Archive for the 'Performance art' Category

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Calendar. 08.18.09.

By c-monster on August 18, 2009 in C-Monster, Calendar, Installation and Performance art. Closed


infinity, in Spool, at chashama on 37th street. (Image courtesy of infinity.)

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Hydra Dispatch: Sebastian Puig reports on Matthew Barney’s latest.

By Sebastian Puig on June 22, 2009 in Conceptual, Events, Greece, Installation, Performance art and Sebastian Puig. 3 Comments


I’ll have the shark. Well done. (Photos by Sebastian Puig and U.B. Morgan.)

Take one dead shark. Add a submerged coffin. Throw in a Jeff Koons-designed yacht. What do you have? A Matthew Barney extravaganza on the Greek Isle of Hydra, a renowned, car-free artsy fartsy hideout where everyone who is anyone goes everywhere by foot or burro. Hosted by collector/industrialist/Koons yacht owner Dakis Joannou, the performance/party/shark roast combined various events into one hyperreal Mediterranean spectacle.

The first installation was in a former slaughterhouse on Hydra’s Mandraki Bay, where Barney and painter-of-the-minute Elizabeth Peyton collaborated on a little event called Blood of Two, sponsored by the Athens-based Deste Foundation Center for Contemporary Art. Sadly, it did not involve fileting Björk. But it did involve getting up at dawn to watch a bunch of local workers dredge up a glass coffin from the Aegean that contained a Peyton-painted portrait of Barney. (So meta!) After the ceremonial lifting, said coffin/vitrine — very Jules Verne — was carried along a rocky path to the slaughterhouse, where the artsy jet set could admire its contents. Naturally, the Barney/Peyton team filmed the whole parade, which mimics a local Easter event in which an icon is carried into the sea and out again. (So culturally relevant!)

Accompanying the procession? One shark, dead, to be sacrificed to the ravenous culture vultures at an evening reception. This consisted of about 500 attendees sitting at the longest table we’ve ever seen (seriously, you couldn’t see the ends from the middle) all of whom diligently gnawed on the charred member of the phylum Chordata in the name of art. Naturally, it tasted like chicken. OK, not really. We didn’t eat the shark. There wasn’t enough to go around. But I’m sure it was delicious. Especially with a little tsatsiki on the side.

To read more on Matthew Barney’s shark party, check out The Moment, ArtForum and Art Observed.

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The sublime point where sheep and LEDs intersect.

By c-monster on March 19, 2009 in Art for stoners, C-Monster, Performance art and Video. 1 Comment

Via Juxtapoz.

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Wasted at Nautical Waste in Rome.

By SanSuzie on December 8, 2008 in Events, Italy, Performance art and San Suzie. 2 Comments


Ready to get the party started: Artist Marie Lorenz Holds Fast at the American Academy in Rome. (Photos by San Suzie.)

Just after Thanksgiving, we were fortunate to attend the first international celebration of Nautical Waste, the smelliest art concept party — or any party, for that matter — we’ve ever been to. There was a sculpture made of rotting mussels and other sea detritus. (Pungent!) And the whole party ended with a re-enactment of the Roman sea victory at the Battle of Mylae…in a fountain.

Now in its sixth year, Nautical Waste is an annual seafaring celebration that takes place on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving. Started in Brooklyn by artists Marie Lorenz, the creator of the New York Tide and Current Taxi, Matt Lorenz and Melissa Brown, the event is part performance, part exhibit, and a great excuse to trawl your local coastline for stinky crap — then spend an evening building stuff with it while drinking grog, quoting Melville and wearing a pirate’s hat. This year the flotsam and jetsam washed up in three separate venues: Brooklyn, Banff, and the American Academy in Rome, where Lorenz is a fellow in the visual arts.

Stay tuned for more waterlogged adventures, because next spring, we will accompany Lorenz down the Tiber in a homemade boat, hopefully after getting nautically wasted.

Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.

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Q&A: Bert Rodriguez talks about rubbing art patron feet at Frieze.

By c-monster on November 12, 2008 in C-Monster, Performance art and Q&A. 2 Comments


You missed a spot: Artsy foot rubs by Rodriguez at last month’s Frieze Fair in London. (Images courtesy of Bert Rodriguez.)

