“Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men” is a DV8 Physical Theatre piece from 1988 writen by the Australian choreographer Lloyd Newson. DV8 is a londonian theater, directed by Newson himself, and notorious for dance performances since the mid 1980s.
Based on a true story, the 80 min-long performance is a somber narrative about serial killer Dennis Nilsen, the man responsible for 16 murders in London in the 80’s.
The show depicts, as the killer himself called it, a « vain search for inner peace ». It presents Nilsen’s willingness to kill as a result of a societal homophobia when, seeking for compagny, he’s only able to get ride himself of his intimate struggles in a tragical way.
In the performance, the violence is translated into a sensual dance between the 4 protagonists, a very physical choreography in which, even if gays are mainly depicted as lonely men torn between their desires and anxieties, one-night stands and murders are still presented in a strangely romantic way.
The stage production was adapted in 1989 by David Hinton for the British television: the 10 parts of the piece are filmed in black and white in dark crusing areas, SM bars and other playgrounds for games of seduction and death. With at the end, a nice song from Dusty Springfield.
I personally recommend the part 4, “I just want to be with you – Alone”, one of the most convincing scene of the show.
with Nigel Charnock, Russell Maliphant, Douglas Wrigh and Lloyd Newson.
DVD : DV8 Physical Theatre (“Dead dreams of monochrome men” + “Strange fish” + “Enter achilles”), 158 min, 2007, Arthaus.
Taner Ceylan is a Turkish painter. He lives in his flat in solitude outside the city center of Istanbul and invests tremendous labor in his hyperrealist works. He has a very emotional relationship to his paintings too – Sometimes he falls in love with them, sometimes he cries out of frustration when a tiny detail does not work out. In an interview with BUTT Magazine, he says he takes his inspiration from happiness and adds ‘I must enjoy my process because it takes ten hours a day, for weeks and months.’ The artist takes photographic images as a starting point and digitally enlarges these, manipulating them as he works in oil on canvas with the purpose of injecting ‘emotion’ into his work.
Artist Brian Kenny not only has a fancy new website, but also posted a couple of really cute drawings inspired by the Petrou\Man Autumn/Winter 2011/2012 show presented at this year’s New York fashion week on his blog a couple of days ago. One of them is also the motive of the show’s invitation. You also find a couple of 3D pictures of the collection by Brian’s boyfriend Slava Mogutin on Mogutin’s blog.
After a longer break Exile Gallery is reopening today at a new space in Berlin-Mitte and celebrates the reopening with an exhibition of a selection of photos by photographer Bob Mizer. As the founder of the Athletic Model Guild in 1945 and the Physique Pictorial magazin in 1951, Mizer was one of the pioneers of contemporary male nude photography and something like the inventor of the “Beefcake” aesthetics. According to the announcement text on the gallery’s website “Select Private Works 1942-1992″ tries to reveal a new side of Minzer, showing never exhibited colored pictures in which the photographer plays with his own male stereotypes and reveals his full abilities as a visual artist. The exhibition has been curated by Christian Siekmeier and Straight To Hell editor Billy Miller in conjunction with the Mizer Foundation. Below you find a little preview of the show and another series of pictures over at BUTT Online.
The new Exile space is located at 39 Köpenicker Straße, the opening will take place today, February 19, between 7 and 10 pm.
“Unknown (Marine)”
Vintage color transparency, c. 1973
Cibachrome print, 10.5 x 10.5 inches (26.6 x 26.6 cm), Edition of 3, printed 2011
“Tony Rome & Ron Nichols”
Vintage color transparency, 1971
Cibachrome print, 10.5 x 10.5 inches (26.6 x 26.6 cm), Edition of 3, printed 2011
James Franco and those circling him are stacking everything possible on his Academy Award nomination; milking it dry to get the biggest boost. Unfortunately, some of that milk is sour. His current show, The Dangerous Book Four Boys (DBFB) at Peres Projects Berlin, should not be on the shelf.
The opening for DBFB was on 12 February 2011 at both Peres Projects locations in Berlin. I chose to visit the Kreuzberg location on opening night. Entering the gallery, I found large partially melted plastic play houses, a pile of rubbish, faux houses and benches made of cheap plywood, photographs, Polaroid’s in a room darkened for a video (they couldn’t be viewed without your flashlight…err…cellphone), and two rooms with looping video sequences. That was just the Kreuzberg location.
