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m a g a z i n e<br />
TM<br />
volume 1 no. 3 • 2013<br />
REVOLT is:<br />
PUBLISHED BY:<br />
Public Art Squad Project<br />
PUBLISHER: Scotto Mycklebust, Artist<br />
MANAGING EDITOR: Katie Cercone<br />
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Scotto Mycklebust<br />
ART & DESIGN: Scotto Mycklebust<br />
ART PHOTOGRAPHER: Scotto Mycklebust<br />
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Tal Beery, Dan<br />
Callahan, Rob Reed, Suzanne Schultz, Randee<br />
Silv, Lena Vazifdar<br />
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Letter from the Publisher ...<br />
It’s been a bit of a long haul gett<strong>in</strong>g <strong>this</strong><br />
<strong>issue</strong> pr<strong>in</strong>ted, but as 2013 dawns and we’re<br />
br<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g you another action packed <strong>issue</strong> full of the<br />
political art, social commentary and current events<br />
you crave, we’re proud to say REVOLT Magaz<strong>in</strong>e<br />
is still <strong>in</strong>dependent and grassroots. With most of<br />
the Chelsea art world look<strong>in</strong>g more like a sunken<br />
treasure ship post-Sandy and <strong>in</strong> pr<strong>in</strong>t publish<strong>in</strong>g<br />
quickly becom<strong>in</strong>g an anachronism, we’re still<br />
barrel<strong>in</strong>g ahead to br<strong>in</strong>g REVOLT readers up to date<br />
<strong>in</strong>formation on the contemporary <strong>issue</strong>s that affect<br />
us all <strong>in</strong> today’s rapidly chang<strong>in</strong>g world.<br />
In <strong>this</strong> <strong>issue</strong> you’ll f<strong>in</strong>d candid photos and<br />
news from the frontl<strong>in</strong>es of Occupy Museums and<br />
Occupy Berl<strong>in</strong> – two ongo<strong>in</strong>g artist led movements<br />
for social change that are as controversial and<br />
renegade as they are awe-<strong>in</strong>spir<strong>in</strong>g and heartfelt.<br />
In addition to our regular fare of gallery, literary<br />
and film reviews, you’ll also f<strong>in</strong>d a special <strong>in</strong>terview<br />
with the acclaimed artist Thomas Lanigan Schmidt<br />
IN THIS ISSUE:<br />
6 The Gallery Review<br />
12 Top 10 NYC Artists Now<br />
14 The Martial Artist<br />
20 Occupy Berl<strong>in</strong><br />
26 Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennial<br />
29 The Literary View<br />
30 C<strong>in</strong>ema Review<br />
33 Pleasure is Political<br />
37 Gypsies, Hustlers and Russian Sex<br />
40 The <strong>Revolt</strong> Takes Boston<br />
41 George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton<br />
42 The Aesthetic of Funk<br />
47 Tribute to Mark Wiener<br />
(check out his retrospective ‘Tender Love Among the<br />
Junk’ up at PS1 Moma through April 1st). On pg. 14<br />
studly Tanto B<strong>in</strong> Everett, ‘The Martial Artist’ talks<br />
with <strong>Revolt</strong> about us<strong>in</strong>g Martial Arts to combat police<br />
brutality aga<strong>in</strong>st blacks. A George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton tribute<br />
and a feature on fiber artist and community activist<br />
Xenobia Bailey’s ‘Aesthetic of Funk’ round out the<br />
<strong>issue</strong> towards the back.<br />
Still hungry for more? Interested <strong>in</strong><br />
contribut<strong>in</strong>g creative writ<strong>in</strong>g, visuals or poetry to the<br />
next <strong>issue</strong> of <strong>Revolt</strong>? Interested <strong>in</strong> contribut<strong>in</strong>g funds<br />
to keep <strong>this</strong> badass <strong>in</strong>die mag afloat!? We need<br />
each and everyone of our loyal <strong>Revolt</strong> readership <strong>in</strong><br />
whatever ways large and small you can offer your<br />
support. Check the website for more details on how<br />
to donate money, time or your creative work to our<br />
next <strong>issue</strong>.<br />
Scotto Mycklebust<br />
REVOLT<br />
ARTISTS MUSEUM<br />
www.revoltmagaz<strong>in</strong>e.org<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
MISSION STATEMENT<br />
Through a diverse array of journalistic styles - <strong>in</strong>vestigative, academic, <strong>in</strong>terview,<br />
op<strong>in</strong>ion - and stunn<strong>in</strong>g visuals, REVOLT Magaz<strong>in</strong>e aims to ensure that art never loses<br />
its profundity. We urge our readers to jo<strong>in</strong> our mission, generat<strong>in</strong>g positive social<br />
change through creative production and <strong>in</strong>formed cultural critique.<br />
Copyright & Permissions Info: © copyright 2011, 2012, 2013 <strong>Revolt</strong> Magaz<strong>in</strong>e. All Rights Reserved. For all<br />
repr<strong>in</strong>ts, permissions and questions, please contact 212.242.1909 or by email: <strong>in</strong>fo@revoltmagaz<strong>in</strong>e.com.<br />
2
Hôtel<br />
AMERICANO<br />
Chelsea<br />
New York<br />
518 West 27 th Street, New York NY 10001<br />
For book<strong>in</strong>g<br />
hotel-americano.com 212.216.0000
R LIST<br />
HURRICANE SANDY hit the West Chelsea Art<br />
Artists and Art Galleries Hard BY SCOTTO MYCKLEBUST<br />
THE<br />
The storm surge rose from the West Side Highway to engulf the street level galleries and basements with wall to wall water and flood<strong>in</strong>g that damaged<br />
everyth<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> its path. From small <strong>in</strong>dependent spaces to blue chip galleries, everyth<strong>in</strong>g from the very art hang<strong>in</strong>g on the walls to the art <strong>in</strong>ventory <strong>in</strong> basement<br />
storage was drowned <strong>in</strong> salt water and destroyed. Many galleries had just f<strong>in</strong>ished <strong>in</strong>stall<strong>in</strong>g their show for the first of the month open<strong>in</strong>g exhibitions. Along with<br />
the West Chelsea art galleries, Hurricane Sandy displaced many artists out of their studios and destroyed years of work.<br />
Photos by Scotto Mycklebust, Hurricane Sandy destroys West Chelsea Art District Galleries, West Chelsea Art District, NYC, November 2, 2012<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
4
THE<br />
GALLERY<br />
VIEW<br />
BY ROB REED<br />
ALICE NEEL<br />
Late Portraits & Still Lifes<br />
May 4 - June 23, 2012<br />
David Zwirner Gallery<br />
525 West 19th Street NY, NY<br />
Portrait and still-life pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g are not the first two<br />
genres that come to m<strong>in</strong>d when th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g about<br />
Modern art. They speak of domesticity, quiet privacy,<br />
and sentimentality, which are out of sync with the<br />
public declarations, events, and upheavals of the<br />
20th century. Yet the need to document life, as it is<br />
lived face-to-face, is persistent; and pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g from<br />
direct observation is a sure way to get that right.<br />
Alice Neel (1900-1984) pa<strong>in</strong>ted portraits of those<br />
around her – family, friends, poets, psychologists,<br />
students – for sixty years. Impervious to art world<br />
trends and movements, her empathetic eye was<br />
relentlessly fixed on the people stand<strong>in</strong>g or sitt<strong>in</strong>g<br />
just a few feet from her easel.<br />
Neel started her portraits with a contour draw<strong>in</strong>g<br />
sketched <strong>in</strong> dark, often cobalt blue, pa<strong>in</strong>t. This<br />
outl<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g and fram<strong>in</strong>g-<strong>in</strong> of shapes is speedy and<br />
efficient with no recourse to traditional measur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
techniques that br<strong>in</strong>g too much of the <strong>in</strong>essential.<br />
Her search<strong>in</strong>g l<strong>in</strong>es are attentive to the undulat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
forms they represent and assert themselves to<br />
the po<strong>in</strong>t of occasional awkwardness. A wrist may<br />
appear elongated, or a leg strangely foreshortened.<br />
This is how the world looks when you approach it<br />
from the eye rather than the concepts of medical<br />
anatomy and three-dimensional perspective.<br />
Honesty to sight is part of what makes Neel's work<br />
so timelessly fresh and appeal<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
"Late Portraits & Still Lifes" features work from the<br />
last two decades of Neel's life (1964-1983), most<br />
pieces be<strong>in</strong>g made <strong>in</strong> the artist's kitchen or liv<strong>in</strong>g<br />
room on the Upper West Side. Among the sitters are<br />
actor Hugh Howard, postured with some skepticism,<br />
dishwasher David Sokola sprawl<strong>in</strong>g over a leather<br />
chair, and Hartley, her son, cross-legged and star<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong>to warm light, the distance. Still lifes, flowers<br />
on a tabletop or pots, plates, and pitchers, are<br />
perspectively altered to show flat color <strong>in</strong> the planes.<br />
In "Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian," 1978, the couple<br />
– Brian (Buczak), flannel shirt open and left arm<br />
around the back of Hendricks' chair – contently meet<br />
the viewer's gaze. A bowl conta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g an avocado and<br />
pairs of bananas eroticizes the event. The greens<br />
of the avocado, and <strong>in</strong> Hendricks' sweater, and<br />
wall beh<strong>in</strong>d the couple, harmonize while reced<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong> tone and saturation, then set <strong>in</strong> counterpo<strong>in</strong>t to<br />
the reds and oranges <strong>in</strong> the flannel shirt and across<br />
the table edge that penetrates the lower half of the<br />
picture plane.<br />
Alice Neel pa<strong>in</strong>ted the 20th century richly and<br />
obliquely through her will<strong>in</strong>g subjects. Engag<strong>in</strong>g with<br />
people is both an end <strong>in</strong> itself and a way to access<br />
worlds beyond our personal experience. The flowers<br />
and unpopulated breakfast tables stare back at us<br />
as metaphorical mirrors offer<strong>in</strong>g moments <strong>in</strong> our<br />
own reflection.<br />
Alice Neel, Geoffrey Hendricks and Brian, 1978, Oil on canvas, 44 x 34 <strong>in</strong>ches, 111.8 x 86.4 cm, © The Estate of Alice Neel<br />
Photos courtesy David Zwirner, New York<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 6
Pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> Space: An exhibition to benefit CCS Bard, Curated by Tom Eccles and Johanna Burton, Luhr<strong>in</strong>g August<strong>in</strong>e, New York, June 22 – August 17, 2012, Photographer: Farzad Owrang<br />
Courtesy of the artists and Luhr<strong>in</strong>g August<strong>in</strong>e, New York.<br />
PAINTING IN SPACE<br />
June 22 - August 17, 2012<br />
Luhr<strong>in</strong>g August<strong>in</strong>e Gallery<br />
531 West 24th Street NY, NY<br />
There are many refresh<strong>in</strong>g th<strong>in</strong>gs about "Pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong> Space" at Luhr<strong>in</strong>g August<strong>in</strong>e Gallery. First among<br />
them is the absence of any overwrought curatorial<br />
statement that might take a visually excit<strong>in</strong>g show<br />
such as <strong>this</strong> <strong>in</strong>to bor<strong>in</strong>g cerebral territory. The title<br />
is clipped from Rosal<strong>in</strong>d Krauss and that's the only<br />
hat tip theory gets here. The rest is color, material,<br />
and space.<br />
This exhibition benefits the Center for Curatorial<br />
Studies at Bard College and features 25 <strong>in</strong>ternational<br />
artists that <strong>in</strong>clude Olafur Eliasson, Liam Gillick,<br />
Glenn Ligon, Tony Ousler, Josh Smith, Mark di Suvero,<br />
and Andrea Zittel. Upon enter<strong>in</strong>g the ma<strong>in</strong> space,<br />
the two most immediately strik<strong>in</strong>g features are the<br />
corner-to-corner roll of orange carpet that supports<br />
Rachel Harrison's multi-media sculpture at one end<br />
and the 17 feet high by 27 feet wide fabrication of<br />
a coat hanger, bent as if overused, hang<strong>in</strong>g from<br />
above. While Mark Handforth's "Blue Hanger," 2011<br />
playfully dom<strong>in</strong>ates the show, it doesn't distract.<br />
What next strikes the eye is Mart<strong>in</strong> Creed's red-onwhite<br />
lattice-like pa<strong>in</strong>t stripes cover<strong>in</strong>g the entire<br />
South wall ("Work No. 1416," 2012), echoed quietly<br />
<strong>in</strong> his small green X shapes descend<strong>in</strong>g on a small<br />
foot-tall canvas ("Work No. 1417," 2012).<br />
Amy Sillman's compositional wit <strong>in</strong> "Untitled," 2012,<br />
where an anthropomorphic armature animates<br />
a lemon yellow ground, is contrasted with Josh<br />
Smith's "Untitled," 2008, where layers of brown and<br />
black pa<strong>in</strong>t descend <strong>in</strong>to smeary <strong>in</strong>difference. Both<br />
pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>gs exude verve but <strong>in</strong> oppos<strong>in</strong>g directions.<br />
Rio-based artist Tunga haunts the show with an<br />
om<strong>in</strong>ous aura from the back room. "La Mouche,"<br />
2007 is a near-12-foot tall sculpture organized<br />
around a vertical brass pole support<strong>in</strong>g a<br />
rodded mesh curta<strong>in</strong> and two black woven ropes<br />
volumetrically swollen midway down like a gorged<br />
python. Dismembered large fly w<strong>in</strong>gs made of<br />
shaped metal bars slant <strong>in</strong> from the floor diagonally<br />
towards the middle. A three-paned fold<strong>in</strong>g screen<br />
with vertical lamps on each end hugs the <strong>in</strong>terior<br />
space as if protect<strong>in</strong>g some sacred energy outside<br />
the bounds of language.<br />
SVEN LUKIN<br />
May 24 -June 30, 2012<br />
Gary Snyder Gallery<br />
529 West 20th Street 10th NY, NY<br />
The name Sven Luk<strong>in</strong> doesn't usually appear next to<br />
Donald Judd's and Frank Stella's, but <strong>in</strong> the heyday<br />
of 1960s abstraction it did. The artist had solo<br />
exhibitions at Betty Parsons Gallery, Martha Jackson<br />
Gallery, and four more at Pace Gallery, <strong>in</strong> addition<br />
to participat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> numerous museum shows such<br />
as the Guggenheim's 1964 "The Shaped Canvas."<br />
Yet for reasons unexpla<strong>in</strong>ed, Luk<strong>in</strong> severed ties with<br />
Pace Gallery <strong>in</strong> 1972 and refused to show aga<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong><br />
a commercial venue. With the exception of his solo<br />
exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art<br />
<strong>in</strong> 1978, the artist's work has gone largely unseen<br />
until Gary Snyder Gallery, now represent<strong>in</strong>g him,<br />
presented a survey <strong>in</strong> 2010.<br />
In <strong>this</strong> second exhibition, from May 24 - June 30,<br />
the gallery presented six large works from Luk<strong>in</strong>'s<br />
early period along with new work, made over the last<br />
fourteen years, never seen.<br />
My first time see<strong>in</strong>g <strong>this</strong> artist's work was onl<strong>in</strong>e.<br />
Not know<strong>in</strong>g the name or dates, I was immediately<br />
struck by the hard-edged work's formal power,<br />
spatial <strong>in</strong>vention, smart use of color, and sense of<br />
command that stands <strong>in</strong> contrast to the diffidence<br />
(or "Casualism") of so much current abstraction.
Sven Luk<strong>in</strong>, Piano Lesson, 1968, Enamel on masonite and<br />
wood construction, 108 x 79 x 5 <strong>in</strong>ches, Photos courtesy<br />
of Gary Snyder Gallery<br />
I knew a gallery visit was due. "San Diego," 1966,<br />
like most works <strong>in</strong> the show, is a pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g-sculpture<br />
hybrid made of acrylic, canvas and wood. Flat<br />
aga<strong>in</strong>st the wall a 6ft x 6ft gray stretched canvas<br />
establishes the work's status as otherwise<br />
traditional pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g, while at the lower half two large<br />
constructed elements protrude outward another<br />
6ft, hover<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>ches above the floor, establish<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the work's status as sculpture. Two tones of flat<br />
gray serve as a pa<strong>in</strong>ted ground while wide w<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g<br />
bands of yellow and orange edge the contours of<br />
each volume, cleverly fus<strong>in</strong>g the two and threedimensions.<br />
Luk<strong>in</strong>'s deft <strong>in</strong>vestigations of space are better<br />
appreciated while know<strong>in</strong>g he was briefly a student<br />
at University of Pennsylvania's School of Architecture<br />
and attended lectures by Louis Kahn. The famous<br />
architect's aesthetic of monumentality f<strong>in</strong>ds its way<br />
<strong>in</strong>to Lik<strong>in</strong>'s playful experimentation of space and<br />
form brightened by a 1960s Pop color palette.<br />
"Cheek to Cheek," 1963 is a most subtle, reduced,<br />
but sensual early work. Two plush red, bisected<br />
spherical shapes near touch<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the middle create<br />
a vertical shaft of white negative space. Stretched<br />
over a centered vertical plank, the canvas softly<br />
protrudes at the top and bottom, a seductively<br />
physical counterpo<strong>in</strong>t to the two pa<strong>in</strong>ted forms.<br />
Newer work, made anywhere from 2002-2012,<br />
takes on two seem<strong>in</strong>gly divergent approaches.<br />
Four styrofoam-based multi-media pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>gs,<br />
variegated <strong>in</strong> surface and charged color, feel like<br />
a chaotic house party with their wild streaks and<br />
dots housed with<strong>in</strong> elements of depicted space<br />
connot<strong>in</strong>g floors, walls, or ceil<strong>in</strong>gs. In contrast to the<br />
early hard-edged constructions, the gallery's back<br />
room presents work unexpectedly organic – brown<br />
burlap stretched over lengths of small tree limbs<br />
adorn l<strong>in</strong>es of color serv<strong>in</strong>g as support<strong>in</strong>g accents.<br />
Their natural irregularity of shape and earthly tone<br />
gives the work a primitive spirituality, as if sacred<br />
objects serv<strong>in</strong>g an animistic faith.<br />
BY KATIE CERCONE<br />
POST CODE CRIMINALS<br />
Septemeber 13 - October 20, 2012<br />
Rush Arts Gallery<br />
526 West 26th Street, Suite 311 NY, NY<br />
Philanthropy is the New Black: POSTCODE<br />
Crim<strong>in</strong>als Exhibition at Rush Arts<br />
Fortunately for some, it doesn’t take much more<br />
than a trust fund, a thesaurus and a nice pair of<br />
kicks to make it <strong>in</strong> the Art World these days. I just<br />
don’t f<strong>in</strong>d much of that half-baked white dude<br />
nostalgia shit very stirr<strong>in</strong>g. Every once <strong>in</strong> a while<br />
if you can wade through the runway models and<br />
neo-quacks, Chelsea turns up someth<strong>in</strong>g fresh as<br />
a rose. September 13-October 20 at the Rush Arts<br />
Gallery, a branch of the Rush Philanthropic Arts<br />
Foundation, artists Dread Scott and Joann Kushner<br />
have teamed up for an exhibition showcas<strong>in</strong>g their<br />
public practice work with at-risk youth ages 14-22<br />
<strong>in</strong> East New York, Brooklyn and Liverpool, England.<br />
Based on workshops the artists led <strong>in</strong>dependently<br />
<strong>in</strong> their regions, the exhibition presents a ‘virtual’<br />
conversation about the impact of police tactics<br />
such as Stop & Frisk and Zero Tolerance, the latter<br />
hav<strong>in</strong>g migrated via NY police chief William Bratton<br />
to the UK through Officer Ray Mallon <strong>in</strong> 1996.<br />
The show’s title, “POSTCODE,” refers to the way<br />
<strong>in</strong> which communities of youth where Scott and<br />
Kushner worked <strong>in</strong> Brownsville and Liverpool are<br />
crim<strong>in</strong>alized based on the zip code (‘postcode’ <strong>in</strong><br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2012 8<br />
8
‘Stop’ Multi-channel video <strong>in</strong>stallation, Dread Scott, 2012. Photos courtesy of Rush Art Gallery<br />
Brit speak) where they live. Says the Press Release<br />
at RUSH, “Youth on either side of the Atlantic have<br />
been drawn <strong>in</strong>to an unusual symmetry by police<br />
and governmental forces.”<br />
Accord<strong>in</strong>g to Scott, as many as 93% of residents<br />
were stopped and frisked <strong>in</strong> a s<strong>in</strong>gle year <strong>in</strong><br />
Brownsville where the artist presented his Art<br />
photography workshop at Man UP! Inc., an<br />
organization started by former gang-bangers and<br />
community religious figures <strong>in</strong> the wake of another<br />
youth’s tragic death and the 2004 black male<br />
unemployment report. A safe space for community<br />
dialogue, MAN Up! provides hous<strong>in</strong>g, job<br />
development programs and after school curricula<br />
to distressed residents. As part of a weekly sixmonth<br />
workshop, Scott encouraged youth to take<br />
photos of their daily life with camera phones,<br />
highlight<strong>in</strong>g the overwhelm<strong>in</strong>g and <strong>in</strong>humane<br />
presence of police <strong>in</strong> their neighborhood and its<br />
brutal impact. In snapshots from both Kushner and<br />
Scott’s students we see barbed wire fences and<br />
‘Keep Out Danger’ signs mounted on the turf these<br />
youth call home.<br />
Says Kushner of her workshop <strong>in</strong> Liverpool, much<br />
of the climate of police activity reflects a fear<br />
of crime rather than a reality. In her series, she<br />
<strong>in</strong>structed youth to use photography, poetry and<br />
collage. Acronyms referenc<strong>in</strong>g police presence add<br />
a forebod<strong>in</strong>g air to the f<strong>in</strong>ished work, for <strong>in</strong>stance,<br />
the collage ASBO Baby refers to an “Anti-social<br />
behavior Order.” FTM stands for “Fuck the Matrix,”<br />
a centralized police division developed to target areas<br />
with knife or gun violence responsible for much<br />
of the stop and search activity. Meanwhile, traditional<br />
Renaissance <strong>in</strong>spired photography portraits<br />
confront the parallel history of <strong>in</strong>stitutionalized<br />
racism and classism <strong>in</strong> the F<strong>in</strong>e Arts (a series to be<br />
added to the National Museum Liverpool's collection<br />
of contemporary urban culture).<br />
Dur<strong>in</strong>g the course of the co<strong>in</strong>cid<strong>in</strong>g workshops,<br />
youth were set up to share thoughts via Facebook<br />
and Skype. Dread Scott’s multi-channel projection<br />
Stop, an <strong>in</strong>stallation <strong>in</strong> the back room of Postcode,<br />
confronts the viewer with life size youth of both<br />
regions hav<strong>in</strong>g a ‘virtual conversation’ across the<br />
Atlantic about how often they are stopped and<br />
searched by police officers. For many, they are<br />
searched 2-3 times a week – <strong>in</strong> every cavity. If<br />
they’re lucky enough to walk away they may do so<br />
with major bruises or broken ribs.<br />
Amber's collage, 2012. Photos courtesy of Rush Art Gallery<br />
The open<strong>in</strong>g on September 13th <strong>in</strong> Chelsea co<strong>in</strong>cided<br />
with the Stop Mass Incarceration Network’s<br />
5-Borough action aga<strong>in</strong>st the NYPD “Blow<br />
the Whistle on Stop and Frisk Day,” for which the<br />
Network handed out 20,500 bright orange and<br />
yellow whistles with the message “No one will be<br />
stopped-and-frisked <strong>in</strong> silence.” Says Cornel West,<br />
co-<strong>in</strong>itiator of the Blow campaign, “We are blow<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the whistle on stop-and-frisk because we love our<br />
young people <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> city, and especially those who<br />
are victimized by <strong>this</strong> racist and unconstitutional<br />
practice, disproportionately black and brown young<br />
brothers and sisters, but we love all of them.”<br />
In the wake of social media and cell phone<br />
cameras play<strong>in</strong>g a causal role <strong>in</strong> the Revolutions<br />
of Egypt and Tunisia, and the subsequent uproar<br />
<strong>in</strong> England that sent youth to prison for shar<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and tweet<strong>in</strong>g words like ‘riot’ on the web, the<br />
implications of Postcode’s poignant, crosscont<strong>in</strong>ental<br />
approach to social justice as an art<br />
form pulls its weight. Says Dread Scott, who views<br />
the NYPD as an occupy<strong>in</strong>g army mandat<strong>in</strong>g a New<br />
Jim Crow neo-slavery existence for youth of color<br />
<strong>in</strong> impoverished areas, “I want to talk about the<br />
big questions confront<strong>in</strong>g humanity…what’s real.”<br />
While most of Chelsea is still batt<strong>in</strong>g at 487 ego<br />
trips a season, our Nation is clock<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the highest<br />
documented <strong>in</strong>carceration rate <strong>in</strong> the world. At<br />
Rush Arts, they’re committed to not just show<strong>in</strong>g<br />
political work, but have a multi-tiered organization<br />
set up to fund teach<strong>in</strong>g artists workshops <strong>in</strong><br />
underserved communities of color. While Kushner<br />
obta<strong>in</strong>ed funds rather easily through the UK’s<br />
Children <strong>in</strong> Need and National Museum, here <strong>in</strong><br />
America – where the race <strong>issue</strong> has played out <strong>in</strong><br />
bloody warfare s<strong>in</strong>ce our country was born - we<br />
have scarce arts fund<strong>in</strong>g for works of such political<br />
nature. Rush Arts, who boasts o.g. hip hop mogul<br />
Russell Simmons as chairman and co-founder,<br />
is champion<strong>in</strong>g on the 5th element, what Afrika<br />
Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation calls “Knowledge of Self<br />
<strong>in</strong> the Community.” It’s mak<strong>in</strong>g Philanthropy, with<br />
the help of bold players like Scott and Kushner, the<br />
new Black.
