Progressively Louder Laughter

I have started a freelance project this week that has forced me to get back to playing around with my Adobe programs. It is really satisfying learning new tricks, even if it’s just a 3 second effect of wheels spinning in time with a bicycle. I feel like a wizard.

This week I have spent my morning commute to work reading a book called 33 Artists in 3 Acts. So far I have read about Jeff Koons (I am not particularly fond of his work) and Ai Weiwei- his piece Sunflower Seeds speaks to me on a deeper level.

(Side note: I have only just kicked a 15 year addiction to sunflower seeds. I used to buy a bag of Frito Lay Sunflower Seeds daily until about 10 years ago when they were discontinued in Canada- probably for the exorbitant amount of salt they contained. I have been known to go into US convenience stores and buy out their supply of Frito Lay Sunflower Seeds. I have confused many US convenience store employees)

The sunflower seeds in this piece are actually hand made and porcelain.

I particularly like a chapter with Gabriel Orozco. I enjoy his analysis on Warhol, Koons and on himself:

“Warhol was a transvestite. It’s not the same as being fake. Warhol was trying to produce cheap production systems. Koons is exactly opposite. It’s expensive and very expensive. I would say one is a Pop artists and the other is a capitalist artist.”

On his own work he says:

“I try – it is not easy and I fail constantly- but I try to be a realist in my work. There is humor, but I’m not flirting with the art world or engaging with the frivolity of the market. Perhaps I’m real because I am not playing games in terms of manipulation or cynicism. Perhaps I’m real because I grow from my work. My work is in between the entertainment industry, big market powers, the spectacularization of political demonstration. It offers, I hope, some moments of intimacy with reality,”

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Anyone who knows me well, knows that I love podcasts. I have always been a really big fan of the Pete Holmes podcast ‘You Made it Weird’ (admittedly I have not listened to in some time). This week I did listen to the Jay Duplass episode-  great for many reasons. They talked about going through the malaise of life, religion and circumcision.

Here is a link:

https://nerdist.com/you-made-it-weird-400-jay-duplass/

Since it is kind of the Jesus weekend, I want to post this quote that was mentioned on the podcast:

 

 

In the spirit of show and tell, this is a book I found in Sao Paulo, featuring my favourite installation artist Olafur Eliasson. He was a featured artist at the International Contemporary Art Festival SESC Videobrasil in 2011 (also I have officially decided that it is hammock weather).

My Playlists

I have been making playlists since I was a child. As a kid I wasn’t allowed to listen to ‘secular music’ so my first rebellion was music. I would tape songs off of the radio and then listen to them at night when it I should have been sleeping, over and over again.

Growing up, our family would do a 10-11 hour road trip to Chicago to see my family/cousins about twice a year. My cousins are like sisters that I only get to see a few times a year so I have always equated the US with great memories. Here is a picture of us at Christmas. I’m the one front and centre looking like a real BETCH.

Around the age of 12 I started taking the role of ‘road trip DJ that nobody asked for’ very seriously. After the car was packed and seats were called and after my Mother had passed back the first round of homemade chocolate chip cookies and double checked that every one had gone to the washroom- I would diligently pass my meticulously thought out (stereo burned) CD to the front of the car.

Is it strange that I see it as some kind of auditory collage? Well that is how I see it. I almost obsessively think about how each song compliments the other, if it makes sense as one composition. I hope you listen and that you find songs that you love and songs that push you a little out of your comfort zone.

30 Minute Playlist – I Wish I Was a Camera

 

First of all, I would like to do a shout-out to this extremely delicious breakfast that I made this morning. I am not what you would call a ‘breakfast person’ so this picture is here to show you that I can occasionally get my act together in the morning, but only about 4 times a year.

Also- my prized Uff da! mug. That mug is so cool it deserves it’s own show.

I know it’s not exactly coincidental (given the current cultural and political climate) but I have been exposed to a higher than normal dose of feminist related content in the past week. I find this pretty energizing.

Watching and becoming infatuated with the television show ‘I Love Dick’ has been the common thread.  First of all- the name *italian-chef-kiss* 

The show was created by Jill Soloway who also created the show ‘Transparent’ which among its many shining and beautiful laurels has also got the best opening theme sequence that I have ever probably not cried during:

More about ‘I Love Dick’ later.

On Wednesday, Janneke invited a bunch of us out to Streetcar Crowsnestto see What a Young Wife Ought to know. In short, it tells a story about a time when women did not have access to birth control without the risk of self harm or death. As I am sure you can imagine, it was a quite harrowing hour and a half. Immediately after the show I went to the closest Shoppers Drugmart and hugged a box of condoms. Just kidding. Lauren drove us home. Fun fact: I got to see the top left corner of Margaret Atwood’s head.