Looking at the work in Kreuzberg, I could make out one subject area “dangerous”: explosions, flaming arrows, burning, motorcycle tricks and the like. However, there were many pieces in the exhibit which were completely unrelated to this; the rubbish, Polaroid’s, Star Trek soft porn, Goat Boy, …they just didn’t fit. This isn’t a limit of my imagination. Rather, it is a disorganization and lack of focus that repeats itself throughout the exhibit.
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge will visit Berlin for two three occasions next week. On February 15 she will attend the premiere of French filmmaker Marie Losier’s movie “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye“, a documentary about Genesis’ life and her “pandrogenist” relationship to artist Lady Jaye, which died in 2007 (trailer below). You may aready know Loiser as the director of the great video to “Have Mercy” of Genesis’ band Psychic TV. You find an interview with her about the background of her film on Still In Motion and the movie’s press kit here. There will also be screenings of the movie in Spain and France in spring.
In conjunction with the Berlinale premiere Genesis will also perform a live concert with musician/artist Tony Conrad on February 19 at Hebbel am Ufer theatre – there are still tickets available on the HAU webpage. Both artists have met during the shootings for the movie and since then from time to time have met for improvised duets with the violin, an instrument they both share a passion love for.
UPDATE: I completely forgot to mention that there is also a third reason why Genesis is here for the Berlinale: She’s presenting an own film called “Ghosts #9″ on the 14th, 15th and 18th at Arsenal cinema. Check out Joey’s comment below and this link for more information. Thanks Joey!
Kool Thing is a Berlin-based band I already mentioned in the last music ticker a few days I ago. I contacted Julie Chance, one half of the duo (who also goes by the name Julie Fogarty, under which she works as a photographer), after falling in love with their self-titled debut EP, and she liked the idea of contributing to our PICK 5 series, for which artists pick out a couple of their favourite web clips and comment them. The result is really nice and offers a nice little insight in the duos’s creative sources. Check out Kool Thing’s bandcamp page for the EP and to check their upcoming live gigs in Berlin as well as their Myspace page for the new video their song “The Sign”.
1. David Bowie – Putting out the Fire (live)
“The first vid is by David Bowie, we were in a record shop in Dublin and came across the sound track to the movie Cat People. We hadn’t seen the movie but the sound track was by GiorgioMoroder so we bought it and LOVED it. This is the title track ‘Putting out the Fire’ from David Bowie’s 1983 ‘Serious Moonlight’ tour”
2. Grizzly Bear – Shift (live)
“Jon Dark loves Grizzly Bear, and this video stuck out because she found it just before she moved to Paris, and it takes place in a Parisian apartment. Its kind of absurd a band doing a concert in a bathroom, but somehow it works, and is a really beautiful version of the song.”
In two weeks’ time, the first retrospective devoted to the Canadian collective General Idea opens at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. It pains me that I will not be able to attend, since General Idea were/are amazing and remain a big influence on my own art practice. But if you have the means to get to Paris then this is definitely a must-see. According to the museum’s website, “High Culture: General Idea” uses a selection of some three hundred works to provide a dynamically comprehensive overview of the œuvre . . . This non-chronological presentation covers the collective’s main areas of concern. Themes such as the artist and the creative process, glamour as a creative tool, art’s links with the media and mass culture, architecture and archaeology are addressed. Sexuality as the symbol of a social system to be subverted, and AIDS, as explored in the iconic, tentacular project of that name, are also considered.
“High Culture: General Idea. A retrospective 1969 – 1994″ runs from February 11 until April 30, 2011, at Paris’ Musée d’Art Moderne.
Max Schaefer’s Children of the Sun had been floating around various piles of half-read books for almost a year before I finally managed to finish it last week. I’m not quite sure why that is, to be honest. It cannot possibly have been the novel’s theme. Who would not be tempted by a novel about gay skinheads in the 1980s which self-consciously foregrounds all the uncertainties and dead ends that are involved when the writing of history coincides with fetishistic desire on the part of the narrator? (Especially as the novel is endorsed by China Mieville, one of the most crushworthy writers around.)
Grant Worth is a New York based artist, who is not ony one of the guys responsible for DIS magazine’s soap opera “Hooper Place”, but also for two very nice (inofficial?) Chris Garneau videos and a lot of other great stuff that can be found on his website which is really worth checking out. Light Asylum are currently asking their fans on Facebook to spread the word that they need a manager as well as European booking agent.