L<strong>in</strong>da DiGusta, 2012<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 10
TOP 10 NYC<br />
!#$%12456!@#<br />
ARTISTS NOW<br />
Nancy Azara<br />
B. 1939 <strong>in</strong> Brooklyn, NY<br />
Nancy Azara knows exactly why she became an artist, "Be<strong>in</strong>g a visual artist <strong>in</strong> particular gives me the ability to translate from<br />
an uncharted territory <strong>in</strong>stead of from the usual language of words.” Mak<strong>in</strong>g sculpture with wood, Azara also makes rubb<strong>in</strong>gs<br />
from the wood and collages on paper and mylar. Says Azara, “I love to carve <strong>in</strong>to wood because it is a collaboration between<br />
myself and the tree.” She is currently work<strong>in</strong>g on a 10 x 10 ft. high wooden sculpture called The Jacket, which has an ancient<br />
red leaf pattern as its central focus. She also has <strong>in</strong> m<strong>in</strong>d to gild with alum<strong>in</strong>um leaf and carve a piece of wood from a tree that<br />
was probably sliced by lighten<strong>in</strong>g and has a remarkable swell<strong>in</strong>g like a mounta<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong> its center. A veteran <strong>in</strong> her field, Nancy was<br />
co-founder of the New York Fem<strong>in</strong>ist Art Institute, a holistic women’s Art <strong>in</strong>stitution that existed from 1979-1990.<br />
www.nancyazara.com<br />
Edw<strong>in</strong> Bethea<br />
B. 1983 <strong>in</strong> Philadelphia, PA<br />
Edw<strong>in</strong> Bethea is a Brooklyn-based mixed media artist that typically works <strong>in</strong> oil pa<strong>in</strong>t, charcoal, and conte. Edw<strong>in</strong> knew he was<br />
dest<strong>in</strong>ed to become an artist from a very young age. He’s <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> the way <strong>in</strong> which art can be “created, destroyed, and<br />
trafficked” <strong>in</strong> a manner that “does not abide by the current conf<strong>in</strong>es of the stereotypical <strong>in</strong>stitutions we've created.” Edw<strong>in</strong><br />
works as an artist assistant for Robert Longo “Who is fuck<strong>in</strong>g amaz<strong>in</strong>g!” Edw<strong>in</strong>'s greatest artistic challenge? “Cont<strong>in</strong>u<strong>in</strong>g<br />
through a career/life <strong>in</strong> which I’m constantly striv<strong>in</strong>g to understand myself and an ever chang<strong>in</strong>g environment.” Edw<strong>in</strong> had a<br />
solo show <strong>this</strong> past November <strong>in</strong> Brooklyn, which consisted of mostly draw<strong>in</strong>gs. Check out his website for details!<br />
www.edw<strong>in</strong>bethea.com<br />
Ivy Castellanos<br />
B. 1985 <strong>in</strong> Park Rapids, M<strong>in</strong>nesota<br />
Ivy Castellanos is a performative sculptor with an athletic and musical background. She works with a variety of materials she<br />
f<strong>in</strong>ds on the street, mak<strong>in</strong>g a mold and cast of each to repurpose them with<strong>in</strong> her sculptural work. “Rhythm and motion are very<br />
important for the construction of both my sculpture and performance work.” For Ivy, the body is sculpture and sculpture is the<br />
body. Absurdity and power are elements <strong>in</strong> her work along with sentiment. Ivy performs frequently <strong>in</strong> the Brooklyn area and is<br />
affiliated with the Panoply Performance Lab. Ivy is also currently director at IV Soldiers Gallery at 184 Noll St. <strong>in</strong> Bushwick. As<br />
director she is <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> highlight<strong>in</strong>g Performance as medium and is currently <strong>in</strong> the process of creat<strong>in</strong>g an archive of Bushwick<br />
Performance Artists.<br />
www.ivycastellanos.com<br />
Robert Dick<br />
B. 1950 <strong>in</strong> New York City<br />
Photo credit: Anibal Pella<br />
Robert Dick was born at the very center of the 20th century m<strong>in</strong>us 4 days. He fell <strong>in</strong> love with music as a child and that love<br />
only broaded and deepened. Rob became an artist because he couldn’t see himself as anyth<strong>in</strong>g else. His chosen medium?<br />
Sound, primarily sound com<strong>in</strong>g through flutes of various sizes. “I have developed an approach to acoustic performance <strong>in</strong> which<br />
I treat the flute as a human powered synthesizer, with a wide open approach to sonority, often creat<strong>in</strong>g simultaneous, multiple<br />
layers of sound.” His work is a personal exploration of emotions and ideas, based on the belief that “limitations and preconceptions<br />
of what music and the flute should or could sound like are mean<strong>in</strong>gless.” Collaboration with other creative musicians<br />
and artists is extremely important to his work. What is his biggest challenge? “The endless search for the next moment of big<br />
<strong>in</strong>spiration.” He’s currently writ<strong>in</strong>g a book of small pieces for flute us<strong>in</strong>g a telescop<strong>in</strong>g flute mouthpiece he <strong>in</strong>vented called the<br />
Glissando Headjo<strong>in</strong>t®. He’s meanwhile compos<strong>in</strong>g a piece for himself as soloist with an amplified chamber group on str<strong>in</strong>gs<br />
and percussion, which is tentatively titled “Time Wants a Skeleton.”<br />
www.robertdick.net<br />
Pr<strong>in</strong>ce Harvey<br />
B. 1990 <strong>in</strong> Los Angeles, CA<br />
REVOLT<br />
Pr<strong>in</strong>ce Harvey spent the first 13 years of his life <strong>in</strong> Dom<strong>in</strong>ica, where his parents are from. He’s always been a performer and a<br />
writer. He became an artist because “I wanna be a part of chang<strong>in</strong>g the world I live <strong>in</strong>. One day we're gonna be the old people,<br />
and I wanna be able to look back and say we made <strong>this</strong>. I just wanna fuck shit up - by the time our kids are our age they'll wanna<br />
change everyth<strong>in</strong>g we did, so I wanna really give them a challenge.” The majority of his ideas come from tak<strong>in</strong>g long walks.<br />
Often he’ll record a hum pattern or beatbox on his iPhone ‘Notes’ app or Voice Memo application which will eventually become<br />
a fullblown song. Why is he mak<strong>in</strong>g art? “I want people to live through my experiences of alienation, heartache, pleasure and<br />
dedication.” Pr<strong>in</strong>ce Harvey is currently work<strong>in</strong>g on a full acapella hip hop album, titled "Boom" as well as a street performance<br />
project titled BoomBoxBoy. “I def<strong>in</strong>itely want to <strong>in</strong>crease my network of collaborators. I write a lot of songs that I feel would be<br />
better suited for other artists, so I want to expand <strong>in</strong> that direction also.”<br />
http://soundcloud.com/pr<strong>in</strong>ceharvey<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 12
Adehla Lee<br />
B. 1983 <strong>in</strong> Pusan, South Korea<br />
Adehla Lee made her first pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> preschool and has purely loved the medium ever s<strong>in</strong>ce. Although she works with pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and <strong>in</strong>stallation, she considers her true medium “color.” What does she make work about? “I like to f<strong>in</strong>d an aesthetic beauty<br />
beh<strong>in</strong>d realistic tragedy. I felt such a thrill when I saw the Korean traditional coff<strong>in</strong>s… covered by various neon colors and beautiful<br />
decorations.”<br />
What are her artistic challenges? “Myself. I am not an easy person. I am very picky, selfish, and lazy. I have to deal with me all<br />
the time while I am work<strong>in</strong>g.” But I doubt that lazy bit! She’s also <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> gett<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to video and animation. Meet Adehla<br />
Lee – her fashion sense is almost as awesome as her Art!<br />
www.adehlalee.com<br />
Hiroshi Schafer<br />
B. 1981 (actually 1971) <strong>in</strong> Tokyo, Japan<br />
Photo credit: Chito Yoshida<br />
Toshi’s grandfather was a secret agent for the Japanese Air Force. He tried to force Toshi to become an air force pilot, but Toshi<br />
“become a smart artist <strong>in</strong>stead.” Toshi’s chosen mediums are performance, video, workshops, props, costumes, music and<br />
Toshi himself. His work, which he makes at his studio and <strong>in</strong> secret at his day job is about “The <strong>in</strong>visible but unrecoverable<br />
connections between <strong>in</strong>dividuals, engag<strong>in</strong>g the viewer to consider the nature of our relationships, to overcome barriers and to<br />
undertake an empathetic exchange with the artist and everyone else.” Ultimately, Toshi attempts to “tickle a profound truth”<br />
out of human be<strong>in</strong>gs. Toshi is currently work<strong>in</strong>g on “Paper Drama,” a sad story about a Fisherman set to music <strong>in</strong> collaboration<br />
with Matthew Silver. After that he’s do<strong>in</strong>g another sad story set to music with puppets. If you don’t know Toshi you should, he’s<br />
rapidly becom<strong>in</strong>g a Brooklyn staple!<br />
http://hiroshishafer.com<br />
Maria Jose Duran Ste<strong>in</strong>man B. 1982 <strong>in</strong> Santiago,<br />
Chile<br />
Maria Jose Duran Ste<strong>in</strong>man works <strong>in</strong> 3-D sculpture and <strong>in</strong>stallation loosely related to notions of affection, comfort, protection<br />
and home. It’s also about how her body responds to the sensuality of the fibers and for the viewer, touch<strong>in</strong>g with the eyes. MJD<br />
become an artist “Because of fear, I guess. There were th<strong>in</strong>gs or subjects that I couldn’t communicate verbally. Born and raised<br />
under Catholicism and as a young girl be<strong>in</strong>g part of a very extreme Catholic sect I developed conflicts around what the human<br />
body means for our society.” MJD just f<strong>in</strong>ished a project called El Descubrimiento de America (The Discovery of America) for<br />
which she built music boxes/small scenarios that depict build<strong>in</strong>g a home <strong>in</strong> a foreign land, which she showed <strong>this</strong> past October<br />
at Local Project <strong>in</strong> Long Island City. She also has a rad curatorial <strong>in</strong>itiative called The Tree Nomadic which <strong>in</strong>volves collaborat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
with other artists <strong>in</strong> public space. For Tree Nomadic MJD is plann<strong>in</strong>g a series of public <strong>in</strong>terventions with stone alphabets spell<strong>in</strong>g<br />
out quotes from different authors places throughout the city. Next year she’ll have a solo show at Soho20 Gallery. Damn<br />
girl! MJD is pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g the town red.<br />
www.mjdurans.com<br />
Jessica Stoller<br />
B. 1981, <strong>in</strong> Royal Oak, Michigan<br />
“It was never an active decision to declare myself an Artist with an capital A,” says Stoller. She always gravitated towards the<br />
arts, and focused on work<strong>in</strong>g three dimensionally pretty early on. Develop<strong>in</strong>g an aff<strong>in</strong>ity for ceramics <strong>in</strong> high school, she has<br />
more or less used ceramics <strong>in</strong> her work throughout the years. In the last few years she’s been work<strong>in</strong>g primarily with porcela<strong>in</strong>.<br />
“I am <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> us<strong>in</strong>g clay as a vehicle to explore <strong>issue</strong>s of idealized beauty, vanity and the subjugation of the female body,<br />
us<strong>in</strong>g porcela<strong>in</strong> as my primary media, a material <strong>in</strong>extricably l<strong>in</strong>ked to desire, secrecy and commodification.” She spent July <strong>in</strong><br />
Woodstock, NY at a residency <strong>in</strong> Byrdcliffe, a historic arts community nestled <strong>in</strong> the woods with a fully equipped ceramics studio.<br />
Does she have artistic challenges? “There are a lot of challenges…” At the end of the day she says the essential challenge<br />
is “Stay<strong>in</strong>g true to my convictions, voice and <strong>in</strong>tegrity.”<br />
http://jessicamstoller.com<br />
Kay Turner<br />
B. 1948 <strong>in</strong> Detroit, Michigan<br />
Photo credit: Benno Klandt<br />
S<strong>in</strong>ce childhood Kay Turner has felt “A vital source of <strong>in</strong>spiration at work <strong>in</strong> me and through me.” What she calls “the gift of my<br />
queerness,” Turner’s work crosses genres <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g music (s<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g and songwrit<strong>in</strong>g), writ<strong>in</strong>g, book design and collage, curat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and performance. From 1985-1995 Kay was the leader and songwriter for “Girls <strong>in</strong> the Nose,” a punk and funk lesbian rock<br />
band. Her Art <strong>in</strong>tersects with her work as a folklorist and 40 year long commitment to fem<strong>in</strong>ist, lesbian, and queer politics. “It<br />
allows me to work <strong>in</strong> the territory of women’s histories and women’s lives but with a twist—folklore’s simultaneous <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong><br />
tradition and change, community and marg<strong>in</strong>ality. I am <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> exam<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g, reth<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g, and re-present<strong>in</strong>g women’s legacies,<br />
especially those that resist or <strong>in</strong>terrupt dom<strong>in</strong>ance and refuse normative assimilation.” Her Rock Band’s 1994 hit “Breast<br />
Exam” for example, marries Rock with radical self-care, the lyrics <strong>in</strong>vit<strong>in</strong>g women to “take control of your health and give yourself<br />
a breast exam.” Currently, she’s gear<strong>in</strong>g up to promote her new book Transgressive Tales: Queer<strong>in</strong>g the Grimms (Wayne<br />
State University Press, 2012), which <strong>in</strong>terprets the Grimms’ fairy tales through the lens of queer theory. She’s also curat<strong>in</strong>g an<br />
upcom<strong>in</strong>g show about reth<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g the witch figure, All hail the hag!<br />
www.brooklynartscouncil.org/documents/233
THE<br />
MARTIAL<br />
ARTIST<br />
REVOLT Magaz<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong>terviews Tanto B<strong>in</strong> Everett about Fear, Police Brutality<br />
and where Occupy Wall St. Failed<br />
BY KATIE CERCONE<br />
Tanto B<strong>in</strong> Everett is not your usual Martial Artist.<br />
A 36-year-old Alexandria Virg<strong>in</strong>ia born American<br />
Veteran, Tanto is of African American and Native<br />
American orig<strong>in</strong>. He’s tall, broad shouldered, has<br />
awesome long dread locks and wears a medic<strong>in</strong>e<br />
bag around his neck. But that’s just on the surface<br />
of th<strong>in</strong>gs. What’s beneath the glow<strong>in</strong>g facade?<br />
Tanto is a pillar of the community, a real Spiritual<br />
Warrior and a man of great wisdom.<br />
Tanto encountered Martial Arts at a very<br />
young age as a philosophy of life handed down<br />
through his elders. His com<strong>in</strong>g of age <strong>in</strong>volved<br />
learn<strong>in</strong>g a Native American fight<strong>in</strong>g style endemic<br />
to the Shenandoah Valley where he was born and<br />
raised. It’s very much tied to a warrior way of life<br />
that espouses Native American culture. Be<strong>in</strong>g as<br />
close to the earth as possible is central, “Animals<br />
as most Americans mean it is actually a foreign<br />
concept to my people. We believe Brother Bear<br />
can teach you a lot.” Likewise for sister squirrel,<br />
brother squirrel, brother fox, sister fish, mother<br />
hawk, says Tanto. For Southeastern mounta<strong>in</strong><br />
folk like himself, Native American Martial Arts<br />
is as simple as chopp<strong>in</strong>g wood. Chopp<strong>in</strong>g wood<br />
prepared Tanto for a fight<strong>in</strong>g move called the axe<br />
handle hand. Pick<strong>in</strong>g up bales of hay prepared<br />
him to one day be able to pick a man up off the<br />
ground.<br />
But I thought Native American culture and<br />
the Martial Arts don’t necessarily go together?<br />
“That’s amaz<strong>in</strong>g that you say that because<br />
Native Americans have some of the greatest<br />
Martial Arts there are <strong>in</strong> the world.” Accord<strong>in</strong>g to<br />
Tanto, modern military warfare <strong>in</strong> the United States<br />
is a direct descendent of Native American Martial<br />
Arts. Andrew Jackson for example, our American<br />
president most noted for his military campaigns<br />
– earned the acclaim that got him <strong>in</strong>to the White<br />
House as a soldier ap<strong>in</strong>g Martial Arts from the<br />
Natives who showed him how to defeat an enemy.<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
Just 15 men and Jackson destroyed the creeks<br />
of North Carol<strong>in</strong>a. “The Native Americans showed<br />
him how to sneak up river, cut the opponent’s<br />
canoes so they wouldn’t have anywhere to run<br />
and attack five men from the front, five men from<br />
the back. Genius strategy.” Tanto expla<strong>in</strong>s how<br />
to <strong>this</strong> day we still call the military squawk box a<br />
‘smoke signal’ after the Native American derived<br />
first official long distance <strong>in</strong>formation-shar<strong>in</strong>g<br />
device.<br />
And all those Hipsters runn<strong>in</strong>g around<br />
with their heads shaved on one side? Tanto tells<br />
me <strong>this</strong> comes from the Powhatan tribe. It’s for<br />
the side that the person used the bow and arrow<br />
on. It prevented you from yank<strong>in</strong>g your hair out<br />
as you launched arrows while runn<strong>in</strong>g around<br />
terra<strong>in</strong>. “That too was a Martial Art.”<br />
In fact, without go<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to a history lesson<br />
– yet - “Nobody just rolled over and died” when<br />
the white colonists rolled up to rape and pillage<br />
the Native people and their earth. Says Tanto<br />
“America” as we know it today “is the consequence<br />
of [Europeans] hav<strong>in</strong>g a couple hundred million<br />
more people and disease resistance that they<br />
could dump <strong>in</strong>to the country… further exacerbat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the genocide and disease campaign.”<br />
When it comes to the way of the warrior,<br />
Tanto’s cross-cultural roots run deep. Native<br />
American <strong>in</strong>fluence is only one component of<br />
Tanto’s artistry. A Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)<br />
fighter <strong>in</strong>itially, Tanto also comes from a family<br />
of many boxers. When he was younger, amongst<br />
his many uncles and cous<strong>in</strong>s Tanto learned<br />
someth<strong>in</strong>g called ‘slap fight<strong>in</strong>g,’ similar to box<strong>in</strong>g<br />
but executed with an open rather than enclosed<br />
fist. “Also referred to as either ‘jailhouse rock’ or<br />
‘the 52s’ it’s primarily someth<strong>in</strong>g taught to young<br />
men when they go to jail or prison the first time…”<br />
As recreation?<br />
Hold Up. Yes, I just asked that. Because<br />
I’m not a neutral scribe. Although two generations<br />
back my relatives – of Irish and Italian descent<br />
– were degraded, as Tanto says, called the<br />
“European Negro,” I grew up with white privilege,<br />
the wake of my Father’s American Dream, wealth,<br />
<strong>in</strong>nocence and all the ignorance a sheltered,<br />
segregated suburban community could afford.<br />
Which is a lot of ignorance. I-G-N-O-R-E-ance. When<br />
Reagan slashed $63 billion <strong>in</strong> social spend<strong>in</strong>g<br />
between 1982-83, the two years proceed<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
crack era and my birth <strong>in</strong> 1984, my Father went<br />
on gett<strong>in</strong>g richer and pil<strong>in</strong>g more and more pearly<br />
nosed Barbies and p<strong>in</strong>k ruffley numbers under my<br />
Christmas tree. Meanwhile, the Black American<br />
ghetto was flooded with crack and had its basic<br />
needs like food and family stability pulled right<br />
out from under it. (1)<br />
I’m <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> Tanto’s story because as<br />
a yoga <strong>in</strong>structor, I’m <strong>in</strong>vested <strong>in</strong> Consciousness.<br />
I also tend to f<strong>in</strong>d the general yoga community<br />
<strong>in</strong> New York somewhat of a claustrophobia<strong>in</strong>duc<strong>in</strong>g,<br />
self-<strong>in</strong>volved, white and commercial<br />
entrepreneurial set. No offense yogis, it’s just a<br />
hard truth that the only way we could possibly<br />
scrape by a liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> field is to teach yoga<br />
to wealthy persons who can pay for $80 private<br />
lessons or access big studios that have turned<br />
Yoga <strong>in</strong>to a corporate brand. Yikes.<br />
A few months ago I went to a yoga<br />
retreat upstate with a friendly group of white,<br />
upper-middle class women. Over a wholesome<br />
communal meal, a few ladies started talk<strong>in</strong>g<br />
about how safe they felt <strong>in</strong> Bedstuy where they<br />
had recently relocated. The draconian notion that<br />
every ghetto is a dangerous terra<strong>in</strong> where poor<br />
and disenfranchised people of color lurk on street<br />
corners to maim, rob and rape white women –<br />
was clearly implied. The age-old reality prevailed:<br />
White woman moves <strong>in</strong>to historically black<br />
neighborhood, cont<strong>in</strong>ues to turn a bl<strong>in</strong>d eye to the<br />
poverty, subjugation and outright violence (done<br />
to BLACK PEOPLE). Cont<strong>in</strong>ues to get off on the<br />
14
American danger fetish, meanwhile avoids any real<br />
danger and has a good smug chuckle about how<br />
safe she feels and how much money she’s sav<strong>in</strong>g<br />
on rent. Meanwhile, most of my Black male friends<br />
that lived through the 90s have someth<strong>in</strong>g relatively<br />
close to PTSD from the crack era’s bloody fallout.<br />
Many grew up with no parents at all.<br />
What makes a person white? Is it the<br />
neighborhood they grew up <strong>in</strong>? How safe they feel?<br />
Or is it that somewhere along their ancestral l<strong>in</strong>e<br />
someone got greedy and snipped the family roots.<br />
Popped out perfect little daughters that were more<br />
afraid of consum<strong>in</strong>g a sandwich then their parents<br />
dy<strong>in</strong>g. (2) I learned the white way that fear is relative.<br />
“I’d rather pay for my kids to go to college then<br />
someone else’s” was how my Father justified be<strong>in</strong>g<br />
a fiscal Republican. And I did go to college. Twice.<br />
Two degrees <strong>in</strong> social justice discipl<strong>in</strong>es and gobs<br />
of books by Third World Women of Color Fem<strong>in</strong>ists<br />
and Hip Hop Praxis and plenty of Black boyfriends<br />
later – I just still don’t get it, I may never get it, not<br />
enough. Which is why I asked Tanto,<br />
As recreation?<br />
“No, as defense. People get killed <strong>in</strong> prison<br />
just as frequently and often more fervently then<br />
they do on the street. It’s a very dangerous place<br />
to be.” Tanto recalls stories from his uncles and<br />
cous<strong>in</strong>s on Rutgers Island. His mom even served<br />
5 years. Prison is one of those places where it<br />
serves you to learn a Martial Art like what they call<br />
‘the Shank,’ another term for knife fight<strong>in</strong>g us<strong>in</strong>g<br />
a sharpened toothbrush <strong>in</strong> the place of a knife,<br />
which descends from slavery. “There were many<br />
warriors that were taken <strong>in</strong> dur<strong>in</strong>g slavery who kept<br />
their fight<strong>in</strong>g arts. If you didn’t necessarily look too<br />
different from everyone around you, it gave you a<br />
way of defend<strong>in</strong>g yourself.” Tanto expla<strong>in</strong>s another<br />
popular style passed down through slaves which is<br />
now be<strong>in</strong>g reimag<strong>in</strong>ed and retaught called ‘Shackle<br />
hands’ or ‘K<strong>in</strong>etic Hands’.<br />
Shackle hands is an art that revolves around<br />
keep<strong>in</strong>g the hands close together and us<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
motions of the hands <strong>in</strong> that way to block, punch,<br />
blow and hit. Tanto expla<strong>in</strong>s that it’s designed for a<br />
man <strong>in</strong> shackles to be able to defend himself aga<strong>in</strong>st<br />
the whip. If you’re familiar with k<strong>in</strong>etic hands you<br />
can stop the whip from anywhere that it can be<br />
thrown and defend yourself <strong>in</strong> a serious way. “All of<br />
<strong>this</strong> unbeknownst has been passed down through<br />
the prison system.”<br />
After learn<strong>in</strong>g the ways of the Native<br />
American and African American fighter, Tanto went<br />
on to study other forms of Martial Arts <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g<br />
Kung Fu, Aikido, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jujitsu and<br />
Japanese Jujitsu. In the U.S. military Tanto learned<br />
military and mar<strong>in</strong>e core self defense as well as<br />
someth<strong>in</strong>g called S.CA.R.S. What’s he do<strong>in</strong>g these<br />
days?<br />
“I’ve tried my best not to be an <strong>in</strong>structor <strong>in</strong><br />
any capacity. What I do teach is what I see a need<br />
for. If I see a geeky kid that just wants to be left<br />
alone and can’t really defend himself I’ll teach him<br />
how to defend himself. How to use his hands.”<br />
For Tanto, Martial Arts is as much about<br />
the actual fight<strong>in</strong>g as it is the Philosophy beh<strong>in</strong>d<br />
it. “Fight<strong>in</strong>g requires you to get over yourself<br />
immediately. It’s a matter of learn<strong>in</strong>g to function<br />
beyond your fear.” Most everyth<strong>in</strong>g Tanto talked<br />
about boiled down to the fact that as human be<strong>in</strong>gs<br />
we have the choice to operate from subconscious<br />
reactive fear or clear compassionate consciousness.<br />
Martial Arts, like yoga, teaches consciousness.<br />
“Fear is someth<strong>in</strong>g that affects everyth<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong>side of us and everyth<strong>in</strong>g that we do unless<br />
we’re aware of it. There’s pathos beh<strong>in</strong>d the fear<br />
we develop. Because of that fear we operate from<br />
a subconscious place. We overreact, under react,<br />
lock up…fear takes you out of the moment at hand.”<br />
Today, many Americans live <strong>in</strong> fear everyday due to<br />
yellow and orange Terror Alerts. Meanwhile, African<br />
Americans deal with terror on a daily basis. Their<br />
terror is not potential, or media generated. It is<br />
historical and systemic.<br />
Societal fear of Black people, especially<br />
black males – bolstered by faulty media<br />
depictions, corrupt law, religious authority, covert<br />
<strong>in</strong>stitutionalized racism and blatant racialized<br />
hatred - has shaped the life and times <strong>in</strong> Tanto’s<br />
community s<strong>in</strong>ce our country came to be. Wrote<br />
Norman Mailer <strong>in</strong> his much lauded work The White<br />
Negro (1957), “S<strong>in</strong>ce the Negro knows more about<br />
the ugl<strong>in</strong>ess and danger of life than the White, it is<br />
probable that if the Negro can w<strong>in</strong> his equality, he<br />
will possess a potential superiority, a superiority so<br />
feared that fear itself has become the underground<br />
drama of domestic politics.” Mailer concludes that<br />
racial equality would “tear a profound shift” <strong>in</strong> the<br />
“moral imag<strong>in</strong>ation of every white alive.”<br />
And yet as with many popular academics,<br />
Mailer’s message concludes more or less with a<br />
potent, doomsayer revelation about the outcome<br />
of deep-seeded American Societal ills - “What the<br />
liberal cannot bear to admit is the hatred beneath<br />
the sk<strong>in</strong> of a society so unjust that the amount of<br />
collective violence buried <strong>in</strong> the people is perhaps<br />
<strong>in</strong>capable of be<strong>in</strong>g conta<strong>in</strong>ed.” Where are we, half a<br />
century later? In a way I feel like we’ve reached that<br />
place, that post-modern, fractured, shifted and torn<br />
moral imag<strong>in</strong>ary were Race as a construct is both<br />
more and less limit<strong>in</strong>g to <strong>in</strong>dividuals on a given daily<br />
basis. And yet at what po<strong>in</strong>t will privileged liberals<br />
see beyond the exhilaration of radical prose <strong>in</strong>to<br />
the material reality of the collective violence of the<br />
State toward which they are fashionably privy but<br />
unmoved to change?<br />
I quoted Mailer because his words very<br />
clearly correlate with Tanto’s philosophy. The<br />
“underground drama of American Politics” boils<br />
down to fear, and yet, it sure a<strong>in</strong>’t the ivory tower<br />
of academism that’s go<strong>in</strong>g to conquer our collective<br />
fears and whatever perverse mechanism(s) we’ve<br />
developed to hold onto them.<br />
“The beautiful th<strong>in</strong>g about life is that when<br />
you put death and fear <strong>in</strong> its proper place you can<br />
enjoy every m<strong>in</strong>ute that you’re here even more,”<br />
says Tanto. Be<strong>in</strong>g conscious is recogniz<strong>in</strong>g that fear<br />
is “Noth<strong>in</strong>g more than a suggestion made by your<br />
subconscious.” Be<strong>in</strong>g fearless is be<strong>in</strong>g conscious.<br />
Tanto def<strong>in</strong>es consciousness as “full and absolute<br />
faith <strong>in</strong> oneself to use the full capacity of your be<strong>in</strong>g<br />
to process and absorb the world around you. Live<br />
through the world of your senses rather than through<br />
the conf<strong>in</strong>es of your own thoughts.” He goes on to<br />
say, “And through that consciousness you grow. You<br />
f<strong>in</strong>d sweetness. If you stay still the storm passes<br />
over you and you’re stronger for hav<strong>in</strong>g endured it.”<br />
This is right around were Martial Arts starts<br />
to sound a lot like yoga, and <strong>in</strong> many ways it is. Tanto<br />
rem<strong>in</strong>ds me that yoga is a Martial Art <strong>in</strong> so much<br />
that it was orig<strong>in</strong>ally developed for warriors and<br />
dignitaries.<br />
“We’re all perfectly developed and evolved<br />
fight<strong>in</strong>g mach<strong>in</strong>es whether we like to admit it or not.<br />
We are the end result of a primate beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g to hunt<br />
- his fail<strong>in</strong>g and actually succeed<strong>in</strong>g enough times<br />
to evolve to <strong>this</strong> po<strong>in</strong>t where we are. We’re actually<br />
designed to get <strong>in</strong>to the rough and tumble of it. We’re<br />
actually designed to chase down a mammoth, put a<br />
spear <strong>in</strong> its side and br<strong>in</strong>g it down… for lunch.”<br />
What lett<strong>in</strong>g go of fear and cultivat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
pure consciousness does for the Spiritual Warrior<br />
is that it enables “<strong>in</strong>stant data recognition from<br />
past experience.” This transfers <strong>in</strong>to outwitt<strong>in</strong>g an<br />
opponent with little or no effort. And that’s just<br />
one piece of it, “There are a lot of different types<br />
and forms of consciousness that we still don’t<br />
understand.”<br />
And what about the notion of energy as we<br />
th<strong>in</strong>k about it <strong>in</strong> Yoga or mov<strong>in</strong>g meditations like Tai<br />
Chi? How does energy factor <strong>in</strong>to the Martial Arts?<br />
“We all emit large amounts of energy on a<br />
regular basis, byproduct largely of the static caused<br />
by the liquid bodies and the antigens constantly<br />
mov<strong>in</strong>g through our body’s venous system. This<br />
energy itself it not shielded <strong>in</strong> anyway, <strong>in</strong> fact<br />
human be<strong>in</strong>gs generate an <strong>in</strong>herent magnetic<br />
signature. We’re strong enough on any given day<br />
just <strong>in</strong> our blood stream alone… then add to that<br />
neuron activity, which is like a thousand s<strong>in</strong>gle watt<br />
batteries fir<strong>in</strong>g off at any given second. We also<br />
absorb energy from the sun and can detect the<br />
energy of another Be<strong>in</strong>g at any time.”<br />
Martial Arts concerns itself with the rout<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and constructive use of that energy. Energy <strong>in</strong> Kung<br />
Fu is expla<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> terms of the Chakras (Seven<br />
energetic centers from the base of the sp<strong>in</strong>e to the<br />
crown) like <strong>in</strong> yoga. Different Martial Arts approach<br />
energy <strong>in</strong> different ways. In Judo, it’s all about<br />
tak<strong>in</strong>g the energy that your opponent is giv<strong>in</strong>g off.<br />
“You don’t fight them, they fight themselves. They’re<br />
fight<strong>in</strong>g where their energy is go<strong>in</strong>g you just route it.<br />
You learn how to channel the flow of your opponent.<br />
There are martial arts that teach you how to become<br />
stronger with every blow that you receive.”<br />
Okay so, to recap. Fear takes you out of your<br />
body and <strong>in</strong>to your head.<br />
“Yes, fear takes you to a part of your m<strong>in</strong>d<br />
that’s not observant and for a moment because<br />
of fear you are literally psychologically delusional.<br />
Sometimes with people their fight or flight response<br />
is to just shut down and escape through their head.<br />
It’s like a possum reaction. Go flaccid and blank<br />
eyed and out of it - that's fear.”
Fear br<strong>in</strong>gs us back to the orig<strong>in</strong>al reason<br />
I wanted to <strong>in</strong>terview Tanto for REVOLT, specifically<br />
fear <strong>in</strong> relationship to police brutality and the fact<br />
that he’s teach<strong>in</strong>g young Black males <strong>in</strong>volved<br />
with the Occupy Wall St. movement Martial Arts<br />
techniques to help them protect themselves from<br />
the cops. Not that a lot of Black males have dared<br />
set foot <strong>in</strong>to Occupy Wall Street. Expla<strong>in</strong>s Tanto,<br />
“The reason why African Americans will never get<br />
<strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> Occupy Wall St. is because it was a solid<br />
FUCK YOU to Black people.”<br />
When exactly did America allow<br />
corporations to rule our public policy? “The first<br />
corporate decision <strong>in</strong> American that <strong>in</strong>fr<strong>in</strong>ged on<br />
civil rights was the Constitution. All men are created<br />
equal…and yet they made African Americans 3/5<br />
of a human be<strong>in</strong>g,” expla<strong>in</strong>s Tanto. Slavery was<br />
the first corporation and has (legally!) existed <strong>in</strong> a<br />
myriad of covert forms s<strong>in</strong>ce. If you even look closely<br />
at the nickel we still use today as currency, you’ll<br />
see a SLAVE PLANTATION (Thomas Jefferson’s<br />
Monticello) depicted <strong>in</strong> elegant detail. “Despite<br />
all these great moral platitudes that our found<strong>in</strong>g<br />
fathers spit out…they went and made 32% of the<br />
population immediately 3/5 of a human be<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
We’ve always had that problem. We did that <strong>in</strong> the<br />
beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g because of money and the economy.<br />
Slavery was a big part of our economy. We still use<br />
that system.” And it’s true, when you consider just<br />
how many Black and Lat<strong>in</strong>o males are locked up<br />
each year for non-violent crime. Their manpower<br />
supports a whole system of neo-slavery <strong>in</strong> which<br />
prison <strong>in</strong>mates make toys, furniture and high-end<br />
Victoria Secret l<strong>in</strong>gerie - for just pennies an hour.<br />
“Under slavery they left you alone because<br />
somebody owned you – you were damag<strong>in</strong>g<br />
someone’s property.” Just follow<strong>in</strong>g slavery,<br />
Tanto says, “People bought houses, we got land<br />
we started farm<strong>in</strong>g and try<strong>in</strong>g to compete <strong>in</strong> the<br />
economy. At least under Jim Crow with segregation<br />
we were allowed to. No one would sell us anyth<strong>in</strong>g<br />
- which was awesome. Because we could make<br />
th<strong>in</strong>gs and sell them to ourselves. We built several<br />
cities. In 1921 Tulsa Oklahoma had two cities.<br />
There was regular Tulsa and there was Black Tulsa.<br />
Black Tulsa was boom<strong>in</strong>g, they had Black Wall St.<br />
and famous f<strong>in</strong>ancial <strong>in</strong>stitutions. It was a selfsubsistence<br />
city. Then one day all on the word of a<br />
white woman say<strong>in</strong>g that she was raped by a Black<br />
man, they burned that entire town down and killed<br />
hundreds of <strong>in</strong>nocent people. I don’t really believe<br />
the newspaper accounts I believe the historical<br />
accounts of people who survived – and they say<br />
it was somewhere more like 200-300 people<br />
were killed where the newspaper accounts say oh<br />
someth<strong>in</strong>g like 10 people were killed. They killed an<br />
entire city. Then there was Rosewood Florida, 1923,<br />
exact same situation, exact same th<strong>in</strong>g.”<br />
Today profit rema<strong>in</strong>s the bottom l<strong>in</strong>e of our<br />
<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly corporatized government. Capitalism<br />
employs a divide and conquer tactic whereby most<br />
Americans are so busy gett<strong>in</strong>g their own they have<br />
lost grasp of the reality at hand. William Sales Jr.,<br />
Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Seton<br />
Hall University, remarks, “Oppression is not merely<br />
imposed by force. It is most firmly <strong>in</strong>stituted when<br />
those <strong>in</strong> power have established their self-serv<strong>in</strong>g<br />
ideas as the ‘common sense’ of the society…<br />
Individuals or groups among the oppressed who<br />
attempt to establish a different def<strong>in</strong>ition of social<br />
problems or a different frame of reference for the<br />
debate are def<strong>in</strong>ed as illegitimate or dangerous.<br />
They often f<strong>in</strong>d themselves under physical as well<br />
as <strong>in</strong>tellectual attack.” (3)<br />
At the end of the day, what does the average<br />
American profit?<br />
“It’s all about money. It has always been<br />
all about money. One way or another to keep us<br />
supply<strong>in</strong>g labor - free labor - s<strong>in</strong>ce slavery. Slavery<br />
has technically not ended <strong>in</strong> America at all it’s just<br />
changed its face. That’s our failure to recognize<br />
that when people say free market what they mean<br />
by that is slavery. That’s all the free market has ever<br />
been. That was the model of the East India trad<strong>in</strong>g<br />
company. Sell it for the maximum profit that you can<br />
get for it but pay noth<strong>in</strong>g for gett<strong>in</strong>g it.” And what’s the<br />
b<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g agent? Fear. Tanto remarks, “Studies have<br />
shown that when the average person turns around<br />
to encounter a Black man a spike <strong>in</strong> adrenal<strong>in</strong>e is<br />
released <strong>in</strong>to the body. Harvard has recently done a<br />
study determ<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g children as young as six years old<br />
had already learned a similar fear response.”<br />
As absurd as it is consider<strong>in</strong>g how White<br />
people have only captured, enslaved, tortured,<br />
murdered, denigrated, exploited, neglected and<br />
imprisoned Black people for centuries, White people<br />
rema<strong>in</strong> deeply afraid of Blacks. Meanwhile, Black<br />
people are protect<strong>in</strong>g their asses abroad. “America’s<br />
dirty secret as much as it loves African Americans<br />
is that it is mortally afraid of our men and acts it<br />
out <strong>in</strong> every way. We’re usually a sizable portion of<br />
the military. After World War II <strong>in</strong> particular African<br />
Americans make up 30-40% of the military.” And<br />
for white America, “Noth<strong>in</strong>g is more frighten<strong>in</strong>g to<br />
them than African Americans with tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g. People<br />
forget how after World War II there were American<br />
soldiers who were hung and lynched for show<strong>in</strong>g up<br />
<strong>in</strong> uniform with rifles. We had just got done fight<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the Nazis and we came back here to a people way<br />
worse.”<br />
Tanto expla<strong>in</strong>s that a major way that our<br />
society has justified its mistreatment of African<br />
Americans post-Civil Rights era has been done<br />
legally by the police force via the War On Drugs. The<br />
first campaign aga<strong>in</strong>st African American coca<strong>in</strong>e<br />
use went <strong>in</strong>to place <strong>in</strong> the 1930s, a time when 90%<br />
of African Americans <strong>in</strong> America had never seen or<br />
been <strong>in</strong> contact with coca<strong>in</strong>e.<br />
“We’d already discovered the herb <strong>in</strong> Africa<br />
and loved it… we’re already lean<strong>in</strong>g towards us<strong>in</strong>g<br />
someth<strong>in</strong>g herbal because we’re from an agrarian<br />
society with preced<strong>in</strong>g roots <strong>in</strong> earth based ritual<br />
societal cultures that use everyth<strong>in</strong>g around them<br />
as medic<strong>in</strong>e.” Marijuana, yes, but coca<strong>in</strong>e? That<br />
was the rich white man’s poison.<br />
The U.S. Commission of Civil Rights states<br />
that Africa-Americans constitute 14% of the drugus<strong>in</strong>g<br />
population, 35% of drug arrests, 55% of<br />
drug convictions, and 75% of all prison admissions<br />
related to drug offenses. Even the LA Times<br />
concludes, “Although it is clear that whites sell most<br />
of the nation’s coca<strong>in</strong>e and account for 80% of its<br />
consumers, it is Blacks and other m<strong>in</strong>orities who<br />
cont<strong>in</strong>ue to fill up America’s courtrooms and<br />
jails.” (4) In Tanto’s words, “We have a war on drugs<br />
that does not go after the people that are committ<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the crime.” On a correlate note, George Gerbner,<br />
former dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s<br />
Annenberg School for Communication, reports<br />
“[It’s] impossible to run an election campaign<br />
without advocat<strong>in</strong>g more jails, harsher punishment,<br />
more executions, all the th<strong>in</strong>gs that never worked<br />
to reduce crime but have always worked to get<br />
votes…it’s driven largely, although not exclusively,<br />
by television-cultivated <strong>in</strong>security.” (5) Researchers<br />
at the University of Michigan have sited that the<br />
number of whites shown on TV us<strong>in</strong>g coca<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong><br />
1985 dropped 60% while the number of Blacks<br />
us<strong>in</strong>g coca<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong>creased 60%. (6)<br />
We’re <strong>in</strong> an age of absolute <strong>in</strong>formation<br />
overload and great poverty of wisdom. We’re <strong>in</strong> an<br />
age were Spectacular images – like the ‘dark Face’<br />
of crime - have effectively colonized our psyches<br />
to the tune of multi-billion dollar enterta<strong>in</strong>ment<br />
<strong>in</strong>dustries and passive consumption. As Tanto says,<br />
see<strong>in</strong>g reality clearly – that is, what’s right <strong>in</strong> front<br />
of you, here and now – may be the only way to pull<br />
the weeds of white supremacy that are chok<strong>in</strong>g us<br />
all limp.<br />
When Tanto was grow<strong>in</strong>g up <strong>in</strong> Virg<strong>in</strong>ia<br />
he was subject to a police tactic called ‘Jump<br />
Out’ where cops would jump out of cars 5 or 6<br />
deep and tackle Tanto and his childhood friends.<br />
They broke his mother’s best friend’s leg and at<br />
least once knocked a woman hold<strong>in</strong>g a baby over<br />
and almost gave the baby a concussion. And <strong>this</strong><br />
happens all over greater New York City too. I’ve seen<br />
the unmarked cars and I’ve known someone – a<br />
Black male someone – who gets ‘jumped out’ on,<br />
chased down with guns by pla<strong>in</strong> clothes officers and<br />
searched illegally.<br />
When Tanto worked as a bartender several<br />
years back <strong>in</strong> Greenpo<strong>in</strong>t, the cops would follow him<br />
home from work. “I’d be walk<strong>in</strong>g down the street<br />
they’d always slow down right next to me and I’d<br />
have to wave and say ‘Good morn<strong>in</strong>g fellows, just a<br />
bartender go<strong>in</strong>g home...’ jok<strong>in</strong>gly but, it helps.”<br />
Tanto recalls a time when New York City law<br />
was particularly brutal, “10 years back dur<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
Rockefeller drug law era <strong>in</strong> NYC if me and you were<br />
stand<strong>in</strong>g here right now and a cop walked up - you<br />
had a kilo of coca<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong> your pocket and I had a $5<br />
crack rock <strong>in</strong> my pocket - who do you th<strong>in</strong>k would<br />
get more time? If it were your first offense you’d<br />
be out with<strong>in</strong> a week or two maybe on probation.<br />
Despite it be<strong>in</strong>g my first offense I would probably<br />
be do<strong>in</strong>g 5-10 years. Crack is someth<strong>in</strong>g that’s<br />
made from coca<strong>in</strong>e, and yet the penalties are up to<br />
18,000 times higher per volume.”<br />
Tanto expla<strong>in</strong>s <strong>this</strong> system has more or less<br />
been <strong>in</strong> place s<strong>in</strong>ce Richard Nixon said to the NRA:<br />
“You have to face the fact that the whole problem<br />
is really the Blacks. The key is to devise a system<br />
that recognizes <strong>this</strong> all while not appear<strong>in</strong>g to.” (7)<br />
Says Tanto, “If it’s not racist expla<strong>in</strong> to me why a guy<br />
who rapes a child may do 2-3 years with a little bit<br />
of parole and then he goes on a watch list whereas<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 16
a guy who’s sell<strong>in</strong>g crack to feed his kids is thus<br />
locked up for the next 25 years.”<br />
And these are cases where the police officer<br />
calmly followed the racist letter of the Law. When<br />
they do shoot – they don’t stop. Tanto expla<strong>in</strong>s that<br />
you rarely hear of an African American dy<strong>in</strong>g from a<br />
police officer shoot<strong>in</strong>g him ten times. “You hear 51<br />
shots. 48 bullets. Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times.<br />
A friend of m<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong> Richmond Virg<strong>in</strong>ia was shot 41<br />
times by the police.”<br />
That’s the amount of shots or bullet wounds?<br />
“That’s the amount of bullets found <strong>in</strong> the<br />
<strong>in</strong>dividual. Sean Bell had 51 bullets <strong>in</strong> his body.<br />
There were only 4 cops. All four of them if they<br />
had glock 16s - 17 shots each - would have had to<br />
have reloaded with the exception of one. So three<br />
of them reloaded.” And these officers open<strong>in</strong>g<br />
wildfire on young Black men are supposedly, as<br />
Tanto <strong>in</strong>forms me, Officers of the Peace. Says Tanto,<br />
“They are supposed to be walk<strong>in</strong>g around mak<strong>in</strong>g<br />
sure noth<strong>in</strong>g is happen<strong>in</strong>g to people.”<br />
Take the Stop & Frisk campaign for<br />
example, about which the New York Civil Liberties<br />
Union reports, “The Department’s own reports<br />
on its stop-and-frisk activity confirm what many<br />
people <strong>in</strong> communities of color across the city have<br />
long known: The police are stopp<strong>in</strong>g hundreds of<br />
thousands of law abid<strong>in</strong>g New Yorkers every year,<br />
and the vast majority are Black and Lat<strong>in</strong>o.” (8)<br />
Nearly 9 out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers<br />
have been completely <strong>in</strong>nocent. Meanwhile, white<br />
kids – like James Holmes of the recent Colorado<br />
Movie Theater shoot<strong>in</strong>g rampage - are tak<strong>in</strong>g open<br />
fire on <strong>in</strong>nocent civilians around the nation lazily.<br />
Tanto recounts the story of Allen Reggie, 33, a<br />
white male from South Carol<strong>in</strong>a who attempted<br />
to take the subway to Times Square armed with<br />
a loaded Intratec Luger Tec-9 mach<strong>in</strong>e gun and a<br />
Smith and Wesson 45 last January and only got<br />
caught because he hopped the turnstile. Tanto<br />
po<strong>in</strong>ts out that a large part of the problem <strong>in</strong> New<br />
York City is that the majority of cops don’t live <strong>in</strong> the<br />
neighborhood they serve. They don’t know who is<br />
supposed to be there and who is not.<br />
Fortunately, the ACLU is also nipp<strong>in</strong>g at<br />
the heels of police brutality with new stealthy<br />
surveillance technology. You may have heard of the<br />
ACLU developed OpenWatch Project, which provides<br />
apps for Android and iOS that record audiovisual<br />
media and immediately upload it to the OpenWatch<br />
server. Through <strong>this</strong> app, you can record police<br />
activity while it looks like your phone is turned off.<br />
To download the apps, go to http://openwatch.net/<br />
apps/<br />
To recap: White people violate black people,<br />
for centuries. White people fear the repercussions<br />
and fuel one powerful, opiat<strong>in</strong>g myth: Black men<br />
are dangerous, violent and <strong>in</strong>destructible. Recall<br />
a 2003 50 Cent on the cover of Roll<strong>in</strong>g Stone<br />
proudly display<strong>in</strong>g 9 bullet wound scars while the<br />
PR mavens announce his new album marks ‘the<br />
year hip hop returned to the streets.’ Village Voice<br />
writer Ta-Nehisi Coates calls <strong>this</strong> fanfare “crack era<br />
nostalgia taken to the extreme” and says that <strong>in</strong><br />
reality, “murder rates <strong>in</strong> the Black community have<br />
been dropp<strong>in</strong>g s<strong>in</strong>ce the mid-n<strong>in</strong>eties…the streets<br />
that gangsta rappers claim as their source are no<br />
longer as angry as they are sad…gangsta rap should<br />
be dead by now…and yet it still lumbers across the<br />
landscape of pop, shout<strong>in</strong>g, ‘I’m Real.’” (9)<br />
The Hip Hop Nation, like previous youth<br />
movements for Black solidarity, has also been<br />
subject to Federal surveillance and censorship. (10)<br />
Noted Hip Hop Journalist Dream Hampton<br />
wrote a touch<strong>in</strong>g article about rap supa star Tupac<br />
Shakur, son of Afenia Shakur. Ms. Shakur, who was<br />
imprisoned when she was pregnant with Tupac, was<br />
a member of Panther 21, a New York Faction of the<br />
Black Panthers accused of a conspiracy to blow up<br />
the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Writes Hampton<br />
of Tupac’s childhood, “those years underground,<br />
aboveground, the years when his disillusioned<br />
mother began smok<strong>in</strong>g crack – is as much a part of<br />
his legacy as the Black leather jackets and clenched<br />
fists.”<br />
Her article, titled ‘Hell-Raiser’ from Tupac’s<br />
hit Hell Razor (lyrics go “Mama raised a hell razor”)<br />
reports on a night <strong>in</strong> 1993 when Tupac witnessed<br />
two white off-duty cops harass<strong>in</strong>g a Black male <strong>in</strong><br />
a car <strong>in</strong> front of him. The cops, brothers Mark and<br />
Scott Whitwell, were drunk and carry<strong>in</strong>g a gun they<br />
had stolen from the room at the prec<strong>in</strong>ct where<br />
confiscated weapons are held. “There’s noth<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong><br />
Tupac’s personality that would have allowed him<br />
to be passive to <strong>this</strong> k<strong>in</strong>d of attack,” says Hampton<br />
call<strong>in</strong>g the night Tupac shot non-fatally the white<br />
Whitwell brothers, “Full of mythic potential: Black<br />
knight slays cracker dragons (centuries old) who<br />
emerge <strong>in</strong> the night, fangs bared. In the South no<br />
less! It’s the k<strong>in</strong>d of community work we all dream<br />
of do<strong>in</strong>g.” Her conclusion? “Shoot<strong>in</strong>g another Black<br />
man post-crack-era requires little courage…We<br />
talk a good game when it comes to the white devil,<br />
but rare is the brotha (or organization) who even<br />
imag<strong>in</strong>es physical confrontation with the oppressor.<br />
Let alone acts on it. It is <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> way that Tupac’s<br />
actions…are so utterly fearless” (11) Hampton’s<br />
portrait of Tupac offers another poignant entry po<strong>in</strong>t<br />
<strong>in</strong>to Tanto’s revelations about America racism and<br />
fear. Hampton’s words are chill<strong>in</strong>g and powerful,<br />
and contend to the deep-seated, separate but equal<br />
reservoirs of Fear bolster<strong>in</strong>g the American racial<br />
divide.<br />
Tanto’s older brother passed away dur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the drug war, and Martial Arts has helped him deal<br />
with the anger and fear that’s come up for him<br />
around that. “I probably would have been one of the<br />
guys that stayed <strong>in</strong> my neighborhood and died way<br />
too young,” says Tanto, although it’s hard to believe<br />
that if you could see him now. As I said, he’s a big<br />
man on Brooklyn turf – and he uses his charisma<br />
and social prowess for good. He’s a teacher, and <strong>in</strong><br />
a place like Bushwick that’s rapidly gentrify<strong>in</strong>g, he<br />
has plenty of encounters <strong>in</strong> which he can confront<br />
young white liberals with their own acculturated<br />
ignorance. He can’t go to a party without some<br />
European or European American walk<strong>in</strong>g up to him<br />
and ask<strong>in</strong>g for drugs. One time he literally spent<br />
twenty m<strong>in</strong>utes argu<strong>in</strong>g with a fellow, repeatedly<br />
tell<strong>in</strong>g him “No, I don’t know what you are talk<strong>in</strong>g<br />
about.” Whitey did not want to hear otherwise. Says<br />
Tanto, “White people have all but abandoned African<br />
Americans to deal with <strong>this</strong> shit. But they do more<br />
drugs than us. They never go to jail. It’s hilarious.”<br />
Unfortunately, it’s not only wh<strong>in</strong>y European<br />
hipsters that Tanto must contend with. “I’m a large<br />
African American, which scares cops to death.<br />
Every time a cop walks up to me they walk with<br />
their hand six <strong>in</strong>ches away from their weapon.”<br />
Tanto’s even had to po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>this</strong> out to police officers,<br />
ask<strong>in</strong>g “You’re encroach<strong>in</strong>g on me at the ready, why<br />
is that?” Know<strong>in</strong>g military parlance helps. Tanto’s<br />
Martial Arts tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g allows him to stay calm and<br />
collected under <strong>this</strong> k<strong>in</strong>d of high stakes encounter,<br />
and it’s an art he’s look<strong>in</strong>g to pass on. “The worst<br />
th<strong>in</strong>g you can do to a person that lives <strong>in</strong> a populace<br />
you are work<strong>in</strong>g to protect is communicate physically<br />
<strong>in</strong> your body language – I fear you. And not only I<br />
fear you but I will use brutal or excessive or mortal<br />
force to conta<strong>in</strong> you. A lot of African American men<br />
get themselves <strong>in</strong> a lot of trouble just react<strong>in</strong>g to the<br />
fear that the cop has when he walks up to them.<br />
They don’t know how to respond to it or what to say<br />
to that cop at that moment. They have every right to<br />
be afraid.”<br />
Tanto also feels safe know<strong>in</strong>g The Scientific<br />
Combat Reactionary System<br />
S.C.A.R.S., which <strong>in</strong>corporates disarmament moves.<br />
“It allows me to be a lot more comfortable and I can<br />
speak more clearly. The tone of my voice says to<br />
them that I’m not a threat.”<br />
And we repeat, who is the threat? Sharod,<br />
age 22, although ga<strong>in</strong>fully employed as a bike<br />
messenger, can’t even take a nap <strong>in</strong> the park on<br />
a summer day without gett<strong>in</strong>g ticketed because of<br />
his sk<strong>in</strong> color. I know because my white ass has<br />
pretty much napped <strong>in</strong> the park all summer long<br />
and I’ve never been bothered while Sharod has<br />
gotten stopped, ticketed and/or jailed once a week<br />
s<strong>in</strong>ce I’ve known him. And he’s still punk as fuck.<br />
One of the few Black men active <strong>in</strong> Occupy from<br />
its <strong>in</strong>ception, he refuses to comment other than<br />
to say (<strong>in</strong> h<strong>in</strong>dsight) “It Sucked. There were no real<br />
demands.”<br />
Sharod, who also practices Kung Fu, is<br />
actually how I met Tanto. Tanto taught Sharod how<br />
when a cop stops you you should always ask to move<br />
<strong>in</strong> front of the car where the surveillance camera is.<br />
Says Tanto, “Especially now while we have Occupy<br />
Wall St. there are a lot of people that don’t know<br />
how to properly fall out of a cop’s hands without<br />
giv<strong>in</strong>g that cop an excuse to beat him.”<br />
He cont<strong>in</strong>ues, “When cops want you out<br />
of an area they put <strong>in</strong> a plant - someone to cause<br />
agitation.” A small uproar of violence and all it takes<br />
is one move <strong>in</strong> the wrong direction, to a cop, “You<br />
are now resist<strong>in</strong>g arrest and what he’s physically<br />
capable of do<strong>in</strong>g to you to get you under control at<br />
that po<strong>in</strong>t maximizes.” What Tanto teaches young<br />
men is how to maneuver <strong>in</strong> such a way that the body<br />
stays flaccid. “If you’re not do<strong>in</strong>g anyth<strong>in</strong>g to him<br />
and he’s just grabb<strong>in</strong>g all over you, it turns <strong>in</strong>to you<br />
be<strong>in</strong>g harassed by an officer.”<br />
Although Occupy really seems to have hit a<br />
nerve amongst an American populace <strong>in</strong> the midst<br />
of an unprecedented economic decl<strong>in</strong>e and near<br />
erosion of the American Middle Class, for many Black
Americans, shelter, safety and steady employment<br />
were never given. Says Tanto, “In the sixties it was the<br />
Black Panthers, these were educated young African<br />
Americans will<strong>in</strong>g to step up and do someth<strong>in</strong>g for<br />
their culture after see<strong>in</strong>g the Civil Rights movement<br />
get bulwarked and stalled and their leaders killed.”<br />
Much like <strong>in</strong> the case of Occupy, “The kids took<br />
charge.” Founded <strong>in</strong> Oakland, California <strong>in</strong> 1966,<br />
The Black Panther Party openly avowed its legacy<br />
to Malcolm X. Just prior to <strong>this</strong> period, amidst the<br />
revolutionary upsurge of Malcolm’s Organization<br />
of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) American president<br />
J. Edgar Hoover previewed his COINTELPRO<br />
(counter<strong>in</strong>telligence) program to disrupt the OAAU<br />
coalition build<strong>in</strong>g efforts. Meanwhile the FBI<br />
carried out extensive surveillance of the Civil Rights<br />
movements and its offshoots through its Communist<br />
Infiltration Program, COMINFIL. (12) What ultimately<br />
became of Civil Rights? A lot of dead Black leaders,<br />
a new sp<strong>in</strong> on Slavery, uber-time racially-motivate<br />
Fears and a few party favors for white women and<br />
gays who got swept up <strong>in</strong> the radical flux.<br />
Tanto recommends Jonathan Metzl’s book<br />
The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became<br />
a Black Disease, which tells the story of how dur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the Civil Rights era Schizophrenia became the<br />
diagnostic term overwhelm<strong>in</strong>gly applied to Black<br />
protestors due to l<strong>in</strong>ger<strong>in</strong>g racial anxieties <strong>in</strong> the<br />
medical <strong>in</strong>dustry. He also recommends The New Jim<br />
Crow by Michelle Alexander and a PBS documentary<br />
called Slavery By Another Name.<br />
How much of your bra<strong>in</strong> is be<strong>in</strong>g held<br />
hostage by fear? What comes next? Says Tanto,<br />
“There is a billion dollar <strong>in</strong>dustry beh<strong>in</strong>d keep<strong>in</strong>g<br />
Black people locked up…who else are we go<strong>in</strong>g to<br />
lock up?” It was only a matter of decades before<br />
counter<strong>in</strong>telligence to disband Black unity became<br />
an affront to all Americans’ 1st amendment rights<br />
dur<strong>in</strong>g the War on Terror.<br />
Ultimately, Tanto believes we all really do<br />
truly and deeply want the same th<strong>in</strong>gs. Before we<br />
f<strong>in</strong>ish I ask if he has a vision for a better world and he<br />
responds, “The only way through to consciousness is<br />
over fear. When you experience fear psychologically<br />
what you’re go<strong>in</strong>g through is like a little man with<br />
an ice pick pok<strong>in</strong>g at your fuck<strong>in</strong>g face whenever<br />
someone mentions race, economy, law, LGBT rights,<br />
gender…if it’s big enough to affect a portion of the<br />
community it’s big enough to effect yours as well<br />
because you might actually know or be related to or<br />
eventually be one of those people. I want people to<br />
get stronger. Accord<strong>in</strong>g to everyone else I’m pretty<br />
goddamned capable and strong so if I can help<br />
people realize one th<strong>in</strong>g it’s just that – YOU HAVE<br />
NOTHING TO FEAR.”<br />
1 Margaret Burnham, “The Great Society Didn’t’ Fail,”<br />
The Nation, July 1989, p. 123<br />
2 Surveys show young girls are more afraid of becom<strong>in</strong>g<br />
fat than they are of cancer, nuclear war or los<strong>in</strong>g their<br />
parents. Lisa Berz<strong>in</strong>s, Dy<strong>in</strong>g to be th<strong>in</strong>: the prevention of<br />
eat<strong>in</strong>g disorders and the role of federal policy. American<br />
Psychological Association co-sponsored congressional<br />
brief<strong>in</strong>g, Nov. 1997<br />
3 William Sales Jr., From Civil Rights to Black Liberation:<br />
Malcom X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity,<br />
Boston: South End Press, 1994, p. 43<br />
4 M.K. Asante, Jr. It’s Bigger than Hip Hop: The Rise<br />
of the Post-Hip Hop Generation, New York: St. Mart<strong>in</strong>’s<br />
Griff<strong>in</strong>, 2008, p. 136<br />
5 M.K. Asante, Jr., ibid p. 142<br />
6 M.K. Asante, Jr., ibid p. 143<br />
7 DRUG WAR FACTS, Mother’s Aga<strong>in</strong>st Teen Violence,<br />
http://www.matv<strong>in</strong>c.org/drugwarfacts.html<br />
8 Stop and Frisk Campaign: About the Issue, NYCLU,<br />
http://www.nyclu.org/<strong>issue</strong>s/racial-justice/stop-andfrisk-practices<br />
9 Ta-Nehisi Coates, Keep<strong>in</strong>’ It Unreal: $Ell<strong>in</strong>g The Myth<br />
Of BlacK Male Violen¢E, Long Past Its Expiration Date,<br />
Village Voice, June 3, 2003<br />
10 Biggie & Tupac, 108 m<strong>in</strong> feature length documentary,<br />
Nick Bloomfield and Stephen Kirkham, United K<strong>in</strong>gdom,<br />
Release Date: May 24, 2002<br />
11 Dream Hampton, “HELL-RAISER” The Source<br />
September 1994<br />
12 Williams Sales Jr. ibid p. 139, 154<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 18
Write On..., L. A. Marler, 2012
Photo by Scotto Mycklebust, Occupy Museum, Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennale, KM Institute for Contemporary Art, Berl<strong>in</strong>, June 2012<br />
OCCUPY Berl<strong>in</strong><br />
OCCUPY MUSEUM MOVEMENT<br />
BY LENA VAZIFDAR<br />
On a once abandoned Bushwick, Brooklyn<br />
street corner filled with empty warehouses, an artist<br />
enclave is emerg<strong>in</strong>g. New York City’s art scene<br />
is undergo<strong>in</strong>g a transformation and Bushwick’s<br />
burgeon<strong>in</strong>g art scene is one to watch with events<br />
such as Bushwick Open Studios and galleries,<br />
bars and restaurants popp<strong>in</strong>g up <strong>in</strong> once barren<br />
alleyways. The hip-factor of the hood is grow<strong>in</strong>g, but<br />
it still rema<strong>in</strong>s gritty. Some would call it a current<br />
New York hot spot but there are still remnants to<br />
its past and much to be discovered. Compared to<br />
Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s self-proclaimed hippest<br />
enclave, Bushwick could be considered its less<br />
developed sibl<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
Off of Bushwicks’ Morgan stop is Momenta<br />
Art, where the Occupy Museums group has taken<br />
over shop for a month. The clean, urban loft space<br />
is a fitt<strong>in</strong>g scene for a group well known for its antiestablishment<br />
motif.<br />
Momenta, which is an artist run <strong>in</strong>stitution<br />
that promotes the work of emerg<strong>in</strong>g and<br />
underrepresented artists, approached Occupy<br />
Museums to work on a project with them. Now OM<br />
has been exhibit<strong>in</strong>g at Momenta Art <strong>this</strong> past month<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
and open<strong>in</strong>g dialogue to those that want to come <strong>in</strong><br />
and discuss the latest happen<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>in</strong> the movement.<br />
Inside the stark white room hangs a life-size<br />
piñata of New York’s Mayor Bloomberg. The walls<br />
are covered with ideas exam<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g debt and broken<br />
economies. One wall, covered with cardboard pieces<br />
<strong>in</strong>vites <strong>in</strong>dividuals to write the amount of debt they<br />
are <strong>in</strong> and showcase it to the world, or at least to<br />
anyone who’s at Momenta that day. I grabbed a felt<br />
marker, wrote out m<strong>in</strong>e, and taped it to the wall. The<br />
numbers stared back at me appear<strong>in</strong>g even larger<br />
than I hoped when written with the hand that owes<br />
it. My stomach dropped.<br />
The Occupy Museum movement emerged<br />
from the Occupy Wallstreet movement and is<br />
founded on the ideology that the disparity between<br />
America’s 1 percent and the 99 percent is too large<br />
a marg<strong>in</strong>. Occupy Wallstreet’s slogan, “We are the<br />
99 percent” is very much what Occupy Museums<br />
rema<strong>in</strong>s about and the group is made up of a bunch<br />
of passionate artists who are fight<strong>in</strong>g for equality<br />
with<strong>in</strong> the art world and aga<strong>in</strong>st the elitism that<br />
seem<strong>in</strong>gly comes hand <strong>in</strong> hand with museums.<br />
I <strong>in</strong>terviewed some of the group last spr<strong>in</strong>g<br />
to f<strong>in</strong>d out about the movement and their beliefs.<br />
What I found back then was a group of well mean<strong>in</strong>g,<br />
never-say-die spirited <strong>in</strong>dividuals. However, at the<br />
same time, they were disjo<strong>in</strong>ted and didn’t seem to<br />
have a group consensus towards any sort of plan to<br />
make their goals move forward, rather it seemed,<br />
they made a lot of noise and ga<strong>in</strong>ed attention dur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
protests at museums like MoMa and big art events<br />
like the Whitney Biennial.<br />
When I spoke to them under the om<strong>in</strong>ous,<br />
albeit comical, shadow of Mayor Bloomberg’s<br />
piñata at Momenta, the group seemed a little less<br />
disjo<strong>in</strong>ted, a bit more realistic and more ready<br />
to speak about the bigger picture of the Occupy<br />
Museum movement. The group recently went to<br />
Berl<strong>in</strong> to participate <strong>in</strong> the Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennial, where<br />
the curators themselves <strong>in</strong>vited the group to come,<br />
tickets paid—a testament to the fact that perhaps<br />
they are mak<strong>in</strong>g waves <strong>in</strong> the art community.<br />
Even still, the group mentioned that the<br />
<strong>in</strong>vitation itself somewhat went aga<strong>in</strong>st what they<br />
believe <strong>in</strong> as a group. “When we were confronted by<br />
the offer it was a challenge to decide if it was a good<br />
20
or bad th<strong>in</strong>g. In fact it made us a little nervous and<br />
we spoke with the curators a lot until we decided<br />
it was an <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g challenge,” says Tal Berry, an<br />
OM member. “Our hope was to somehow use the<br />
opportunity to learn and to connect to other people<br />
and other activists around the world.”<br />
At the Biennial the group participated <strong>in</strong> a<br />
number of events and the Biennial as a whole was<br />
focused on political action.<br />
“They said we aren’t <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> how the<br />
art looks but how the art does,” added Tal about the<br />
Biennial.<br />
In Berl<strong>in</strong>, the group focused on a number<br />
of different actions <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g a ceremony at the<br />
Pergamont Altar—a giant relief sculpture from<br />
Ancient Greece. The group says on their website that<br />
the altar is a representation of power for the USSR<br />
and Germany and symbolizes the displacement of<br />
culture by the elite.<br />
The Pergamont Altar action has obvious<br />
theatrical elements beh<strong>in</strong>d it, and at first glance is<br />
somewhat confus<strong>in</strong>g to what the purpose actually<br />
was. To ga<strong>in</strong> attention? To act as artists <strong>in</strong> some sort<br />
of a live performance? Perhaps. And perhaps it didn’t<br />
change much or br<strong>in</strong>g them closer to any sort of<br />
goal, but it most def<strong>in</strong>itely ga<strong>in</strong>ed attention. Occupy<br />
Museum’s website says about the Pergamont altar,<br />
“We are here to question and confront the <strong>issue</strong> of<br />
colonization and misappropriation of art and cultural<br />
heritage. We stand <strong>in</strong> solidarity with the Turkish<br />
population <strong>in</strong> Berl<strong>in</strong> suffer<strong>in</strong>g from gentrification.<br />
We will use the alter to bless victory for horizontality,<br />
shar<strong>in</strong>g, and non-ownership.”<br />
They also cont<strong>in</strong>ued to do actions at Deuche<br />
Bank and Deuche Guggeheim. For the group,<br />
Berl<strong>in</strong> changed th<strong>in</strong>gs and <strong>in</strong>terplayed the dynamic<br />
and hesitance they already have work<strong>in</strong>g hand <strong>in</strong><br />
hand with <strong>in</strong>stitutions and museums, when they<br />
<strong>in</strong>herently believe they are the ones do<strong>in</strong>g wrong.<br />
Noah Fischer, another OM member, often credited<br />
for be<strong>in</strong>g the r<strong>in</strong>gleader of the group said, “Berl<strong>in</strong><br />
was a big experience for us and to take the idea of<br />
work<strong>in</strong>g with an <strong>in</strong>stitution--that ice was broken.”<br />
As an imported American Occupy Wallstreet<br />
group tak<strong>in</strong>g action <strong>in</strong> Berl<strong>in</strong>, there was much<br />
pressure towards the group and what they were<br />
fight<strong>in</strong>g for, especially s<strong>in</strong>ce the Occupy Wallstreet<br />
movement was one that was heard worldwide<br />
and had ga<strong>in</strong>ed widespread <strong>in</strong>ternational media<br />
attention. Though there were a number of groups<br />
<strong>in</strong> attendance at Berl<strong>in</strong>, for Occupy Museum the<br />
experience was an opportunity to have a global<br />
reach. It was also an <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g experience for the<br />
group to br<strong>in</strong>g forth their views on the disparity of<br />
the 99 percent and the 1 percent on a global scale,<br />
not just America. For maybe the first time the group<br />
truly had an <strong>in</strong>ternational audience, showcas<strong>in</strong>g<br />
that it isn’t just an American problem but one that is<br />
widespread.<br />
Work<strong>in</strong>g with an <strong>in</strong>stitution <strong>in</strong> Berl<strong>in</strong> became<br />
a platform for work<strong>in</strong>g hand-<strong>in</strong>-hand with Momenta.<br />
“One of the th<strong>in</strong>gs work<strong>in</strong>g with Momenta is that<br />
we are still feel<strong>in</strong>g out what are the boundaries.<br />
Where does Momenta end and where does occupy<br />
beg<strong>in</strong>? Are we hold<strong>in</strong>g hands? Or are they giv<strong>in</strong>g us<br />
a platform,” said Imani Brown, another OM member.<br />
After Occupy Wallstreet, Momenta<br />
approached Occupy Museums, even before they left<br />
for Berl<strong>in</strong>. In return, Occupy Museums was able to<br />
utilize Momenta’s Bushwick gallery space to have<br />
discussions, and sp<strong>in</strong> off their eclectic <strong>in</strong>teractive<br />
exhibits on the walls.<br />
What are the next steps for Occupy<br />
Museums? It’s hard to say as the group members<br />
themselves seem to be try<strong>in</strong>g to figure that out.<br />
Momenta is a turn<strong>in</strong>g po<strong>in</strong>t for the group and<br />
push<strong>in</strong>g them to discuss the goals ahead and<br />
educate the public about what they are fight<strong>in</strong>g for<br />
<strong>in</strong> a non alienat<strong>in</strong>g sett<strong>in</strong>g. At Momenta OM also<br />
hosts events where people can jo<strong>in</strong> and further the<br />
conversation of what it means to be a part of the 99<br />
percent and fight aga<strong>in</strong>st hierarchical systems <strong>in</strong> the<br />
art world—a fight the group is f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g out, is tough to<br />
crack.<br />
What is beautiful and harmonious about<br />
Occupy Museum is their solidarity and spirit—one<br />
that proves apathy doesn’t necessarily have to be a<br />
characteristic of our generation. The movement gives<br />
those <strong>in</strong>volved a reason to stop be<strong>in</strong>g complacent<br />
and be a part of someth<strong>in</strong>g bigger. OM is constantly<br />
ask<strong>in</strong>g questions that may never truly be answered<br />
with clarity, but they are always discussed. Everyday<br />
passed and every new action, the group is rais<strong>in</strong>g<br />
awareness and show<strong>in</strong>g New York and beyond that<br />
some th<strong>in</strong>gs are worth fight<strong>in</strong>g for.<br />
Photo by Scotto Mycklebust, Occupy Museum, Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennale demonstration at the Pergamon Museum, Berl<strong>in</strong>, June 2012
OCCUPY Berl<strong>in</strong><br />
PHOTOS BY SCOTTO MYCKLEBUST<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013
the Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennale
Berl<strong>in</strong><br />
BIENNIAL<br />
The<br />
Revolution<br />
Preoccupied with Cooption<br />
BY TAL BEERY<br />
“I th<strong>in</strong>k you should leave,” she said quietly, shak<strong>in</strong>g<br />
her head.<br />
I was expect<strong>in</strong>g her to say that, hav<strong>in</strong>g heard it so<br />
many times before from art-savvy activist friends<br />
visit<strong>in</strong>g the “Occupy Biennale,” an Occupy movement<br />
camp organized by the 7th Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennial. I was<br />
liv<strong>in</strong>g there for two weeks as one of twelve members<br />
of Occupy Museums, an aff<strong>in</strong>ity group <strong>in</strong> Occupy<br />
Wall Street combat<strong>in</strong>g the corrupt<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>fluence of<br />
f<strong>in</strong>ance on culture. Our actions <strong>in</strong> major <strong>in</strong>stitutions<br />
and journalists’ stormy love affair with OWS had got<br />
us lots of press that w<strong>in</strong>ter, and so, our plane tickets<br />
to Berl<strong>in</strong>, purchased by the curators of a fancy<br />
European art show.<br />
They had <strong>in</strong>vited us and other Occupy groups to use<br />
the cavernous ground floor of their KW Institute<br />
for Contemporary Art as a liv<strong>in</strong>g and organiz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
venue. What resulted was a shock<strong>in</strong>g cacophony of<br />
canvas tents, overlapp<strong>in</strong>g stencils, random political<br />
slogans, banners galore, lists and so many leaflets:<br />
an Occupy theme park. Although <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g lectures<br />
and discussions were held, architecturally, it was a<br />
sunken pit, a fishbowl. Visitors -- many of them art<br />
world aristocrats -- stood on an elevated view<strong>in</strong>g<br />
platform to observe occupiers go about their<br />
activism. We called it “The Human Zoo.” It reduced<br />
our activism to some punk protest fashion; here,<br />
urgent action was just an aesthetic, marg<strong>in</strong>alized<br />
and cheapened.<br />
The sett<strong>in</strong>g was further complicated by a curatorial<br />
frame based on head curator Artur Zmijewski’s<br />
desire to display only effective political action, and<br />
not “art” per se. Despite <strong>this</strong> aim, it seemed to be<br />
a venue for the passive contemplation of the active<br />
aesthetic. Zmijewski, an <strong>in</strong>ternationally renowned<br />
artist <strong>in</strong> his own right, has a reputation for us<strong>in</strong>g<br />
people as marionettes and creat<strong>in</strong>g ethically and<br />
politically ambiguous scenarios. It seemed we<br />
agreed unwitt<strong>in</strong>gly to play a role <strong>in</strong> his latest piece,<br />
an Occupy time capsule and tomb that historicized<br />
and deactivated the movement. Checkmate: we<br />
were coopted.<br />
At least, <strong>this</strong> is how it appeared to some visitors, and<br />
especially to the many critics who published vitriolic<br />
denouncements of the show. As I experienced it,<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
Occupy Museums saw th<strong>in</strong>gs differently. Focused<br />
on the opportunities available to us, we embarked<br />
on a fasc<strong>in</strong>at<strong>in</strong>g and ambitious project to coopt the<br />
BB7 <strong>in</strong>stead, to use its <strong>in</strong>fluence and resources to<br />
promote our vision of a more just culture. Taken<br />
together, our actions there offer a set of tactics that<br />
activists <strong>in</strong> the art world can use to assert <strong>in</strong>fluence<br />
when work<strong>in</strong>g with or with<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>stitutions.<br />
*******<br />
From its first days, OWS sought to <strong>in</strong>spire a cultural<br />
shift. The urgency of its message comb<strong>in</strong>ed with<br />
the aesthetic consistency of its tactics – <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g<br />
cardboard signs, camp<strong>in</strong>g tents, the human<br />
microphone, and hand signals for the consensus<br />
process – popularized the movement and helped<br />
it spread to almost every major city <strong>in</strong> the United<br />
States and Europe. Many arts and culture groups<br />
quickly formed with<strong>in</strong> OWS, each with dist<strong>in</strong>ct goals<br />
and methods – from puppetry and performance to<br />
research and posters. Occupy process <strong>in</strong> itself was<br />
artful, and <strong>in</strong> OWS, art became a hammer for fix<strong>in</strong>g<br />
We decided to use<br />
the opportunity to<br />
explore alternative<br />
visions for museums<br />
that could further<br />
the <strong>in</strong>terests<br />
of the 99%.<br />
the world. Artists also flocked to OWS to address<br />
unethical trends affect<strong>in</strong>g the New York art world.<br />
Today the 1% manipulate and leverage culture, and<br />
art is just another way the rich get richer: a tax shelter,<br />
a good <strong>in</strong>vestment. Wealthy board members openly<br />
abuse positions at publicly funded museums to<br />
boost the values of private hold<strong>in</strong>gs. Auction houses<br />
report record profits while deny<strong>in</strong>g workers basic<br />
benefits. Hoards of young artists arrive <strong>in</strong> New York<br />
with massive student debt to f<strong>in</strong>d few opportunities<br />
for employment. OWS connected between art world<br />
trends and those affect<strong>in</strong>g other sectors, effectively<br />
plugg<strong>in</strong>g art <strong>in</strong>to a broader context. And, yet aga<strong>in</strong>,<br />
art was be<strong>in</strong>g summoned <strong>in</strong> its effective mode, <strong>in</strong><br />
service of the social good.<br />
The art world, ironically, loves that stuff. While some<br />
art professionals were sympathetic to our claims,<br />
still more were excited by OWS’s timel<strong>in</strong>ess, by<br />
how “contemporary” and “edgy” it was. Soon OWS<br />
arts groups like ours began receiv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>vitations to<br />
lecture and exhibit.<br />
With activists work<strong>in</strong>g with<strong>in</strong> their frame, an<br />
<strong>in</strong>stitution can appear hip, democratic, or even<br />
radical without tak<strong>in</strong>g any significant steps toward<br />
change, neutraliz<strong>in</strong>g the threat a message poses.<br />
This is the traditional path to cooption and when<br />
we were <strong>in</strong>vited to the Berl<strong>in</strong> Biennial (BB7),<br />
we were preoccupied with <strong>this</strong> possibility. Until<br />
then, Occupy Museums had been an outsider,<br />
occupy<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>stitutions with general assemblies and<br />
demonstrations; accept<strong>in</strong>g <strong>this</strong> <strong>in</strong>vitation would be<br />
our first time sanctioned by a potential target. But<br />
accept<strong>in</strong>g it also meant that we could meet with<br />
Occupy activists from throughout Europe, learn<br />
about German arts fund<strong>in</strong>g models, and experiment<br />
with new tactics. Refus<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>vitation may not<br />
have registered as a mean<strong>in</strong>gful public statement.<br />
We decided to use the opportunity to explore<br />
alternative visions for museums that could further<br />
the <strong>in</strong>terests of the 99%.<br />
Early conversations with BB7’s associate curator<br />
Joanna Warsza made that seem easy. Warsza<br />
assured us that they would provide a platform to<br />
strengthen our message and promote eye-level<br />
<strong>in</strong>teractions with the public. We (perhaps naively)<br />
even wrote a proposal for an experimental museum<br />
of the future. But on arrival, we felt duped. The<br />
occupiers who had been organiz<strong>in</strong>g the space over<br />
the previous eight weeks didn’t fully appreciate the<br />
complexity of their predicament and eng<strong>in</strong>eered<br />
an environment that could never contend with the<br />
objectify<strong>in</strong>g gaze of the average art world spectator.<br />
In there we were conf<strong>in</strong>ed to a context that didn’t<br />
work for us. S<strong>in</strong>ce we were already there we could<br />
either quit or fight back – so why quit? As I saw it, on<br />
that first day the goal became clear: we would need<br />
to quickly claim our agency <strong>in</strong> our relationship with<br />
26
<strong>this</strong> <strong>in</strong>stitution.<br />
In light of <strong>this</strong>, Occupy Museums first focused on<br />
external targets with our new European partners.<br />
That way we could physically leave the exhibition’s<br />
frame and engage with the world as an <strong>in</strong>ternational<br />
group of Occupy activists, do<strong>in</strong>g what we do best,<br />
<strong>in</strong> the streets. We connected with European art<br />
world activists and exchanged notes. We limited our<br />
presence at the KW to the occasional banner <strong>in</strong>vit<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the public to actions and plann<strong>in</strong>g meet<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>in</strong> the<br />
courtyard. Our action at Deutsche Bank’s Deutsche<br />
Guggenheim denounced the world’s largest<br />
corporate art collection and the many ways the bank<br />
<strong>in</strong>vests <strong>in</strong> work and then artificially <strong>in</strong>flates its price,<br />
dol<strong>in</strong>g prizes and exhibitions to appreciate the value<br />
of its hold<strong>in</strong>gs. We impersonated a student group<br />
and held a ceremony on the altar at the Pergamon<br />
Museum, call<strong>in</strong>g attention to the troubl<strong>in</strong>g history<br />
of colonialism and war that resulted <strong>in</strong> Germany’s<br />
acquisition of antiquities. Each action seemed to<br />
end <strong>in</strong> a long negotiation with German police.<br />
In just two weeks we did six such actions, thanks <strong>in</strong><br />
large part to our amaz<strong>in</strong>g new partners from Spa<strong>in</strong><br />
and Germany. The KW courtyard was our base of<br />
operations. We began to see these actions as a way<br />
of challeng<strong>in</strong>g the curator’s apparent neutrality, and<br />
we <strong>in</strong>vited Zmijewski to participate <strong>in</strong> our actions<br />
and take an explicit stance <strong>in</strong> his official capacity <strong>in</strong><br />
support of our message. To our surprise, he showed<br />
up, actively participated <strong>in</strong> discussions and helped<br />
document the actions.<br />
Over time we learned to turn our attention <strong>in</strong>ward<br />
and put pressure on the <strong>in</strong>stitution from with<strong>in</strong>.<br />
We organized a meet<strong>in</strong>g with all the staff where<br />
workers could openly or anonymously share their<br />
grievances. The crowded discussion exposed below<br />
m<strong>in</strong>imum-wage salaries of some staff and we<br />
exam<strong>in</strong>ed the budget to determ<strong>in</strong>e equitable pay<br />
demands. Structural and staff<strong>in</strong>g <strong>issue</strong>s were raised<br />
<strong>in</strong> their first open, horizontal meet<strong>in</strong>g, facilitated by<br />
members of Occupy Museums. As a result, guards<br />
work<strong>in</strong>g the next biennial will be paid two Euros<br />
more per hour than they were at <strong>this</strong> one, a 33%<br />
raise.<br />
Inspired by our meet<strong>in</strong>g with the KW staff, we<br />
published a proposal to the curators call<strong>in</strong>g for<br />
the BB7 and the KW to adopt a horizontal, nonhierarchical<br />
organizational structure. S<strong>in</strong>ce a<br />
democratic culture needs democratic cultural<br />
<strong>in</strong>stitutions, the curators and the director would<br />
be replaced by work<strong>in</strong>g groups operat<strong>in</strong>g with<strong>in</strong><br />
an Occupy-<strong>in</strong>spired consensus-based approach.<br />
Zmijewski himself seemed bored of the Occupy<br />
encampment, with its fairly obvious hypocrisy, and<br />
he became a k<strong>in</strong>d of collaborator. After a short<br />
negotiation, we consensed on the proposal and<br />
moved forward immediately, organiz<strong>in</strong>g assemblies<br />
and work<strong>in</strong>g groups. We wrote jo<strong>in</strong>t press releases<br />
and used the BB7’s website and press contacts. We<br />
met regularly with staff to aid the transition. For the<br />
next two weeks, the BB7 was occupied. The process<br />
to a full structural transition needed more time<br />
than that, but <strong>this</strong> period allowed us to experiment<br />
with new tactics to challenge the corporate logic of<br />
cultural <strong>in</strong>stitutions.<br />
And yet, although we produced some mean<strong>in</strong>gful<br />
actions and learned new techniques, some still<br />
claim we were coopted and that our <strong>in</strong>volvement <strong>in</strong><br />
the BB7 was damag<strong>in</strong>g to the movement.<br />
The short-term implementation of a horizontal<br />
structure at the KW could have been merely<br />
aesthetic, a parody of the goal and discredited<br />
the process more than supported it. Even the<br />
unf<strong>in</strong>ished nature of <strong>this</strong> process could support a<br />
narrative that discredits collectivist movements.<br />
By fail<strong>in</strong>g to transition fully to a non-hierarchical<br />
structure, the process could stoke concerns that it<br />
is <strong>in</strong>herently impossible or unrealistic. Perhaps also<br />
the gaze of the spectator <strong>in</strong> any exhibition context<br />
objectifies the movement and those who claim to<br />
represent it, separat<strong>in</strong>g the viewer from the viewed<br />
and alienat<strong>in</strong>g the observer from the active function<br />
of the object. In the gallery, the urgency of a political<br />
message can be lost to quiet contemplation, stripped<br />
of its contemporary context, sentimentalized and<br />
belittled.<br />
This specter of cooption, an obstacle for our<br />
Illustration by Tal Beery<br />
message, also posed a significant <strong>in</strong>ternal challenge.<br />
Some members were worried that our positions<br />
as activists would further our careers as artists<br />
– <strong>in</strong> effect we would be us<strong>in</strong>g a public movement<br />
for private ga<strong>in</strong> – enact<strong>in</strong>g what we supposedly<br />
critiqued. S<strong>in</strong>ce many artists <strong>in</strong> the United States<br />
struggle to make art and live <strong>in</strong> a system pumped<br />
on competition, relationships with<strong>in</strong> the art world<br />
become primarily <strong>in</strong>strumental. Art world activists <strong>in</strong><br />
OWS strove to be a bit more honest than that, and<br />
some thought we should fight for political goals first.<br />
While critiqu<strong>in</strong>g those people artists traditionally<br />
want to impress, suspicions of impure motivations<br />
<strong>in</strong>fluenced our work<strong>in</strong>g relationships, and drove<br />
wedges between us.<br />
*******<br />
These critiques of our work <strong>in</strong> Berl<strong>in</strong> make it seem<br />
that the primary impetus for the BB7, <strong>in</strong> search of<br />
Zmijewski’s “applied social arts,” is right on. The art<br />
object today is, more often than not, passive <strong>in</strong> its<br />
relationship to the spectator, who consumes what<br />
he wants and goes home to Facebook. Even pieces<br />
that are relational or socially engaged are framed<br />
with<strong>in</strong> some notion of “art experience” and are<br />
sectioned off. A recent Occupy Arts and Labor slogan,<br />
“Art Killed My Dreams,” seems entirely absurd<br />
because today, art itself struggles to do anyth<strong>in</strong>g<br />
at all. Art here is hardly def<strong>in</strong>ed as some display of<br />
human creativity, but by its relationship to the “art<br />
world,” the mess of professionals and <strong>in</strong>stitutions<br />
paid by the “art market.” When def<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>this</strong> way,<br />
art can barely perform an activist function. Despite<br />
similarities <strong>in</strong> method and content, urgent political<br />
messages by artists are commonly neutralized and<br />
then consumed by a market-driven cultural <strong>in</strong>dustry.<br />
Zmijewski’s vision for the BB7 promoted a contrary<br />
notion of art as activism, as socially engaged and<br />
politically effective. Accord<strong>in</strong>g to him, the real art<br />
happened for <strong>in</strong>stance, outside the Pergamon<br />
Museum <strong>in</strong> our prolonged negotiation with the<br />
police, or <strong>in</strong> our tense negotiation to secure more<br />
budget transparency at the KW. In a moment filled<br />
with potential, the resolution was always unclear<br />
and always <strong>in</strong>evitable.<br />
It would seem that what Zmijewski wanted to see<br />
at the BB7 was real change happen<strong>in</strong>g now, on a<br />
structural level, <strong>in</strong> honest service to some vision of a<br />
better world. To argue with <strong>this</strong> idea is to start down<br />
the terribly tedious path of “What is Art?” which also<br />
misses the po<strong>in</strong>t. As I see it, Zmijewski recognizes<br />
that the arts can develop a vital toolset. Climate<br />
change, economic collapse, etc. etc. etc., the Polar<br />
Bears – either we make drastic change now or<br />
change happens upon us much worse a little later.<br />
The arts can fight for human survival.<br />
With their resources and <strong>in</strong>fluence, <strong>in</strong>stitutions<br />
can be <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> explor<strong>in</strong>g and implement<strong>in</strong>g<br />
structural change. Institutions are crucial allies,<br />
and activists can coopt them. We can work with<strong>in</strong><br />
<strong>in</strong>stitutions to expose boundaries and frames, and<br />
<strong>in</strong>vite those <strong>in</strong> powerful roles to participate directly<br />
<strong>in</strong> actions and dialogue when it suits movement<br />
goals. Activists with<strong>in</strong> arts <strong>in</strong>stitutions should<br />
negotiate their terms of agreement to push the tacit<br />
approval implied by an <strong>in</strong>vitation towards explicit<br />
support, either <strong>in</strong> public statements or <strong>in</strong> resource<br />
shar<strong>in</strong>g. When mak<strong>in</strong>g requests, a rejection can help<br />
identify an <strong>in</strong>stitution’s political stance. Record<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and publiciz<strong>in</strong>g responses can encourage open<br />
dialogue and expose the limitations and pressures<br />
of our current system. The gallery’s aestheticiz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong>fluence can underm<strong>in</strong>e urgent speech, but<br />
effective tactics can be developed to subvert the<br />
role of the exhibition hall and use it to <strong>in</strong>vite and<br />
mobilize the public to jo<strong>in</strong> actions outside its walls.<br />
The fear of cooption should never justify <strong>in</strong>action<br />
and we must work with<strong>in</strong> and outside <strong>in</strong>stitutions<br />
to weaken the role of the market <strong>in</strong> the arts and<br />
<strong>in</strong> our culture. In Occupy Museums, I believe we<br />
self-consciously do activism with<strong>in</strong> the art world,<br />
and not “art” (so def<strong>in</strong>ed) with<strong>in</strong> the activism<br />
world, but these dist<strong>in</strong>ctions should be exam<strong>in</strong>ed,<br />
tested, and sometimes pushed. We should<br />
encourage a democratic culture by demand<strong>in</strong>g<br />
democratically managed cultural <strong>in</strong>stitutions. In an<br />
age of overwhelm<strong>in</strong>g market dom<strong>in</strong>ance, we must<br />
ask whether and how our culture reflects and is<br />
limited by capitalist ideologies. Institutions can be<br />
openly <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> these conversations, and the<br />
activist situated with<strong>in</strong> or employed by them has<br />
opportunities to expose what someone outside does<br />
not. We can be forward th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g and adaptive. Let’s<br />
make every mistake and move forward together.