In my pursuit to interact with more art, I went to a lecture at the AGO called Creativity and Intimate Partnership: Artist Couples. Initially, I was drawn to it because it highlighted one of my favourite artists: Robert Rauschenberg. I dream of one day owning this limited edition Talking Heads record ‘Speaking in Tongues’ designed by Rauschenberg (actually it’s several records layered on top of one another). Isn’t it pretty?

The first thing I learned at the lecture was that Rauschenberg was gay. I know it’s not particularly progressive of me to bring this up, but I definitely did a google search right at the top of the lecture when they said his partner’s name was Jasper Johns. I may have a small crush on the late Rauschenberg due to the fact that I think he is somewhat synonymous with Bruce Springsteen (mmmm…Springsteen): subversive and political, overall masculine and raw, intellectual. Mainstream.

But I digress. It was a particularly interesting lecture to see with the backdrop of ‘I Love Dick’ which centres around an artist couple- where they find inspiration, how they edit each other, how they succeed as artists and the reaction they receive to their work in relation to their respective genders. In the lecture, it was mentioned that the female artists (Gabriele Münter, Sophie Taeuber) felt they were not able to be as expressive in their work as their respective partners. This stemmed from the belief that emotions and feelings were seen to be easily accessed by women (and then in contrast, not easily accessed by men who were praised for creating free-flowing expressionist work). Instead the women felt a certain pressure to be more calculated and exact in their work for fear of not being taken seriously as artists.

So this brings me to ‘I Love Dick’.

It’s not my goal to be a television blogger, but for the sake of context:

The show is about a couple, a failed female filmmaker: Chris and her husband Sylvere. They have just relocated to a small town (Marfa) in Texas for a fellowship that Sylvere has taken under the sponsorship of the title character: Dick (Kevin Bacon). At the start of the show, Dick represents the ultimate archetypal man. He is literally a cowboy. He is stoic and always in control of his emotions. His art reflects this. He comes from wealth and privilege and as a result, he has the freedom to create monolithic pieces that cost millions of dollars. He is revered as a world class artist and has a powerful, yet cool presence in Marfa. Chris immediately develops a deep and unbridled infatuation with Dick as a result of his rejection of her as an artist. This triggers her creativity in the form of her sexuality. She begins writing him erotic love letters, acting out her fantasies with her husband, eventually roping Dick into her reckless conquest. First privately and then publicly.

Uff, there. Context.

What I find so brilliant about this show is the role reversal of men and women in the context of art/inspiration/exploitation. It is no secret that we have been inundated with pieces that explore the male gaze (see: Guerrilla Girls), but in ‘I Love Dick’ we are forced to uncomfortably watch the reverse. The female gaze. It ain’t pretty. The final hurricane that Chris inflicts on the town of Marfa and on Dick leads us to a booze filled conversation between Sylvere and Dick. In this conversation Sylvere quite astutely says to Dick:  “It’s not so fun being a muse, is it?” In other words, it’s not fun being objectified, exploited and treated like a 2-dimensional accessory to someone else’s narrative.

Episode 5: A Short History Of Weird Girls – delves into this a bit further, exploring how sex and gender have influenced and shaped the lives of four women. It shows us that despite the females’ intelligence, conviction and competence, they are constantly being muted and treated as secondary or as naive or as an object to be picked up and played with when desired. Of course it also shows us (with fuzzy glowing orbs of light illuminated over their bodies) that they too have intense desires. The satisfaction in watching ‘I Love Dick’ comes in their metaphorical orgasmic release as they live out these desires, one by one.

There are so many subliminal cues in this show, that the show itself can easily be watched several times over. Among the few that I caught, I most enjoyed when Dick puts on a record for Chris, The New York Dolls. [Truth talk: I had pretty much psychically put on my New York Dolls t-shirt only moments before this scene. I nearly missed the context entirely. I spent most of it sitting on my bed contemplating buying a lottery ticket.]

The song he plays is ‘Lonely Planet Boy’ which I believe is his subconscious way of transmitting to Chris that he is not the hyper-masculine secure man she has projected onto him. Beneath the persona he is something far more nuanced and vulnerable, and that he ultimately wants her to see him on this deeper level.

And then it smacks me in the head that, of course! The New York Dolls! The first gender-bending, dress wearing band of the New York punk scene in the 70s. Fuck, it’s so good.

I could probably go on for much longer about ‘I Love Dick’ but I sense that this is more interesting if you have actually seen the show. Please go watch it so we can have a lengthy conversation about it over beer and hot wings.

P.S: Happy Birthday Gloria Steinem

Here is my 30 minute playlist for the week: