installed ourselves and systematically did it in reverse. The people waiting in line the first time that saw us pass through were baffled.
Since that time, I have made a new friend or two. Two of which are a lovel
y couple of performance artists that are currently abroad till this time next year. We met at a body painting night Tigger hosted at our friend’s place. People all come with food & drink to share. The host provided the paints, brushes & inspiration. Guests were welcome to wear whatever they like or be used as a nude canvas if they prefer. This is not really of a sexual nature but is more a celebration of the human form. Painters & canvases come in all ages & sizes and are accepted as a beautiful human being to be embellished.
The monthly events have included the art of body painting as well as fire spinning by the host as well as our other friends who play with poi & light. The pictures are by a French photographer http://www.thomassubtil.com/ . You can also see Tigger’s set of pictures on flickr but they won't let me link them here due to the tasteful nudity (or maybe I just can't work this blog yet lol) and you can see them by clicking >here<
Right now in Xpo park you can walk to the other side of the street & at the UTD artists residency known as the gallery CentralTrak you can look to the right front corner of the roof & see a bronze sculpture perched up there. It appears to be a bomb with bird legs.
It was done by the artist known as Dadara Thinktank from Amsterdam. I first became familiar with his work last spring when the same gallery showed his interactive performance installation known as Dreamyourtopia. Here is a link to the website for the project where I suggest you take a look at the applications on pdf that guests have submitted when participating at exhibitions, as well as photographs from the four events. http://www.dadara.nl/checkpoint/ -or- http://www.dreamyourtopia.com/
This was not an average art opening last January. The promotional links said that a completed application from each guest would be required. It was highly dadist in questioning over two pages and they encouraged a picture or self portrait of the applicant be included in the passport photo sized box on the form.
The gallery space was modified so that guests were required to enter through the back entrance … and get in a line. One of many lines & cues I might confess.
Now you are probably thinking, why I hate lines & forms. Yes we do. Hell yes we do. & why would you want to voluntarily do so on your free time? Because this is different.
This is a social experiment of sorts. One line lead to another line & to another… Put strangers in confined places together. Make them jump thru hoops, edit their applications, read from children’s books aloud, be next in line. Tell them which way to face. Some people did not enjoy this, their torment was other’s amusement. Some of us have fun on the journey and questioned interrogators & played with the other captives & shared flasks. Social strata all removed, all applicants stood together in line.
But to what purpose are all lines & forms? With these concrete tools we have a path to flow through the system, to make things happen. And sometimes we see the loopholes & honesty that are required to subvert the system. I always subscribed to William Burrough’s theory about wearing a suit as a costume required to work under the radar of the uptight system so we might subvert & improve it. We don’t want to fit in. We want to confuse their ideas about reading a book by its cover. There are many costumes in this life.
So I got no pictures of that fantastic showing in Dallas. Not of the snaking lines of people. Not of the enclosed border crossing station that was solidly constructed of wood, reminiscent of old cold war movies. Not of the typical gallery opening that followed the at least seven earlier lines. When I arrived in the main gallery, I was overcome with the desire to do it all again, only backwards. So my friend who had wandered in the exit door & I snuck around the building housing the border crossing & did all the lines backwards. Installed ourselves and systematically did it in reverse. The people waiting in line the first time that saw us pass through were baffled.
Since that time, I have made a new friend or two. Two of which are a lovel
y couple of performance artists that are currently abroad till this time next year. We met at a body painting night Tigger hosted at our friend’s place. People all come with food & drink to share. The host provided the paints, brushes & inspiration. Guests were welcome to wear whatever they like or be used as a nude canvas if they prefer. This is not really of a sexual nature but is more a celebration of the human form. Painters & canvases come in all ages & sizes and are accepted as a beautiful human being to be embellished.The monthly events have included the art of body painting as well as fire spinning by the host as well as our other friends who play with poi & light. The pictures are by a French photographer http://www.thomassubtil.com/ . You can also see Tigger’s set of pictures on flickr but they won't let me link them here due to the tasteful nudity (or maybe I just can't work this blog yet lol) and you can see them by clicking >here<
I bring Tigger into this story for two reasons. He participated in the final exhibition of the Dreamyourtopia installation in Berlin as well as applying at its earlier showing on the playa in Black Rock City. He gave me his Dreamyourtopia Passport before he left on his trip and I was shocked & thrilled & thought I was going to get a little weepy there but it was terribly terribly nice for him to share this piece of his experience with me. He says he has seen it four times. here is a link to his photo’s from the last installation of Dreamyourtopia done on the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall.
For the final exhibit, Dreamyourtopia was created in a public pool in Berlin. During the opening, some people waited in those lines for over four & half hours. There was near riot. People were kicking holes through the plywood I am told. Now on Dadara’s blog you can get more inside information about this closing because I’m not exactly sure how the sequence of the next part of the story goes as I heard of the incident secondhand. dreamyourtopia.blogspot.com
All I know is at some point they brought in graffiti artists & tagged up the entire installation structure. Then they brought in the sledgehammers & went to it. Turned the entire thing into rubble. Love it.
So when the same artist returned to Dallas to show his BirdBomb, I had to be there. Ran into Tigger & the lovely Rebecca in a long hallway in the exhibit space where carefully crafted wooden boxes called sonic mnemonics by Patrick Murphy encouraged opening the doors & allowing the music box to be heard and delicate painting to be seen. http://www.utdallas.edu/centraltrak
Then suddenly our attention is caught by a little curly haired blonde boy about 3 or 4 years of age, who is standing at the far end of the hallway calling us, telling us we have to “Come see. Come see.” He is pointing into an open doorway at the end of the hall to the side. And being three of the most curious adults in the room, we scamper down to see what is behind door number one. Its an amazing light installation built onto a metal stand of some sort, covered in club lights, disco balls, lasers, smoke machines and an unfortunately not being used margarita machine. It had amazing controls for the operator like a video game & I was gushing verbally over it as I tend to do and out of the darkness the creator says thank you. I ask him to turn alllll the lights on it. & its fabulous & twinkling & such a nice surprise. We tell him so & suggest he put it on wheels.
Out on the back patio of Central Trak there was a set of three “dry” waterboards in a performance installation by a different artist, this one from Denton, named Angel Cabrales. Surfboards on an incline stand with straps for the combatant. & guarding this detention set up was a group of kids probably aged 3-5. known as the Blackwater Junior Corps, the kids were dressed in desert combat fatigues & carried little plastic guns with red laser sights. It was incredibly creepy. http://www.angelcabrales.com/
I don’t know what part I liked more. Guests volunteered to be strapped down by the little interrogators, have fake guns pointed in their face & having a tyke scream “what’s your favorite color?” But there was something surreal about watching a four year old dance around trying to catch the projections of a couple of laser sights, not because he was instructed to but because he is just a curious kid in a crazy world.
I don’t know what part I liked more. Guests volunteered to be strapped down by the little interrogators, have fake guns pointed in their face & having a tyke scream “what’s your favorite color?” But there was something surreal about watching a four year old dance around trying to catch the projections of a couple of laser sights, not because he was instructed to but because he is just a curious kid in a crazy world.
