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This is my view

14th of April 2004

I have six months in New York City, one of them is already gone. It went fast.Today, I saw a dress in the Alexander McQueen shop up in the meatpacking district, it was basically two triangles to cover the breasts with a skirt attatched, almost a skinny version of the white dress Marilyn Monroe wears when she stands over the vent in Seven Year Itch.That idea but modern,less starlet,less voluptuous on top, a halter neck, still with a lot of skirt.The straps are spaghetti, the colour is pale tea like a nude skin tone.

And its leather, very very thin leather, crinkled. It's....amazing.The thin leather straps are attached to the body with a button and the buttonholes are hand stitched.It was the best thing in there, it actually looked almost utilitarian, like a leather tool.

There's a massive Fashion Photography show opeining at MOMA soon, curated from a fine art perspective, Interestingly, each photographer is only represented by one fashion shoot so the "story" has to stand alone like it does in a magazine.

Ive seen The Whitney Biennale, my opinion of it changes in accordance with the opinion of whomever I am talking to about it.I loved a series of drawings by Amy Cutler.

Ive looked at big quantitiesof art, lots of design, a fantastic show of objects designed by Christopher Dresser,a Victorian designer who was also from Glasgow.

The best place was The Queens Museum of Modern Art, recommended to me by Zeena Parkins, i saw a Joan Jonas retrospective on the last day. The museum is on the former site of The World Fair and its completely amazing. Theres a huge outdoor steel globe left over and the world's biggest architectural model, an exact panorama of the city. Also, two time capsules are buried there with things like a bikini and an alarm clock in them. The whole environment felt like Moscow.

Ive done a workshop at Eyebeam, a digital arts resource/space/gallery, to learn Jitter, an image manipulation tool and Max/Msp which processes sound through patches.

Ive made some drawings.

15th of April

"Theatre of Simulacrum"

Saw the Wooster group perform "Poor Theatre" a work in progress, section one was a recreation of a piece by the Polish director Grotowski called "Akropolis". Grotowski founded the poor theatre, a way of approaching theatre in an austere and physically greulling way, basically to get to a very pure theatrical place through endurance, repitition, discipline and acute stamina. I didnt know this was their reference point till I was about to leave and i looked up some on-line reviews but I remember cutting out an article written by an actress who had experienced a retreat which followed poor theatre strictures or maybe even a director from the original school was there but the whole thing was so harrowing for her and so redemptive at the same time, it was such a well written account of her tribulations in the name of poor theatre. The activities so abstract, digging holes in mud constantly was one.So the Wooster group went back to Poland and interviewed the keeper of the original space, Grotowski died in 1994 but the original studio is preserved in Poland.
So they conduct an interview with the keeper of the space, shes been there since the 60s and Grotowski died in 1994..and the Wooster group hide a mike in someone’s bag and surreptitiously record this event, where they get a tour of what the guide clearly perceives as a hallowed environment. And they faithfully reconstruct that tour even when the sound recordist fumbles his mike in his bag and a chunk of dialogue is lost.
And then they come back to New York and watch documentary footage of him, his methodology in practice, pieces.
Then they mimic the posture of translation, trying to penetrate the text and its funny, again a re enactment with a polish interpretor.
Then they re do the last twenty minutes of Akropolis, three actors, they use a monitor showing the original documentary of the performance as their guide and mimic it all with enthralling exactitude, its creepy and funny, the polish postures exclamations so opaque, the gestures all completely regulated by the framing and the cutting of action in the archival footage

Juts before I came here I read In America by Susan Sonntag a novel based on the exploits a famous grande dame Polish actress who modelled herself on Sandra Bernhard and made it to Broadway and the main thing I got from the book was the Polish capcity for melancholy and their huge tragedy of always being dominated and annexed by hostile nations breeding an almost macabre sense of national identity.
I was reminded of that tonight.

And meanwhile the Wooster group bring in a renowned New York theatre critic, a personal friend of Grotowski and the director explains, simply that she wants to redo Akropolis.
And the critic says, why? Why re do it?
And the director says, I don’t know.

Then they record her back outside in a cab in snow blemished New York so hard core, like the gulag looking in bl;ack and white and the cab drives past a poster for “Love Actually” Jesus Christ, and the critic grand dame is going “ What the fuck, what are they doing? Why the fuck are they re-doing Akropolis, its done leave it, there’s no need, I don’t get it, why? Fuck etc,
And that was only part one.

I loved that performance, part two was also amazing. The whole thing completely about language, instinctive language, theoretical or practical language or mother tongue…an illustration of people with an innate sense of how to make the right decisions in art based on instinct and self generated lingo and then a deconstruction of the absurdity in trying to make that language sensible outside its innate place.From various perspectives.

16th of April

the second part of poor theatre was a swatch of the world of dance according to choreographer William Forsyth. An actor resimulated a video taped interview with him.It was like a software lesson.

When I first used computers i was really hooked on their ability to simulate textures, by the 3D softwares which could wrap maps around virtual objects. I'm not so interested in the visual novelty of that now, I am more remembering how i felt when i figured out in a fashion illustration, how to make denim look like denim.

Grotowski

ham is making these, theyre tiny

this is a drawing I made of a woman I saw on west eighth street the first week I was here.

Friday 16th of April,

went up to the harlem end of central park to see this, "Big Daddy" by Paul McCarthy. He is facing an empty swimming pool. His Michael and Bubbles bronze (after jeff Koons was down on 59th street entrance to the park with some bronze tyres and cactii by a Los Angeles based woman.The public art element of the Whitney Bienale is all situated in Central park, I also finally found the werewolf heads made from blonde wigs and crystals and geegaws by David Altmejd. In the brochure it describes their situation as a buccolic part of the park. ?????? seemed fine to me they are great pieces, all ragged and meaty looking but made from new age junk and Miss Hvesham type crud, bigger than I expected, I would have taken pictures but a dude was hanging out on a bench right beside them with a big boom box and I felt self conscious.Ill go back. Theres a lot of art in the park including a piece by Kusama and a floor graphic sticker piece by "assume vivid astro focus" for a skate rink.

Saturday 17th of April

Went to Central Park for the skate rink event mentioned above, the floor vinyl was down and Los Super Elegantes were there from LA to perform,it was a collaboration between the central park skaters, the artist assume vivd astro focus and various. it was fantastic. Also there was an event in the arsenal bulding where another artist, Dave Muller had curated 3day felxisapce show and astro focus was in there too with some wall work and eagles. the eagle thing was really remarkable like he'd hauled them in from outside somewhere, its the states, eagles tend to dominate public space, and they were arranged four square facing outwards right in front of the work, defending themselves from art.

Los Super Elegantes, the chick, I dont know her name she was wearing a green and white striped bikini top and she had some kind of animal skin draped across her shoulders. They sang some songs to an electroclash backing track, it would have been better if she had practiced skating more and if they hadnt mimed.But the whole thing was really great, the skaters who have obviously been hanging out there, some of them,since roller disco started in the seventies, they were all pretty nifty and really into it and having fun... But today they had a big vinyl floor work to skate on and itll be down for another week.

ive posted images from today on link 2