Ground Control
Finally free. And what a great weekend!
Friday was the opening of Psychometry II … the show that actually was the acorn of this giant oak. It started as a simple exhibition with four artists in one room. How it exploded into the mega-ped it is today (20 artists, two galleries, film festival participation, web presence, and a CDROM) is a long story at the core of which was a a nice flip of the cocktail shaker that turned a lot of lemons from the business end of things into iced lemon drop cocktails.
The story isn’t over, but the larger part of my work is, and I’d like to send out a huge thank you to the artists involved and-in this post-especially to my local boys who made the experience a real treat: Benjamin, Gweneal, Christian, Adrian, Matthew, and Stevie.
Christian is one of the two gallerists. His dedication to putting up a great show was encouraging. Even when the two of us were over our heads technically he really pulled through.
Stevie made the CDROM, which is a beautiful work in itself, but more than that he was an entire support team compacted into one man with a bum knee. This guy was the show’s invisible hero. Well, invisible to everyone but me. He was my Harvey: a giant rabbit I couldn’t have done it without.
The other gentlemen on that list are the artists who actually live in Berlin and who are pictured in the post “Installing”. They deserve three cheers:
one for making such great work,
two for the easiest and most enjoyable installation ever,
and three for a fucking amazing after party.
On Thursday we found out that, in spite of the show being the inaugural exhibition in the new space, the gallerist (not Christian, but the other one) had decided to forego any after party. But after so much work the boys needed an affair for blowing off steam.
It was beautiful to see it all come together so quickly.
The first question was, where?
Basso was free that night and Adrian arranged that we would go in Friday afternoon to clean up and stock the bar. He designed some wonderful party lights as well. Matthew lined up a couple of DJs and Benjamin volunteered as a third.
The Basso team helped out as well, getting word out and making sure we had bar men and an opening DJ for that early part of the evening when the first people started trickling in.
All of these things were important elements, but at the core was that perfect mix of a sweetly silly crowd and EXCELLENT MUSIC.
It inspired acrobatics and costume changes!
I was dancing until six AM, and the party was still going when I left.
On Saturday and Sunday I helped another friend by lending my studio and time to put together a performance video for his art school application.
Then Sunday evening was the screening of Anne McGuire’s film at Christian's Exile Gallery.
What a wonderfully bizarre experience this film is. She reordered the editing sequencing of The Poseidon Adventure so that the scenes play starting from the very last and moving in reverse order. Some of the dialogue changes are hysterical, and there is also this odd double tension of the inlaid disaster over having to piece the logic of things together by hearing answers before the questions.
It’s like watching two films at once: an Irwin Allen classic and a fun deconstruction of stock characters and cliché dialogue. In watching it this way we see Shelly Winters take off and put back on her neck wear about 64 times. And there is a baffling side-spitting series of backtracking reaction shoots between an ex-cop Ernest Borgnine and his ex-prostitute wife Stella Stevens.
Unfortunately there was also a long-time un-bathed kook in the audience who managed to clear the seats next to him. He spoke earlier with Christian and mentioned the time he got Nixon’s autograph at the Apollo 14 launch.
phhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh----------------ssssssssschht!