Hair draw<strong>in</strong>g, Cheryl Gross, 2011<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
28
THE<br />
LITERARY<br />
VIEW<br />
JOE REMEMBERED:<br />
The Collected Writ<strong>in</strong>gs of Joe Bra<strong>in</strong>ard<br />
BY DAN CALLAHAN<br />
Photos courtesy of Library of America<br />
Joe Bra<strong>in</strong>ard was famous<br />
<strong>in</strong> the 1960s and ‘70s<br />
for mak<strong>in</strong>g collages. He<br />
once had a show<strong>in</strong>g of<br />
1500 small works <strong>in</strong> one<br />
gallery, and his productivity<br />
was stimulated by the<br />
amphetam<strong>in</strong>es he was<br />
tak<strong>in</strong>g as he worked all<br />
through the day and night<br />
to produce his artworks,<br />
many of them t<strong>in</strong>y, most of<br />
them lush, playful, sensual.<br />
There came a certa<strong>in</strong> po<strong>in</strong>t when all that speed<br />
made him worry a bit for his sanity, and so he gave<br />
up the pills and mostly gave up mak<strong>in</strong>g art around<br />
the late ‘70s, conf<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g himself to work made purely<br />
for love, for friends. Bra<strong>in</strong>ard’s great gift was for<br />
friendship.<br />
This gift is proved by the outpour<strong>in</strong>g of love<br />
<strong>in</strong> pr<strong>in</strong>t from his artist and writer friends s<strong>in</strong>ce his<br />
death from AIDS-related complications <strong>in</strong> 1994.<br />
Edmund White titled a 1997 essay on Bra<strong>in</strong>ard “Sa<strong>in</strong>t<br />
Joe,” and compared him to Dostoyevsky’s Pr<strong>in</strong>ce<br />
Myshk<strong>in</strong>. He has been described as a miraculously<br />
k<strong>in</strong>d man do<strong>in</strong>g his best to pay tribute to and glorify<br />
a largely unk<strong>in</strong>d world, and his collages have had<br />
recent successful exhibitions <strong>in</strong> New York and<br />
elsewhere, but what he himself modestly called “my<br />
only major work” is I Remember, a beguil<strong>in</strong>g short<br />
book of memories, runn<strong>in</strong>g to around 130 pages,<br />
all of them called forth <strong>in</strong> short l<strong>in</strong>es that beg<strong>in</strong> with<br />
that calm<strong>in</strong>g phrase, “I remember…”<br />
We could all write our own version of<br />
Bra<strong>in</strong>ard’s I Remember, and the form he found for<br />
that book has been used <strong>in</strong> writ<strong>in</strong>g workshops for<br />
many years now, but as Paul Auster writes <strong>in</strong> his<br />
<strong>in</strong>troduction to the new Library of America volume<br />
The Collected Writ<strong>in</strong>gs of Joe Bra<strong>in</strong>ard, not many<br />
of us could keep such a book clear of egoist scoresettl<strong>in</strong>g,<br />
anger or resentment. Bra<strong>in</strong>ard wanted<br />
his writ<strong>in</strong>g to be as honest and unadorned as<br />
possible. In I Remember, he focuses a lot on brand<br />
names and pop culture and specifics of a 1950s<br />
Midwestern upbr<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g, so that the book will mean<br />
a great deal more to Baby Boomers than it ever can<br />
to Generation X or Y, but the open, almost prattl<strong>in</strong>g<br />
tone of I Remember <strong>in</strong>evitably leads us <strong>in</strong>to our own<br />
memories. By focus<strong>in</strong>g so <strong>in</strong>tensely yet gently on<br />
the specifics of his own youth, Bra<strong>in</strong>ard achieves<br />
someth<strong>in</strong>g universal, someth<strong>in</strong>g for everyone, one<br />
life and childhood stand<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> for all, or most, lives<br />
and childhoods.<br />
Bra<strong>in</strong>ard was gay, and he’s candid about<br />
that <strong>in</strong> I Remember, but he is never tortured about<br />
it. It was just a part of his life. At one po<strong>in</strong>t he writes,<br />
“The only th<strong>in</strong>g that ever bothered me about be<strong>in</strong>g<br />
queer was that I thought maybe people wouldn’t like<br />
me if they knew.” That desire to be liked animates the<br />
writ<strong>in</strong>g collected here <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> new Bra<strong>in</strong>ard volume,<br />
which is edited by his close friend Ron Padgett.<br />
The book beg<strong>in</strong>s with I Remember, which is one of<br />
the most readable and re-readable of all books, an<br />
open<strong>in</strong>g out of a world and a sensibility that delights<br />
<strong>in</strong> shar<strong>in</strong>g private and often unflatter<strong>in</strong>g thoughts.<br />
And that’s the paradox of Bra<strong>in</strong>ard as a writer. He<br />
wanted to be liked, and he wanted to reach out<br />
and love people, and for him <strong>this</strong> <strong>in</strong>volved a basic<br />
humility and frankness. He never builds himself up<br />
and protects himself, as almost all writers do. He<br />
lets you <strong>in</strong>to his <strong>in</strong>securities and dopey thoughts, but<br />
he makes them seem natural and charm<strong>in</strong>g. Shyly,<br />
he confessed <strong>in</strong> an <strong>in</strong>terview that he wanted to look<br />
like James Dean, and <strong>in</strong> one of his diary pieces,<br />
he wishes he had “a giant cock.” He also wanted<br />
to pa<strong>in</strong>t as well as his idol, Willem de Koon<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
Perceiv<strong>in</strong>g himself as hav<strong>in</strong>g fallen short of that de<br />
Koon<strong>in</strong>g standard was part of why he gave up on<br />
visual art mak<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
Some of the diary entries <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> Bra<strong>in</strong>ard<br />
collection run on too long; lovable and guileless as<br />
he is as a writer, there comes a po<strong>in</strong>t when I didn’t<br />
need to know what he had for breakfast <strong>in</strong> 1972 and<br />
what he had for breakfast <strong>in</strong> 1973, and how many<br />
Pepsi-Colas he consumed (what a Pepsi dr<strong>in</strong>ker he<br />
was!). But there are some hilariously funny onel<strong>in</strong>ers<br />
<strong>in</strong> an extended piece called “The Friendly<br />
Way,” and there are also some delightful draw<strong>in</strong>gs<br />
and comic book panels <strong>in</strong>cluded. This is a book<br />
to dip <strong>in</strong>to and enjoy at your leisure on a summer<br />
even<strong>in</strong>g; it’s a mistake, I th<strong>in</strong>k, to read it through<br />
cover-to-cover, like dr<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g too many Pepsis <strong>in</strong> a<br />
row. But the idea of Joe Bra<strong>in</strong>ard as a person and<br />
an artist, as expressed through his own writ<strong>in</strong>g and<br />
the writ<strong>in</strong>g of his friends, is such a romantic and<br />
goofball and sexy idea that more of him is still better<br />
than less. He offers less a “body of work” and more<br />
a suggestion of how to live with more vulnerability,<br />
less ego and the hope that you might just look like<br />
James Dean at some po<strong>in</strong>t, if only for a moment, as<br />
seen through the eyes of someone who loves you.
THE<br />
CINEMA<br />
VIEW<br />
CASTA A Pilgrimage to Lourdes?<br />
Mar<strong>in</strong>e Abramovic: The Artist is Present<br />
BY DAN CALLAHAN<br />
From March 14th to May 31st, 2010, the socalled<br />
“grandmother of performance art,” Mar<strong>in</strong>a<br />
Abramovic, held court at The Museum of Modern<br />
Art, sitt<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> a chair for seven hours daily. Visitors<br />
were <strong>in</strong>vited to sit opposite her and stare <strong>in</strong>to her<br />
eyes. The crowds were manageable at first, but as<br />
time went on, Abramovic’s theatrical endurance<br />
test became a sensation, seem<strong>in</strong>gly the place to<br />
be for the adventurous and creative <strong>in</strong> Manhattan.<br />
There were l<strong>in</strong>es around the block, people wait<strong>in</strong>g<br />
to get <strong>in</strong> to see her for twelve hours at a time, and<br />
Photo by Marco Anelli © 2010<br />
<strong>in</strong> the press there was a constant stream of tidbits<br />
about the performance and about the nudity of her<br />
fellow young performers, who had been tra<strong>in</strong>ed by<br />
Abramovic to recreate some of her earlier pieces.<br />
What did it all mean? Whatever you wanted it to.<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
A new documentary on Abramovic and her sem<strong>in</strong>al<br />
MoMa show, presents her as she prepares for <strong>this</strong><br />
career-capp<strong>in</strong>g event. A physically strik<strong>in</strong>g woman of<br />
Serbian extraction, Abramovic was brought up <strong>in</strong> a<br />
military fashion by her mother, who had served as an<br />
army major. Throughout her twenties, when she was<br />
putt<strong>in</strong>g on life-and-limb threaten<strong>in</strong>g performance<br />
pieces, Abramovic was expected to be home to her<br />
mother by 10 o’clock at night. Psychologically, her<br />
work clearly comes from a mixture of <strong>this</strong> strict military<br />
background coupled with the religious feel<strong>in</strong>g<br />
of her grandmother, to whom Abramovic was close.<br />
After the MoMa show, Abramovic told an <strong>in</strong>terviewer<br />
that her audience at the museum seemed to view<br />
their encounter with her as some k<strong>in</strong>d of religious<br />
experience, as if they were visit<strong>in</strong>g Lourdes. Many of<br />
them wept. Almost all of them were credulous and<br />
respectful.<br />
This polite late-career MoMa event is a far cry from<br />
Abramovic’s most dangerous performance piece<br />
of the 1970s, “Rhythm 0,” <strong>in</strong> which she passively<br />
offered up her body for six hours to her audience<br />
along with seventy-two objects, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g a gun<br />
with one bullet, to do with as they pleased. At first,<br />
the audience was timid. As time went on, though,<br />
they became more aggressive, until one man actually<br />
po<strong>in</strong>ted the gun at her head and another man<br />
took the gun away from him. “I felt really violated,”<br />
Abramovic said. “What I learned is that…if you leave<br />
it up to the audience, they can kill you.”<br />
Dur<strong>in</strong>g most of the late 1970s and ‘80s, Abramovic<br />
collaborated with the artist Ulay, liv<strong>in</strong>g with him out<br />
of a truck and do<strong>in</strong>g their performances of co-dependence<br />
and endurance all over Europe. Abramovic is<br />
described by one of her co-workers <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> documentary<br />
as “hardcore,” and <strong>in</strong> her early years with Ulay,<br />
she made her entire life and her love for him a work<br />
of uncompromis<strong>in</strong>g art, or reach<strong>in</strong>g toward art. Even<br />
their 1988 break-up was artful, as they separately<br />
walked across the Great Wall of Ch<strong>in</strong>a for months<br />
and then def<strong>in</strong>itively split when they f<strong>in</strong>ally reached<br />
each other <strong>in</strong> the middle. On her own after lett<strong>in</strong>g go<br />
of Ulay, Abramovic admits <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> documentary that<br />
she felt “fat, forty and unloved,” and so she took<br />
steps to become a more theatrical, visually glamorous<br />
presence and seductive force until f<strong>in</strong>ally she<br />
made her splashy, ma<strong>in</strong>stream impact at MoMa.<br />
Director Matthew Akers captures the charm and<br />
candor of Abramovic without mak<strong>in</strong>g any firm judgments<br />
on her or her work. Akers films her reunion<br />
with Ulay, after a long period where the former couple<br />
did not speak, <strong>in</strong> a way that captures Ulay’s own<br />
candor about his ambivalence over Abramovic’s<br />
success and his sly hope that they might get back<br />
together. Clearly they are two-of-a-k<strong>in</strong>d still, expert<br />
hucksters and show people of high art, and Ulay<br />
comes across like a rival and a gleeful betrayer of<br />
confidences, maybe because he knows that that<br />
will be the most colorful pose for the film. He is the<br />
first person to sit opposite Abramovic at MoMa, and<br />
when she opens her eyes and sees him, she is briefly<br />
overcome and then takes his hands <strong>in</strong> hers before<br />
send<strong>in</strong>g him off.<br />
Abramovic <strong>in</strong> her work deals almost exclusively <strong>in</strong><br />
tests of will. In her earlier career, she was outright<br />
masochistic <strong>in</strong> her use of knives and fire aga<strong>in</strong>st her<br />
own body, but now she has settled for the test of<br />
non-mobility for lengthy periods of time. After meet<strong>in</strong>g<br />
with illusionist David Bla<strong>in</strong>e, Abramovic suggests<br />
to her art dealer Sean Kelly that she work with Bla<strong>in</strong>e<br />
on a piece, but Kelly shoots <strong>this</strong> idea down <strong>in</strong> no uncerta<strong>in</strong><br />
terms. What Bla<strong>in</strong>e does <strong>in</strong>volves the will,<br />
too, but he is marked as “enterta<strong>in</strong>ment,” whereas<br />
Abramovic is “art,” and Kelly is canny enough to<br />
<strong>in</strong>sist on a dist<strong>in</strong>ction between the two, even if the<br />
basis of Abramovic’s work has always been at least<br />
partly theatrical.<br />
Surely that test of her audience <strong>in</strong> her piece “Rhythm<br />
0” was too much, too hardcore, but still, it’s a little<br />
sad when a dangerous artist like Abramovic is domesticated<br />
and protected as a grand old lady of<br />
performance at a venue like MoMa. At one po<strong>in</strong>t on<br />
her last day of the performance there, a young girl<br />
quickly took off her dress before try<strong>in</strong>g to sit down<br />
opposite Abramovic. The girl was swiftly shuffled<br />
away by the security guards, and she said later that<br />
she didn’t realize she was break<strong>in</strong>g a rule. She just<br />
wanted to be as vulnerable as possible, she says,<br />
when look<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to Abramovic’s eyes.<br />
Couldn’t her nudity have been allowed? Isn’t the<br />
audience part of <strong>this</strong> performance, and can’t they<br />
br<strong>in</strong>g what they want to it as long as Abramovic’s<br />
safety isn’t <strong>in</strong> question? The girl didn’t pull out a gun.<br />
She took off her dress, and she looked beautiful. It’s<br />
a gesture that the younger Abramovic might have<br />
embraced, but <strong>in</strong>stead, she herself said afterward<br />
that she was most impressed with a man who had<br />
sat opposite her all day, all seven hours. “The others<br />
<strong>in</strong> l<strong>in</strong>e grew angry and aggressive,” Abramovic<br />
gleefully reported, “but then they realized that the<br />
wait<strong>in</strong>g was also part of the performance.”<br />
30
THE<br />
VIEW<br />
CINEMA<br />
It's Alive!: Universal 100<br />
at Film Forum<br />
BY DAN CALLAHAN<br />
As the second longest runn<strong>in</strong>g, cont<strong>in</strong>ually operat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
film studio (Gaumont is the first), Universal Studios<br />
is still best known for its early horror films like<br />
Frankenste<strong>in</strong> and Dracula (both 1931), but over the<br />
course of one hundred years <strong>in</strong> bus<strong>in</strong>ess the studio<br />
has put out a wide variety of movies, some of which<br />
are on view <strong>in</strong> Film Forum’s July/August celebration<br />
of the studio’s centenary.<br />
It all began as the bra<strong>in</strong>child of dry goods<br />
salesman Carl Laemmle, who saw what bus<strong>in</strong>ess the<br />
nickelodeons were do<strong>in</strong>g at the turn of the twentieth<br />
century and bought some for himself. By 1910,<br />
he had created the first real movie star names by<br />
promot<strong>in</strong>g Florence Lawrence and K<strong>in</strong>g Baggot, and<br />
by 1912 he had <strong>in</strong>corporated his hold<strong>in</strong>gs as The<br />
Universal Film Manufactur<strong>in</strong>g Company. Laemmle<br />
was always a cautious bus<strong>in</strong>essman, pay<strong>in</strong>g for his<br />
Photo courtesy of Universal Studios<br />
films out of his own pocket and never tak<strong>in</strong>g on debt.<br />
In the 20s, his company laid down the foundation<br />
for the horror genre with two films starr<strong>in</strong>g Lon<br />
Chaney, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and<br />
The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and Chaney was<br />
meant to star <strong>in</strong> Universal’s Dracula, but after his<br />
death the role went to Bela Lugosi, who had played<br />
The Count on stage. In 1928, Laemmle made his<br />
son Carl, Jr. the head of the studio as a twentyfirst<br />
birthday present. Universal was very much a<br />
family affair, so much so that seventy of Laemmle’s<br />
relatives were on the payroll at one po<strong>in</strong>t. The writer<br />
Ogden Nash, amused by <strong>this</strong> flagrant nepotism,<br />
composed a short verse about it: “Uncle Carl<br />
Laemmle/Has a very large faemmle.”<br />
In the 1930s, Universal cont<strong>in</strong>ued to put<br />
out classic horror films like The Mummy (1932)<br />
and The Invisible Man (1933), but they also made<br />
quite a dent <strong>in</strong> the woman’s picture genre with the<br />
soap operas of John Stahl, sober, <strong>in</strong>tense weepers<br />
like Back Street (1932), Imitation of Life (1934) and<br />
Magnificent Obsession (1935). Those last two films<br />
were remade <strong>in</strong> the 1950s by Universal house auteur<br />
Douglas Sirk, who fashioned pop masterpieces from<br />
them.<br />
In the 1940s, Universal was home base to<br />
another major émigré director, Robert Siodmak,<br />
many of whose films for the studio will play on<br />
Thursday nights at Film Forum. Siodmak began<br />
modestly, mak<strong>in</strong>g someth<strong>in</strong>g impressive out of<br />
the genre assignment Son of Dracula (1943) and<br />
manag<strong>in</strong>g not to giggle when asked to direct the<br />
<strong>in</strong>effable Maria Montez <strong>in</strong> the camp classic Cobra<br />
Woman (1943), but his patience paid off with a<br />
steady stream of f<strong>in</strong>e films <strong>in</strong> the film noir genre like<br />
The Killers (1946) and harder-to-classify movies like<br />
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry and Christmas<br />
Holiday (both 1945).<br />
Universal <strong>in</strong> the 1950s and ‘60s churned<br />
out a lot of sub-par efforts for their stable of<br />
barga<strong>in</strong>-basement contract players, but often<br />
enough a masterpiece would emerge from the<br />
assembly l<strong>in</strong>e, like Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil<br />
(1958), or Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).<br />
By the late ‘60s, Universal had moved most of its<br />
resources to television, where a young director<br />
named Steven Spielberg got his first opportunities<br />
under the mentorship of a studio executive named<br />
Sid She<strong>in</strong>berg. Most of Spielberg’s early films are<br />
for Universal, from the talent display of Duel (1971),<br />
which first debuted on TV, to massive hits like Jaws<br />
(1975) and E.T. (1982).<br />
All of these big films are play<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the Film<br />
Forum retrospective, but the real f<strong>in</strong>d for lovers<br />
of rare gems is a double bill of two movies by the<br />
neglected Paul Fejos, the pitch-perfect Lonesome<br />
(1928), one of the f<strong>in</strong>est and most touch<strong>in</strong>g of all<br />
movie love stories, and Broadway (1929), a key<br />
early sound movie (also rare and worth catch<strong>in</strong>g is<br />
Clarence Brown’s The Goose Woman (1925), a drama<br />
starr<strong>in</strong>g Louise Dresser). For sheer enterta<strong>in</strong>ment<br />
value, noth<strong>in</strong>g can beat Universal films like My<br />
Man Godfrey (1936), a classic screwball comedy,<br />
or Destry Rides Aga<strong>in</strong> (1939), an energetic comic<br />
western that rejuvenated the career of Marlene<br />
Dietrich. At first glance, Universal’s division between<br />
horror and women’s pictures, between thrill rides<br />
and emotional weepies, seems a bit uneasy, but<br />
it was the mark of an ever-cautious studio always<br />
ready to meet the demands of drastically different<br />
audiences.