For five days during the Frieze Art Fair last month, Miami artist Bert Rodriguez rubbed feet. His performance piece – Where You End and I Begin, for Miami’s Fredric Snitzer Gallery — consisted of giving art patrons 10-12 minute foot massages over the course of a week. The piece was a spectacle, attracting a full roster of clients (including Guardian critic Adrian Searle), as well as hundreds of onlookers. When he undertook the project, Rodriguez didn’t know the first thing about massaging, much less feet. But he quickly learned, consuming loads of lavender-scented massage oil in the process. Earlier this week, he made himself available via telephone to answer a few probing questions about the experience, including what it was like to rub his gallerist’s toes and which culture has the grossest feet.

C-M: How were the feet?
BR: Some were incredibly fucking disgusting. There were times where I honestly felt like I was going to vomit.

How bad was it?
Some of the feet I rubbed were swollen and bruised and there was black shit under toe nails. I was like, “Can’t you take a sponge or a toothbrush and scrub underneath that nail? I don’t think those colors exist in nature.” There was one man, his skin was falling off in my hands. His feet were fossilized. And then there were the odors. In some of the photographs, you can see that I’m turned away from the person.

Who had the best feet?
Mostly Asian women. They were perfectly smooth and well-kept. They were the most hygienic when it came to their feet. The Italian women also had very nice feet.

And the worst?
I don’t want to be an asshole, but the British really don’t take care of themselves. That’s always been a stereotype. Just like the teeth.

Continue reading ‘Q&A: Bert Rodriguez talks about rubbing art patron feet at Frieze.’

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Photos: Hard Targets: Masculinity & Sport at LACMA.

By c-monster on October 13, 2008 in Art, C-Monster, Los Angeles, Museums and Performance art. 3 Comments


Shaun Leonardo’s Bull in the Ring. There’s nothing like the sound of crunching bones at a museum opening. (Photos by C-M.)

Sometimes sport is art. And other times, art is sport. In the case of LACMA’s newest exhibit — Hard Targets: Masculinity & Sports — it’s a bit of both. The show’s opening last week got off to a rousing start with a performance by Shaun Leonardo, in which the artist, dressed in black football gear, was rammed repeatedly by a bunch of real-deal players. Indoors, a video piece by Joe Sola broadcast a similar exercise: Saint Henry Composition showed the artist, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, getting repeatedly tackled by members of a high school football team. (Both pieces led me to wonder if both Leonardo and Sola weren’t beaten up quite enough in their youth.) 

The show, curated by LACMA’s Christopher Bedford (who has played rugby and American football and still has all of his original teeth) takes a look at how contemporary art addresses the subject of organized men’s sports. The sneaker sculptures of Brian Jungen examine athletic regalia. Photographs of high school wrestlers by Collier Schorr look at issues of team dynamics and male adolescent sexuality. And a giant soccer ball sculpture by Mark Bradford, hangs like a nutsack in the corner. It’s a small, but potent show, that looks at a subject that is omnipresent in our culture, yet almost absent from contemporary art. The only bummer was that not a single work was devoted to curling. So, get on it all you Yale MFAs. It’s time you stopped gazing at your navels. And started watching ESPN.

The show is up until Jan. 18th, 2009.

Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Photos: Hard Targets: Masculinity & Sport at LACMA.’

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Calendar. 07.08.08.

By c-monster on July 8, 2008 in C-Monster, Calendar and Performance art. Closed

Jason Lujan
Fancy Dance Good Luck Lion at the National Museum of the American Indian in NYC. (Photo courtesy of Jason Lujan.)

Posted by C-Monster.

C-Monster goes to the art shrink @ Time.com.

By c-monster on March 21, 2008 in Announcements, Art, C-Monster and Performance art. 4 Comments

C-Monster and Henry Luce
Baby gets down with Time magazine founder Hank Luce. (Photo by Telstar Logistics. See it large.)

In an episode that should have Henry Luce spinning in his grave, Looking Around Jedi Master Richard Lacayo invited me to do a guest post on Time.com about my “therapy” appointment with artist Bert Rodriguez at the Whitney Biennial.

Read all about it.

Then, if you feel that strongly about it, come back and click through to Looking Around again – just to show all those patrician punks at Time Inc. that C-Monster is totally killing it.

xox, C-Mon.

Frozen Trafalgar Square.

By c-monster on February 18, 2008 in C-Monster, Performance art, Random Linkage and Video. Closed

It’s an epidemic. See the video. (Thanks, TT.)

Posted by C-Monster.

Frozen Grand Central.

By c-monster on February 1, 2008 in C-Monster, New York, Performance art and Video. 1 Comment

Video here. (Thanks, Antonio, for the tip.)

Posted by C-Monster.