Art, Wigs and the Wearing of Pants
Or, Another Packed House. Or, The Hours, They Flew By.
Strap yourselves in and crack open the booze because, yes, once again, I bring you jewels from the world of performance art. Specifically, the deeply melodious, mind-shattering creations of Ms Eames Armstrong, whose collaboration with Matthew Ryan Rossetti and a being named Kunj was happily captured on film for all of future time. Said performance, titled Through Bush, Through Briar, was recorded at the Atlantis Gallery, Richmond, VA., in November 2014. Regarding Ms Armstrong’s piece and her aesthetic practice in general, we’re told,
I am not an entertainer.
Instead,
I perform actions that reflect and complicate everyday life… I challenge preconceptions of performance, destabilising visibility and invisibility.
Naturally, Ms Armstrong is also,
Transgressing conventions.
You see, she’s
shifting our perception of the world.
This feat is achieved by means of,
Oral fruit play… binding breasts in tape… kissing with black lipstick… spitting in your mouth… having visions of the underworld.
And if further intellectual heft is needed,
Through Bush, Through Briar is loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
As will no doubt become clear in the following video of highlights from the hour-long performance:
As you can see, the audience is both vast and spellbound. And no, I’m not unlocking the doors until you’ve watched the whole thing. Do let me know if your perception of the world has been shifted by the destabilising of visibility and transgressing of conventions.
of course vimeo works perfectly fine for this crap.
This seems an apposite quote from Christopher Fowler.
By ‘fun’, I mean that the reader/viewer/listener must be rewarded a little for the effort of paying attention
Here’s another taste of Ms Armstrong’s obscurantist blather:
Feel free to juxtapose that, or the guff about “destabilising visibility” and “transgressing conventions,” with the actual flummery seen in the video. And then imagine a mind in which that juxtaposition isn’t mortifying or laughable. A mind in which one is a credible description of the other.
But the video ends before we get to hear the deafening applause.
Clearly ‘Care in the Community’ has failed as a policy, or these jokers thought: ” I wonder how much taxpayers money we can get before somebody rumbles us?”
Would it be unking to suggest that these are children who never really grew up?
Not enough cowbell.
When a kid, the phrase bandied around was “arty-farty.” I had no appreciation then of how true the last part of that phrase was.
There are people walking past the window, cars driving along the street, who are wholly and totally oblivious to the fact that great art is being performed and perceptions being changed! I demand a headline in The Guardian about this!
Waterboarding just seems so innocent now!
. . . the cloudy space between the live act and documentation.
Or, as filmmakers call it, editing.
This comes to mind… when Claudius, future Emperor of Rome, is hauled to the Palace by the lunatic Caligula, and wonders what fate awaits.
His effusive reaction at the end is, I think, precisely how we should be greeting Ms Eames Whatever-her-name-is-can’t-be-bothered-to-scroll up-to-find-out’s “work”.
Is it time for Friday ephemera yet?
hauled to the Palace by the lunatic Caligula,
Heh. Quite. Oddly enough, the Other Half and I were watching an episode of I, Claudius recently, not for the first time. Murder, intrigue, madness and Wilfred Josephs’ excellent title music. What’s not to like?
Is it time for Friday ephemera yet?
Just after midnight, same as usual.
I don’t know what’s more disturbing; the actual show or the fact that this is a predictable and not uncommon outcome of contemporary art education.
Meanwhile, in the ‘Guardian’, how being discreet about bodily functions is just another weay the patriarchy keeps womyn down:
“How daft, though, to think that talking about periods requires courage. I do it all the time (too much, my friends think)…”
Really..? That’s a surprise.
Meanwhile, in the ‘Guardian’, how being discreet about bodily functions is just another way the patriarchy keeps womyn down
The attempt to associate normal discretion with the horrors of third world sanitation is a bit sly, though par for the course, as is the standard, lazy conceit that not liveblogging one’s period is a sign of shame and submissiveness. Says Ms George, “I’m not supposed to be saying this out loud. I’m meant to excrete the lining of my womb discreetly, fragrantly and silently.” To which, I’m inclined to say, “Well, yes, madam. That would be appreciated by those in your proximity, who may not wish to hear a pretentious running commentary on your vaginal outflow. Is it too much to ask?”
Also in the Guardian, there aren’t enough cocks on TV. Insert gag of choice.
Meanwhile, in the ‘Guardian’, how being discreet about bodily functions is just another way the patriarchy keeps womyn down:
I don’t get it. It’s taboo, and yet here’s an article in a widely read rag talking about it in detail. Clearly it’s not as taboo as we thought?
I noted the statistic about Iran (In Iran over 40% of girls surveyed by Unicef thought menstruation was a disease. Note the flow of the article at this point.) and showed it to my wife, who was incredulous about the claim. As a girl growing up in Iran (she’s 34 now) she was taught all about menstruation at school.
It turns out that the study used to derive this unflattering claim consisted of a survey of a mere 250 girls (likely immigrants) in generally poor suburbs of Tehran. The original study claimed that 48% of girls when questioned thought pain during menstruation could be a disease rather than normal pain. The unicef report also claims that around 50% of Iranian girls don’t bathe for 8 days after a shower, then later claims that the same 50% don’t take a bath for 8 days. The original study mentions taking a bath, but baths are not common in Iran; they generally use wet showers (which are awesome btw). SO, basically, a survey of 250 girls gets translated into 40% of iranian girls are ignint ’bout their period ‘cos patriarchy and taboos’ when the case is that, contrary to what the writer is clearly suggesting, girls in Iran are educated about menstruation and not forbidden to talk about it because it’s taboo.
and from the comments…
It then goes on to point out that in backward countries – and I don’t apologise for that term, because they’re largely corrupt dictatorships with religious patriarchs sticking their noses in where they don’t belong – that menstruation is considered a disease and unclean. Because those countries are backward and don’t educate their people.
. . . there aren’t enough cocks on TV . . .
It’s not T.V., but here y’are with all you could ever want.
Also in the Guardian, there aren’t enough cocks on TV. Insert gag of choice
Oi tink there’s a joke there somewhere.
Here’s another taste of Ms Armstrong’s obscurantist blather:
Our independent, though intertwined, practices deal with ritual Transformation, queer love, teenage fandom, and the cloudy space between the…
> BANG! < Enough of that. Damnit. Would it be off base for me to assume this is a post-modernist dance interpretation of Vogon poetry?