REVOLT Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 32
Pleasure is Political:<br />
Interview with<br />
Abiola and Damali Abrams<br />
BY KATIE CERCONE<br />
Abiola Abrams, Kiss & Tell TV<br />
Abiola Abrams with No H8 Campaign tattoo<br />
Sisters Abiola and Damali Abrams<br />
are two Queens born Guyanese-<br />
American artists whose creative<br />
output approaches the diaristic<br />
impulse from a Transnational/Hip<br />
Hop Fem<strong>in</strong>ist framework. Work<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong> their own dist<strong>in</strong>ctive fields - Abiola is a writer,<br />
filmmaker and media personality and Damali a<br />
visual artist – the two together are pound<strong>in</strong>g out a<br />
contemporary rhetoric of Radical Self-Acceptance<br />
that is rh<strong>in</strong>estone and glitter studded, fiercely<br />
<strong>in</strong>tellectual and accessible by design. Both offer<br />
media literacy as a type of seductive therapy for<br />
women, especially women of color. Both are media<br />
makers talk<strong>in</strong>g about Black Love, self-actualization,<br />
faith, health and wellness <strong>in</strong>formed by their shared<br />
“Pleasure is Political” critique of culture. Abiola, as<br />
seen on BET, NBC, MTV and VH1 has turned her<br />
media personality <strong>in</strong>to a web-empire. AbiolaTV is an<br />
<strong>in</strong>spirational go-to space where a myriad of sources<br />
such as The Passionista Playbook, Kiss n’ Tell TV and<br />
The Bombshell Academy give women the courage to<br />
start be<strong>in</strong>’ about it. Abiola wrote the popular Hip Hop<br />
novel Dare and directed the award w<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g erotica<br />
film Afrodite Superstar. Damali, a visual artist whose<br />
video series Self-Help TV is now broadcast<strong>in</strong>g on<br />
NYC Cable Access Television, has been of significant<br />
impact <strong>in</strong> the F<strong>in</strong>e Arts for her refresh<strong>in</strong>g approach<br />
to remix culture and ‘The Personal is Political’<br />
stance with respect to women of color and the<br />
media. Damali is also part of the Artist Collective<br />
tArt. Recently, I had the opportunity to <strong>in</strong>terview<br />
both Abiola and Damali about their work and the<br />
African Diasporic tradition from which it comes.<br />
KC: Abiola, Can you talk about your <strong>in</strong>terest<br />
<strong>in</strong> Contemporary Goddess Archetypes <strong>in</strong><br />
relationship to the cultural memory of African<br />
folk wisdom, myth and ritual <strong>in</strong> Hip Hop?<br />
AA: My first real piece was a theater work called<br />
“Goddess City,” which was greatly <strong>in</strong>fluenced by<br />
Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have<br />
Considered Suicide When The Ra<strong>in</strong>bow is Enuf.”<br />
I was <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> tell<strong>in</strong>g my personal story and<br />
those of young women around me, especially young<br />
women of the African Diaspora. These ancient<br />
goddess archetypes just started to pop out <strong>in</strong> my<br />
work. I grew up <strong>in</strong> Queens New York as a child of<br />
the hip hop generation and for me hip hop was a<br />
way I found commonality with the people around<br />
me. There were no other people from Guyana <strong>in</strong><br />
our neighborhood and we were k<strong>in</strong>d of ostracized<br />
for our family be<strong>in</strong>g foreign, even though I was born<br />
here. When I was a teenager I was a rapper. It’s the<br />
first way that I could express myself publicly and tell<br />
stories about the environment around me. To me<br />
it’s very important that everyth<strong>in</strong>g I do is <strong>in</strong>teractive<br />
because the African culture that I come from is very<br />
much call and response. For me it’s all about the<br />
talk back it’s all about communicat<strong>in</strong>g a k<strong>in</strong>d of<br />
community mean<strong>in</strong>g. I’ve been <strong>in</strong>volved with a lot<br />
of different groups from theater groups to music<br />
performance to whatever and people always try<br />
to be very exclusionary about whatever it is. I see<br />
hip hop as a po<strong>in</strong>t of <strong>in</strong>clusion. For <strong>in</strong>stance last<br />
month I was on a panel with Reg E. Ga<strong>in</strong>es who is<br />
a very amaz<strong>in</strong>g hip hop icon, he wrote a hip hop<br />
theater piece on Broadway <strong>in</strong> the 90’s. For him hip<br />
hop theater is not authentic if it does not appeal to<br />
what he felt when he was grow<strong>in</strong>g up <strong>in</strong> the Bronx,<br />
that sense of danger, be<strong>in</strong>g robbed and fear<strong>in</strong>g for<br />
his life and you know guns and all that. I felt really<br />
troubled by that and I spoke about it on the panel. I<br />
feel like my experience is just as valid and I wasn’t<br />
<strong>in</strong> the Bronx and there weren’t guns and you know<br />
drugs or whatever it is but that doesn’t make my<br />
experience with hip hop any less real or less valid.<br />
KC: And what about the heal<strong>in</strong>g Goddess Power<br />
workshops and “Goddess Factory” show at Rush Arts?<br />
AA: What was really excit<strong>in</strong>g about “The Goddess<br />
Factory” show was that I had Damali and two other<br />
women <strong>in</strong>teract<strong>in</strong>g with the audience dressed as<br />
Goddesses walk<strong>in</strong>g around giv<strong>in</strong>g out condoms<br />
and chocolate. There’s a say<strong>in</strong>g that we teach what<br />
we need to learn and so it’s always been about<br />
empowerment. As I researched different schools of<br />
empowerment I aimed to share that with the people<br />
around me. It started out with these Goddess<br />
meet<strong>in</strong>gs I had at my house with groups of women.<br />
That grew <strong>in</strong>to larger groups and then I’d start to<br />
get <strong>in</strong>vited to speak at colleges and universities.<br />
It became a k<strong>in</strong>d of heal<strong>in</strong>g work. For example my<br />
film “Knives <strong>in</strong> My Throat” is a documentary onl<strong>in</strong>e<br />
follow<strong>in</strong>g a year <strong>in</strong> the life of an African American<br />
woman deal<strong>in</strong>g with bipolar disorder. It also has a<br />
hip hop theme. I go to a school or university and I<br />
show the film and then have a discussion around<br />
it after about women, mental illness, stigma, art<br />
therapy and healthy heal<strong>in</strong>g. I’m also do<strong>in</strong>g a meet
up onl<strong>in</strong>e for <strong>this</strong> film so we can talk about black<br />
women and mental illness on Twitter. Whether it’s<br />
five, fifty or a hundred women rema<strong>in</strong>s to be seen but<br />
it’s excit<strong>in</strong>g that we can have these conversations<br />
onl<strong>in</strong>e and make it more accessible. In my film<br />
“Ophelia’s Opera” each character speaks their<br />
m<strong>in</strong>d <strong>in</strong> hip hop verse, it’s about women deal<strong>in</strong>g<br />
with physical abuse. “Aphrodite Superstar” is an<br />
erotica film. Damali helped me write the script. It’s<br />
about sexuality and reclaim<strong>in</strong>g what is sexy aga<strong>in</strong>st<br />
the media version of sexy. My latest project is “The<br />
Bombshell Academy” a series of 30 video blogs.<br />
It’s like a 30-day self-improvement course onl<strong>in</strong>e.<br />
KC: Damali, how did Self Help TV come about?<br />
DA: I started Self-Help TV <strong>in</strong> grad school. I had<br />
been do<strong>in</strong>g mostly collage before and was mov<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong>to video. My work was always about identity and<br />
heal<strong>in</strong>g and transformation. In grad school I felt<br />
lost a lot of the time and reached for what was<br />
familiar to me. I grew up watch<strong>in</strong>g a lot of television<br />
and read<strong>in</strong>g a lot of self-help books so I felt like<br />
those two th<strong>in</strong>gs were a good ground<strong>in</strong>g for all<br />
of the new th<strong>in</strong>gs that I was learn<strong>in</strong>g about art.<br />
KC: Can you talk about your Self Help TV project<br />
<strong>in</strong> relationship to Hip Hop and the way that it has<br />
codified or embodied gestures of power and def<strong>in</strong>ed<br />
a sense of territory/belong<strong>in</strong>g for Black American<br />
youth and now youth worldwide? DA: Hip Hop started<br />
with young people <strong>in</strong> the socially and economically<br />
depressed Bronx creat<strong>in</strong>g their own <strong>in</strong>stead of<br />
wait<strong>in</strong>g for gatekeepers. They had no access to<br />
gatekeepers so they reworked what was available<br />
- used their mouths as <strong>in</strong>struments, used their<br />
parents’ records as <strong>in</strong>struments, used subway cars<br />
as canvases, created their own forms of dance and<br />
acrobatics without formal tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g.....Self-Help TV is<br />
def<strong>in</strong>itely <strong>in</strong> that same spirit. It started from the idea<br />
that television is the most powerful bra<strong>in</strong>washer...<br />
what if its powers were used for good? What would<br />
I want to see on TV? Like the orig<strong>in</strong>s of Hip Hop,<br />
it came from the spirit that the gatekeepers are<br />
not go<strong>in</strong>g to allow someone like me to create the<br />
programm<strong>in</strong>g I want to see so I created it on my<br />
own (with collaborators, of course) and showed<br />
it wherever I could - art exhibits, the <strong>in</strong>ternet, and<br />
now on cable access TV. My friends and family have<br />
participated <strong>in</strong> Self-Help TV from the beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and my partner Sean “Shadagga” Ferd<strong>in</strong>and has<br />
collaborated with me on all of my Self-Help TV videos.<br />
media, oral history, boast<strong>in</strong>g and bragg<strong>in</strong>g, call and<br />
response. DA: I don’t often write raps but I like to rap<br />
because confidence is built <strong>in</strong>to the genre. When I<br />
start rapp<strong>in</strong>g, I am <strong>in</strong>stantly perform<strong>in</strong>g a level of<br />
confidence that I don’t necessarily feel <strong>in</strong> everyday<br />
life. For Baby It Couldn’t Have Been You That I<br />
Feared, I wanted to talk about media portrayals<br />
of the Black Woman. I made it for an exhibit at<br />
MOCADA called A<strong>in</strong>’t I a Woman, curated by Kimberli<br />
Gant. This tale of African American womanhood is<br />
told through the media’s own words, us<strong>in</strong>g found<br />
footage, and my own words <strong>in</strong> the song. I wanted to<br />
show what the media is say<strong>in</strong>g about me as a Black<br />
woman vs. how I see myself. The clips tell a story of<br />
Black men as un-dateable losers <strong>in</strong> a roundabout<br />
way. They also say that Black women are ask<strong>in</strong>g<br />
too much if we want to have success and great<br />
relationships. By show<strong>in</strong>g these clips back to back<br />
I hope to show their absurdity and blatant racism.<br />
KC: I’ve really enjoyed some of the videos you’ve<br />
done together especially those on Women <strong>in</strong> Hip<br />
Hop and Art and the Prison Industrial Complex. How<br />
<strong>in</strong>fluential is your sister’s work to your own, how have<br />
you grown and challenged each other as artists?<br />
DA: Abiola’s work has been very <strong>in</strong>fluential on m<strong>in</strong>e<br />
for my whole life because we grew up together <strong>in</strong><br />
the same house. She is a few years older than<br />
me so she’s always been ahead of me and<br />
I’ve always learned how to do th<strong>in</strong>gs from her<br />
and my older brother, as well as my parents.<br />
AA: I th<strong>in</strong>k Damali and I are each other’s biggest<br />
fans. She is like my favorite artist and I am so<br />
excited to see what she does but when we spend<br />
comes out <strong>in</strong> our work. I saw her <strong>this</strong> morn<strong>in</strong>g and<br />
we were talk<strong>in</strong>g about how my dad made pancakes.<br />
KC: Can you speak a little bit about Art and<br />
the Prison Industrial Complex, do you have<br />
any advice for young artists that would like to<br />
engage with some of these <strong>issue</strong>s <strong>in</strong> their work<br />
and what might be an effective approach?<br />
DA: This is such an important <strong>issue</strong> for people of<br />
color, as well as society as a whole. But with the<br />
astronomical rates of Black and Lat<strong>in</strong>os <strong>in</strong> prison <strong>in</strong><br />
<strong>this</strong> country, it’s very personal to us- it’s our brothers<br />
and sisters, neighbors, friends, parents, relatives,<br />
significant others and ourselves gett<strong>in</strong>g caught up<br />
<strong>in</strong> the system. We need more art about <strong>this</strong>. I hope<br />
to do more <strong>in</strong> the future. My only advice would be<br />
follow your muse. If you feel called to do it, do it.<br />
AA: My approach has always been come from the<br />
personal. For the video we did about the prison<br />
<strong>in</strong>dustrial complex we were both experienc<strong>in</strong>g<br />
hav<strong>in</strong>g a family member <strong>in</strong> prison and we went<br />
to go visit him even though we grew up say<strong>in</strong>g “I<br />
would never go visit anyone <strong>in</strong> prison.” In <strong>this</strong> case<br />
it was a younger family member that we adore so<br />
we went to the jail for him. It was a really pa<strong>in</strong>ful<br />
experience. I guess the best way to express it is<br />
that you know my dad went to great schools I went<br />
to great schools, Damali went to great schools,<br />
my mom is educated and our brother is a brilliant<br />
person. And despite that we were still unable to help<br />
<strong>this</strong> younger family member and it was very pa<strong>in</strong>ful<br />
to see him go down <strong>this</strong> sort of stereotypical Black<br />
KC: Damali, What was it like play<strong>in</strong>g a Goddess<br />
<strong>in</strong> Abiola’s “Goddess Factory” and help<strong>in</strong>g write<br />
“Aphrodite Superstar?” DA: Goddess Factory at<br />
Rush Gallery was fun. It was a stretch for me to have<br />
to memorize l<strong>in</strong>es and <strong>in</strong>teract with the audience so<br />
it was a great experience. Different from my usual<br />
work. Nice to th<strong>in</strong>k of myself as a Goddess too.<br />
Aphrodite Superstar was so much fun too. I loved<br />
see<strong>in</strong>g all of our ideas come to life onscreen and I<br />
like be<strong>in</strong>g able to say that I worked on an erotic film.<br />
KC: Damali Can you talk a little bit about ‘Baby It<br />
Couldn’t Have Been You That I Feared,’ as a sort<br />
of counter-narrative to ma<strong>in</strong>stream media? Also<br />
anyth<strong>in</strong>g you want to say about your ethics here<br />
and use of sampl<strong>in</strong>g, rap, d.i.y., remix culture, new<br />
REVOLT<br />
Damai Abrams <strong>in</strong> front of “Baby It Couldn't Have Been You That I Feared” at Arts @ Renaissance for the exhibit tART Year 8,<br />
2011. Photo credit stefpix@gmail.com<br />
time together like here at my mom’s house we just<br />
spend the time as sisters. Our work ends up hav<strong>in</strong>g<br />
that same quality because we’ve grown up <strong>in</strong> the<br />
same family and we’ve had all of the same <strong>issue</strong>s<br />
but we don’t sit around necessarily talk<strong>in</strong>g about<br />
them or collaborat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> that way. I guess what<br />
I mean is we don’t bond around our work if that<br />
makes sense we bond around our lives and then that<br />
male path. The whole experience was very much<br />
culture shock. First we were like you know how<br />
come it’s all women and girls <strong>in</strong> l<strong>in</strong>e to get <strong>in</strong>? And<br />
we realized it’s because all the men are <strong>in</strong> prison.<br />
You know it’s all Black and Lat<strong>in</strong>o girls and you<br />
know when you’re visit<strong>in</strong>g someone <strong>in</strong> prison the<br />
guards k<strong>in</strong>d of treat you like a prisoner. We got<br />
there and they said you can’t take your cell phone<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 34
<strong>in</strong> and luckily a guard recognized me because<br />
at the time I was host<strong>in</strong>g a show on BET and the<br />
guard was k<strong>in</strong>d enough to hold our phones for us.<br />
Other people who didn’t have that option were<br />
bury<strong>in</strong>g their phones underground before they<br />
entered the prison. My advice to any young artist<br />
speak<strong>in</strong>g as a writer, artist, filmmaker and media<br />
personality is come from the personal. Speak<br />
from your experiences. We all go and get these<br />
fancy degrees and want to address these topics<br />
but I th<strong>in</strong>k the more personal that you can make it<br />
strangely the more universal it becomes. Someone<br />
else might watch it and they may enter the story<br />
from a different place but they can enter the story<br />
from the power that comes from want<strong>in</strong>g to tell<br />
part of where a personal experience comes from.<br />
AfroDite Superstar cover, a film by Abiola Abrams aka Venus<br />
Hottentot with help from Damali Abrams<br />
KC: Damali Can you talk about work<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the<br />
Artist Collective tART, what led you to want to<br />
make collaborative work, how is it <strong>in</strong> practice and<br />
what have you learned? DA: tART is an amaz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
group. I jo<strong>in</strong>ed shortly after grad school when I<br />
was feel<strong>in</strong>g <strong>this</strong> void, need<strong>in</strong>g to talk about my<br />
work with other artists and hear other artists talk<br />
about their work. I missed critiques and dialogue<br />
about work as it’s be<strong>in</strong>g made. Collaborations are<br />
so crucial to me right now because my practice is<br />
deeply personal and so isolat<strong>in</strong>g. I’m a borderl<strong>in</strong>e<br />
hermit/agoraphobe. It helps so much to work with<br />
someone else and get out of my own head. It is a<br />
great way to learn and grow as an artist/person.<br />
KC: Abiola I’ve noticed that you’ve been able to sort<br />
of flow freely through <strong>in</strong>dependent and ma<strong>in</strong>stream<br />
media throughout your career, is it as easy as you<br />
make it look? Can you talk a little bit about the choices<br />
you’ve made <strong>in</strong> terms of the distribution of your work?<br />
AA: It’s <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g because I always feel like I am<br />
supposed to choose… you know the <strong>in</strong>die people feel<br />
like if you’re do<strong>in</strong>g ma<strong>in</strong>stream stuff you’re sell<strong>in</strong>g<br />
out and the ma<strong>in</strong>stream people feel like the <strong>in</strong>die<br />
stuff that you are do<strong>in</strong>g is irrelevant. And aga<strong>in</strong> for<br />
me it’s always about try<strong>in</strong>g to f<strong>in</strong>d what’s authentic.<br />
If you’re an <strong>in</strong>dependent artist then eventually your<br />
work will become your one voice and one work and<br />
that’s what the goal is. The ma<strong>in</strong>stream stuff is how<br />
I’m able to pay my bills and the <strong>in</strong>die stuff is how<br />
I’m able to get that full autonomy of expression.<br />
KC: Have you ever had to censor yourself when<br />
work<strong>in</strong>g with a corporate sponsor and how welcom<strong>in</strong>g<br />
have these entities been <strong>in</strong> general of your activist<br />
lean<strong>in</strong>gs? Did you have any reservations about<br />
participat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the No H8 campaign, for <strong>in</strong>stance,<br />
worry<strong>in</strong>g about alienat<strong>in</strong>g a certa<strong>in</strong> fan base that<br />
wasn’t as open? Be<strong>in</strong>g that your work is quite<br />
radical for the ma<strong>in</strong>stream, have you encountered<br />
resistance and how has it shaped you as an artist?<br />
AA: I do, it’s challeng<strong>in</strong>g and I have alienated people<br />
I’m sure. When I was part of the No H8 campaign<br />
people sent me horrible hate mail but for me th<strong>in</strong>gs<br />
like that are a no bra<strong>in</strong>er. It seems ridiculous to me<br />
that as a child of immigrants, as a Black woman,<br />
that I would not fight for someone else’s civil rights.<br />
I don’t feel like I have a choice. I’ve def<strong>in</strong>itely lost<br />
work or been passed over for th<strong>in</strong>gs because of<br />
that. It’s not always easy because we have to live<br />
and pay our bills and figure out ways to support<br />
ourselves. For example when I directed Aphrodite<br />
Superstar I was at BET at the time so I directed<br />
it under a pseudonym because it’s an erotic film.<br />
One of the th<strong>in</strong>gs that I did that was a huge crash<br />
and burn was after I was on BET I was offered<br />
to go on the reality TV show “Tough Love.” I was<br />
like <strong>this</strong> will be cool because I’ll get a paycheck<br />
and I’ll go undercover as an artist and a journalist<br />
to expose reality TV blah blah blah. There’s an<br />
Audre Lorde say<strong>in</strong>g that goes, “You can’t use the<br />
master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house,”<br />
and well it’s ultimately their show so they are<br />
go<strong>in</strong>g to edit it however they want. I can go home<br />
and write about it on my little blog or whatever<br />
but it’s like a David and Goliath k<strong>in</strong>d of situation.<br />
KC: Abiola can you talk a little bit about<br />
personal appearance and style as a spiritual<br />
pr<strong>in</strong>ciple? As fem<strong>in</strong>ists we uphold a lot of<br />
contradictory messages. How does your work<br />
with contemporary Goddess Archetypes relate<br />
to fem<strong>in</strong>ist ideologies around the beauty myth,<br />
conspicuous consumption and materialism?<br />
AA: I love to wear my hair natural on Monday and<br />
love myself and then l wear a wig or a weave or<br />
whatever on Tuesday. For me it’s all dress. I go by<br />
the RuPaul statement that we are born naked and<br />
all the rest is drag. It is an <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g contradiction<br />
<strong>this</strong> notion of for <strong>in</strong>stance the “Lipstick Fem<strong>in</strong>ist”<br />
or whatever who supposedly cares about clothes<br />
and fashion and misses the bigger <strong>issue</strong>s. It’s<br />
a place where I just have to go with what makes<br />
me personally happy. There’s a say<strong>in</strong>g that “the<br />
Personal is Political” and I believe that 100%<br />
but I believe it doesn’t work tak<strong>in</strong>g the political<br />
and try<strong>in</strong>g to make it personal. You have to<br />
take your personal and f<strong>in</strong>d your politics. It’s not<br />
about whatever particular movement tells you how<br />
you should look because it totally is oppressive…<br />
you know women should wear <strong>this</strong> or should not<br />
wear that… if they wear these th<strong>in</strong>gs you know<br />
they are bow<strong>in</strong>g down to patriarchy! Those are the<br />
ways that fem<strong>in</strong>ists become equally as oppressive.<br />
KC: Who have been your role models?<br />
Damali Abrams, “Autobiography of a Year” video <strong>in</strong>stallation<br />
at A.I.R. Gallery, 2011<br />
DA: In addition to my sister Abiola, my brother K<strong>in</strong>so,<br />
my parents and my friends. The people around me<br />
have always been brilliant and really creative. Also,<br />
Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Spike Lee, Maya<br />
Angelou, Toni Morrison, Oprah.....the list is endless.<br />
AA: Def<strong>in</strong>itely Eve Ensler, Miranda July, Candida<br />
Royale, Oprah, Madonna. I love the artist<br />
Wangechi Mutu. There is a blogger named the<br />
Pioneer Woman who is <strong>this</strong> woman liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the<br />
woods and homeschool<strong>in</strong>g her kids. I’m a huge<br />
Martha Stewart fan. I love her with all of the<br />
contradiction that that is and the way that she<br />
was able to take ‘homekeep<strong>in</strong>g’ and traditional<br />
women’s arts that people would normally dismiss<br />
and build a billion dollar empire. That’s amaz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
to me I love that: Women Who Build Empires.
Amor V<strong>in</strong>cit Omnia "Love Conquers All"<br />
Caravaggio, Amor V<strong>in</strong>cit Omnia, 1602<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
36
Gypsies, Hustlers,<br />
and Russian Sex <strong>in</strong><br />
the Superlative:<br />
AN INTERVIEW WITH TOMMY LANIGAN SCHMIDT<br />
BY KATIE CERCONE<br />
A<br />
good friend of m<strong>in</strong>e once told me<br />
that it was okay that I only always<br />
talked about my boyfriends because<br />
it was “How I talked about myself.”<br />
On another occasion a friend said,<br />
“You should really cross out every<br />
man’s name <strong>in</strong> your journal and write<br />
Myself.” It’s true, and it’s why I consider Tommy<br />
Lanigan Schmidt – his glitzy lasagna pans and gay<br />
ephemera saran wrap sequ<strong>in</strong>ed m<strong>in</strong>i cathedrals,<br />
what one critic called a pseudo-Byzant<strong>in</strong>e Funk-<br />
Pop vision - a k<strong>in</strong>dred spirit. Lanigan Schmidt shook<br />
the art by its monogrammed panties upside-down,<br />
before it spit him back out like the best of us. He’s<br />
the first to tell you that the t<strong>in</strong> foil rat sculptures he<br />
made when he was a homeless gay youth liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong><br />
the West village of the Stonewall Riot days (<strong>this</strong> man<br />
ran with Jack Smith, <strong>in</strong>ventor of body glitter when it<br />
was crushed glass) will sell for loads. Loads of what?<br />
He’s pro-Art as life and anti-Art World to the max.<br />
“This is who I was <strong>in</strong> love with s<strong>in</strong>ce I was<br />
16 <strong>this</strong> is Francis. He’s like the Godfather, my<br />
student Za Za says ‘You’re obsessed with him!’<br />
Not really it’s just part of my memory formations.<br />
‘Obsession!’ I love it when people say th<strong>in</strong>gs like<br />
that.” TLS said <strong>this</strong> while hold<strong>in</strong>g up a photo of<br />
his first boyfriend, which he keeps at bedside,<br />
all <strong>this</strong> before the <strong>in</strong>terview had even begun.<br />
TLS is one to act a bit coquettish, orig<strong>in</strong>ally<br />
giv<strong>in</strong>g me a bit of a runaround when I requested an<br />
<strong>in</strong>terview. Feel<strong>in</strong>g it out over the phone, he meanwhile<br />
dropped some gems that had me eager to hear<br />
more, “The art world loves <strong>in</strong>tellectual th<strong>in</strong>gs that<br />
can be perceived as visceral” and rather om<strong>in</strong>ously,<br />
“Make the art you love or it will bite you <strong>in</strong> the heart.”<br />
He must have been h<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g at someth<strong>in</strong>g when he<br />
whispered over the phone, “Youtube is on the border<br />
of be<strong>in</strong>g solipsistically alone and out everywhere all<br />
at once.” As I would later learn, my night at Tommy’s<br />
place <strong>in</strong> Hells Kitchen would be more like a gay-ass<br />
slumber party than an <strong>in</strong>terview. Except <strong>in</strong>stead<br />
of b-rate horror flicks we’d watch the Inter-tube. I<br />
didn’t prepare any questions, because as I recall<br />
from hav<strong>in</strong>g taken his class at SVA, the molasses<br />
speech dripp<strong>in</strong>g out of Tommy’s mouth (we’re<br />
talk<strong>in</strong>g mid century Italian-American Brooklynite<br />
collar fashions and Bieber hearsay) is always and<br />
only brilliant, startl<strong>in</strong>g and Romantic with a capital R.<br />
Why the capital R? What does the late<br />
18th Century shift <strong>in</strong> consciousness that broke<br />
the backbone of European thought have to do<br />
with Youtube and Boyfriends? Well to give a brief<br />
history ala Hugh Honour’s Romanticism (1979),<br />
Romanticism is the notion that love, like art, is the<br />
pursuit of an ideal we approach but never atta<strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong><br />
side of the grave. Romantics, who often depicted<br />
lovers as doomed or dy<strong>in</strong>g, followed the “mysterious<br />
way” <strong>in</strong>ward through fixation upon a remote,<br />
perfected ideal. With the church moved under a<br />
cloud, God no longer an emotional necessity and<br />
materialism ga<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g speed, the whole world <strong>in</strong><br />
“primal flux” becomes a screen for the projection<br />
of deferred religiosity and spiritual rebirth.<br />
Thomas Lanigan Schmidt, Syphilitic Rat, 1970, Alum<strong>in</strong>um<br />
foil, rh<strong>in</strong>estones, hot glue, p<strong>in</strong>s, 3 x 12 1/2 x 3 <strong>in</strong>ches. Photo<br />
courtesy Pavel Zoubok Gallery<br />
Flash forward to 2012, I arrive at Tommy’s place to<br />
f<strong>in</strong>d that Art literally covers the entire apartment;<br />
what his artistic experimentation has reduced to<br />
one long corridor fit for short, th<strong>in</strong> and spry folk.<br />
When we f<strong>in</strong>ally squeezed through the maze of<br />
dusty treasures stacked floor to ceil<strong>in</strong>g – duck<strong>in</strong>g<br />
under his saran wrap and t<strong>in</strong>foil hang<strong>in</strong>g bangles,<br />
digg<strong>in</strong>g through piles of boyband sweatshirts and<br />
stopp<strong>in</strong>g along the way so TLS could pantomime<br />
with a Barbie-shaped shampoo bottle - we nudged<br />
<strong>in</strong> together on Tommy’s smaller than a tw<strong>in</strong> size bed<br />
adjacent to a laptop and a v<strong>in</strong>tage b&w television<br />
positioned on two staggered prop tables. Us<strong>in</strong>g<br />
both as his visual aid, TLS proceeded to for the<br />
next hour and a half trace the fall of communism<br />
<strong>in</strong> Russia through a study of the ritual and<br />
symbolism of Russian daily life, all punctuated by<br />
lively profanity and percussive exclamations like<br />
“t<strong>in</strong>kle t<strong>in</strong>k” and “BING!” We also talked a lot about<br />
gypsies, hustlers, and Russian parenthetical sex.<br />
Video 1: Work<strong>in</strong>g Class Russian Video<br />
Wedd<strong>in</strong>g After Capitalism. A familiar scene of a<br />
couple gett<strong>in</strong>g down <strong>in</strong> a backyard patio floods<br />
the screen as Tommy narrates, “I th<strong>in</strong>k he’s a<br />
professional because he has a k<strong>in</strong>d of fixed smile,<br />
he k<strong>in</strong>d of like knows what he’s do<strong>in</strong>g. She’s gett<strong>in</strong>g<br />
humped.” I watch curiously and ask Tommy if he’s<br />
been hav<strong>in</strong>g wedd<strong>in</strong>g fantasies. “No no I just like<br />
stuff that is about sex because I’m gay. Gay people<br />
have to take care of the…sexual th<strong>in</strong>gs, okay?” And<br />
then cont<strong>in</strong>ues, “Americans tend to be puritans. I<br />
like cultures that are not puritanical because they<br />
have a different sophistication about sexual th<strong>in</strong>gs.”<br />
Video 2: Traditional Hopak at a<br />
Contemporary Russian Wedd<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> New Jersey.<br />
“This is actually the dance that represents the<br />
consummation of the marriage but no one says<br />
that, it’s k<strong>in</strong>d of like parenthetically about sex.” A<br />
hired troop of men and women <strong>in</strong> match<strong>in</strong>g tights<br />
and oddly shaped hats dance and flip about <strong>in</strong> a<br />
church basement. “I love <strong>this</strong> peasant stuff because<br />
it’s really wild. I th<strong>in</strong>k <strong>this</strong> was done at the turn<strong>in</strong>g<br />
po<strong>in</strong>t because <strong>this</strong> was a paid group but when I was<br />
a boy <strong>this</strong> was done <strong>in</strong> New Jersey by like regular<br />
people. But that dance you’d break your legs<br />
do<strong>in</strong>g it. So all over Russia now they’re just hir<strong>in</strong>g<br />
a stripper.” Fixed smile dude of video one unveiled.<br />
Video 3: Ripped Russian Hustla Works out <strong>in</strong><br />
his Back Yard. “Oh here is Mr. Sexy. Actually Mr. Sexy<br />
is good with space.” TLS goes on to expla<strong>in</strong> how <strong>this</strong><br />
man’s a perfect example of how art “just naturally<br />
happens” and why Americans are so hypocritical<br />
about their economy. Without tear<strong>in</strong>g his eyes off<br />
the screen he elaborates, “You see if Americans<br />
are go<strong>in</strong>g to talk about their whole country fall<strong>in</strong>g<br />
apart because of the economy they’re go<strong>in</strong>g to have<br />
to start pay<strong>in</strong>g attention to work<strong>in</strong>g class people<br />
sometime. This is a work<strong>in</strong>g class person and he<br />
has his own culture that’s considered garbage by<br />
most middle class people.” The hustler is do<strong>in</strong>g his<br />
push up dance as Tommy cont<strong>in</strong>ues, “He’s easy on<br />
the eye. I just like when other people don’t speak<br />
English. The music comes out when someone is<br />
speak<strong>in</strong>g a language you don’t understand and<br />
you understand like 1 out of every 100 words,<br />
it’s music, for real, because it just like bounces<br />
and beats and bounces and beats.” I ask Tommy<br />
how many times he has watched <strong>this</strong> video. “Oh<br />
probably like a million times. I have to watch it like<br />
at least 20 times to figure out if it’s good enough<br />
to keep watch<strong>in</strong>g. Fuck you don’t do that!!! (to tv)”<br />
At <strong>this</strong> po<strong>in</strong>t he turns on the b&w TV beh<strong>in</strong>d<br />
the laptop and tunes <strong>in</strong>to Mother Mary Angelica<br />
of the Annunciation, an American Roman Catholic<br />
nun who founded the Eternal Word Television<br />
Network. “Oh I can’t stand her she’s a ultra<br />
conservative. She’s aga<strong>in</strong>st gay marriage and<br />
abortion. There, she’s better with no sound. Would<br />
you freak out if you saw a dead body <strong>in</strong> a coff<strong>in</strong>?<br />
White people when they die are the color of frozen<br />
turkeys.” With a silent Mary Angelica as backdrop…<br />
Video 4: Contemporary Russian Funeral<br />
Ceremony. Tommy expla<strong>in</strong>s as an <strong>in</strong>door scene<br />
with an open coff<strong>in</strong> comes <strong>in</strong>to view, “I just like it<br />
because it’s art about life that doesn’t have to do<br />
with the art world. It’s k<strong>in</strong>d of like a Pietà, Italian<br />
Pietàs are based on <strong>this</strong>.” I watch as a female<br />
relative hovers over the body of the deceased<br />
scream<strong>in</strong>g laboriously. “Yes yes the scream<strong>in</strong>g is<br />
part of it. She’s probably like the grandmother and<br />
notice how she’s held <strong>in</strong> by the other relatives so
Gypsies, Hustlers, and Russian Sex <strong>in</strong> the Superlative:<br />
cont<strong>in</strong>ued...<br />
Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Placemat (Scriptorium), 2006.<br />
Mixed-media collage, 14 1/2 X 18 1/2 <strong>in</strong>ches. Photo<br />
courtesy Pavel Zoubok Gallery<br />
she can k<strong>in</strong>d of go wild. The pace of the band gives<br />
her a sense of the attitude around her and how wild<br />
she can cry.” Tommy is constantly po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g out t<strong>in</strong>y<br />
th<strong>in</strong>gs that I’m miss<strong>in</strong>g and their significance, he’s<br />
rov<strong>in</strong>g the screen with his eyes critiqu<strong>in</strong>g its formal<br />
and symbolic structure. “That might be a convention<br />
<strong>in</strong> these companies,” he comments on occasion.<br />
Because these aren’t home videos they are produced<br />
by a Russian funeral <strong>in</strong>dustry. “The mother’s go<strong>in</strong>g<br />
to throw away money. You get the metaphor - sort of<br />
what to do with it now? Because what people forget<br />
<strong>in</strong> a place like the United States is that metaphors<br />
come before their <strong>in</strong>terpretations. Symbols are<br />
not clear <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> because they are real, they are a<br />
fluid part. Better than art world stuff. They’re not<br />
just people sublimat<strong>in</strong>g passion <strong>in</strong>to fashion.”<br />
Video 4: Rural Russian Peasant Funeral Video.<br />
As we peep at the supra-cont<strong>in</strong>ental lachrymose<br />
sentimentality Tommy’s very careful about<br />
observ<strong>in</strong>g religious references and contextualiz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
them with<strong>in</strong> the history of Communist Russia. “Now<br />
there’s an <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g little detail up there, a Russian<br />
cross that wouldn’t have been there back <strong>in</strong> the<br />
Stal<strong>in</strong> days. It wouldn’t have been allowed. These<br />
th<strong>in</strong>gs are so full of history if you know how to read<br />
them. Most people don’t care to know how to read<br />
them but they’re very rich.” He po<strong>in</strong>ts to the scarf<br />
the deceased women wears, “The communist party<br />
realized there were more people be<strong>in</strong>g baptized<br />
then there were <strong>in</strong> the communist party because<br />
of <strong>this</strong> type of shroud. No one would admit they<br />
were go<strong>in</strong>g to church but there was a k<strong>in</strong>d of shroud<br />
church go<strong>in</strong>g folk wore, see what she’s got on, <strong>in</strong> a<br />
sort of block pr<strong>in</strong>t? How many of those were sold<br />
told them that the communist party wasn’t work<strong>in</strong>g.”<br />
Video 5: Americanized Russian Teenagers<br />
Do<strong>in</strong>g Consumption American Style. “Now <strong>this</strong><br />
is so American, she’s sad so she’s gorg<strong>in</strong>g on<br />
donuts. There’s someth<strong>in</strong>g about that. Russians<br />
didn’t used to have boxes of donuts.” Scene two,<br />
also at the donut shop, while Tommy delivers his<br />
synopses, “The woman that went out <strong>in</strong>to the big<br />
world of glamour and she’s com<strong>in</strong>g back to see<br />
the donut woman but she’s disda<strong>in</strong>ful of the donut<br />
watch <strong>this</strong> I love it. Watch how she asks for <strong>this</strong><br />
donut like ‘I’ll try your plebian food, but (cough!)’<br />
Th<strong>in</strong>k of the convulsions Russia's gone through <strong>in</strong><br />
like twenty years. It’s gone from be<strong>in</strong>g a communist<br />
country with a planned economy to like a crazy<br />
mafia capitalist country, with star culture and all<br />
that stuff that goes with that territory. And fashion<br />
magaz<strong>in</strong>es.” Cut to the mall, the soundtrack fades<br />
<strong>in</strong>to Glamorous by Fergie. Tommy cont<strong>in</strong>ues, “All the<br />
young people stuff the music is American pop. All<br />
the cemetery stuff the music was from American<br />
movies. American culture is like that – it just works<br />
for people. AHHH! You gotta see the Igumenjas!!”<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
Video 6: The Igumenjas aka Russian<br />
Nun <strong>in</strong> Charge of a Woman's Monastery. Enter a<br />
menac<strong>in</strong>g woman with a dom<strong>in</strong>eer<strong>in</strong>g cone shaped<br />
hat. Tommy doesn’t miss a beat, “She’s wear<strong>in</strong>g<br />
that see through black th<strong>in</strong>g so her cross is more<br />
mysterious then she’s got that gnomish black hat<br />
on. The next picture of her is k<strong>in</strong>d of like a Warhol.”<br />
Equally menac<strong>in</strong>g male priest enters the scene.<br />
“See how the music’s swell<strong>in</strong>g? Because he’s the<br />
one who advises them on their spirituality. The<br />
music and the tim<strong>in</strong>g is just right with the fuckedup-ness.<br />
It really is a great piece of fucked up art.”<br />
The music shifts aga<strong>in</strong>, signal<strong>in</strong>g danger as Tommy<br />
adlibs, “Blood? W<strong>in</strong>e? Someth<strong>in</strong>g went awry here.”<br />
Video 7: François Sagat aka Famous Gay<br />
Prostitute with Tattoo cover<strong>in</strong>g his Head. “We’re not<br />
go<strong>in</strong>g to watch that. He’s a famous gay prostitute.<br />
Want to see a famous gay prostitute? He’s my favorite<br />
porn star. He’s <strong>in</strong>ternational. Yes he’s the one with the<br />
tattoo on his head. There he is.” There he is!<br />
François Sagat<br />
Video 8: François Sagat Priest Baptiz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
a Baby. Title is self-explanatory. Or not? Tommy<br />
chimes <strong>in</strong>, “Oh! Here’s a François Sagat priest<br />
baptiz<strong>in</strong>g a baby. See he looks exactly like him but<br />
it’s not. What is that I hate these ads why do they<br />
subject us to <strong>this</strong>!? It’s supposed to jump right <strong>in</strong>to<br />
what we want. See the priest do<strong>in</strong>g the baptiz<strong>in</strong>g<br />
of the baby is very François Sagat. They’re enough<br />
alike, they’re not though. It’s not the same person.<br />
They’re just from the same part of the world.”<br />
Video 9: High School Choir <strong>in</strong> Velvet Suits<br />
S<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g Counterpo<strong>in</strong>t Arrangement. We both<br />
agree it’s awful. “Americans see <strong>this</strong> as a great<br />
accomplishment. Americans make strange choices<br />
to keep people from mak<strong>in</strong>g art. Counterpo<strong>in</strong>t<br />
is one of them. I bet they all hate music now.”<br />
Video 10: American Gypsies from New<br />
Jersey. Who knew? Lots of dude bro Jersey types<br />
wear<strong>in</strong>g crew collars and cargo shorts sitt<strong>in</strong>g around<br />
<strong>in</strong> their kitchen s<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g traditional gypsy songs. It’s<br />
exactly the counterpo<strong>in</strong>t choir music. I ask how they<br />
can still be gypsies if they live <strong>in</strong> a home <strong>in</strong> New<br />
Jersey and Tommy expla<strong>in</strong>s that the house doesn’t<br />
even look lived <strong>in</strong>. “This is someth<strong>in</strong>g that goes way<br />
back forever to the Middle Ages. That’s how they<br />
survived back then to avoid gett<strong>in</strong>g killed by the k<strong>in</strong>g.”<br />
Video 11: The Gypsies Through the<br />
White Girl’s Eyes aka Barf scene From Drag Me<br />
to Hell. Tommy is gett<strong>in</strong>g excited, “The gypsies<br />
become a presence of the Other as sex-crazed<br />
and hideous through her eyes. Look at that man<br />
he looks like he’s hung like a horse these people<br />
are crazy what is that awful magic they are do<strong>in</strong>g<br />
oh no I’m a white girl I can’t stand it! Oh!” Then<br />
the green eyed corpse pukes <strong>in</strong> the white girl’s<br />
Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Placemat (August<strong>in</strong>e, Student at<br />
Carthage), 2006. Mixed-media collage, 13 1/2 X 17 3/4<br />
<strong>in</strong>chescourtesy Pavel Zoubok Galler<br />
mouth as Tommy concludes, “This is actually<br />
shown <strong>in</strong> Ch<strong>in</strong>a as an example of bad capitalists.”<br />
Video 12: Russian Gypsy Parade. Lots of<br />
girls <strong>in</strong> ruffles and heavy eye makeup. Everyone<br />
is flow<strong>in</strong>g out <strong>in</strong>to the street and mov<strong>in</strong>g their<br />
body freely <strong>in</strong> time to the music. Tommy looks<br />
on with some k<strong>in</strong>d of strange awe, “This world<br />
outlasts everyth<strong>in</strong>g. I mean Whitney Biennials<br />
will come and go, <strong>this</strong> will keep on go<strong>in</strong>g.”<br />
Video 13: Sketchy Full Immersion Russian<br />
Orthodox Baby Baptism. Tommy expla<strong>in</strong>s how hard<br />
the video was for him to f<strong>in</strong>d. “A total immersion<br />
baby baptism is even rare for Russian Orthodox. I<br />
th<strong>in</strong>k they might have lost a few. This is probably<br />
<strong>in</strong> a church that was used as a warehouse. All<br />
the churches were closed for like seventy years.<br />
Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt,"Non Sol Invictus sed via sc<strong>in</strong>tillare<br />
est sangu<strong>in</strong>is mei (Not the <strong>in</strong>v<strong>in</strong>cible sun, but the way of<br />
sparkle is my blood)," 2001. Foil, plastic wrap, v<strong>in</strong>yl, pipe<br />
cleaner, holographic tape, Britney Spears, alum<strong>in</strong>um cans,<br />
wire, <strong>in</strong>k, wood and staples. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of<br />
the artist and Pavel Zoubok Gallery<br />
The nutsy th<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> Russian was that they realized<br />
when communism fell that the only people that<br />
go <strong>in</strong>to the church are work<strong>in</strong>g class, which you<br />
know that’s who communism is supposed to be<br />
for.” He cont<strong>in</strong>ues as we watch the baby dunked<br />
under water three times, “It’s an amaz<strong>in</strong>g art<br />
form, like physiologically the baby must feel like it’s<br />
drown<strong>in</strong>g. So when it comes up <strong>in</strong>to the middle of<br />
<strong>this</strong> brocade and that becomes like a good memory<br />
<strong>in</strong> the middle of th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g it’s a bad memory.” TLS<br />
on love, art and memory formation. The End.<br />
38
REVOLT<br />
takes<br />
BOSTON<br />
artSEEN<br />
COLUMN<br />
BY SUZANNE SCHULTZ<br />
Art is trend<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> Boston, respond<strong>in</strong>g to global<br />
fads and explor<strong>in</strong>g their local relevance. With<br />
nearly the whole city experienc<strong>in</strong>g a creative<br />
Renaissance <strong>in</strong> the <strong>in</strong>terrelated realms of Art,<br />
Food and Fashion... <strong>Revolt</strong> took Boston too see<br />
what the city had to offer.<br />
GALLERY 601<br />
Photography Matt McKee<br />
Apprehension of Change<br />
The Sweet Shrapnel series germ<strong>in</strong>ated after flipp<strong>in</strong>g<br />
through a magaz<strong>in</strong>e celebrat<strong>in</strong>g the art of advertis<strong>in</strong>g.<br />
One page featured an ad with a lemon <strong>in</strong> its imagery,<br />
another was a beauty shot of a handgrenade.<br />
FORUM, 755 Boylston Street is present<strong>in</strong>g Pa<strong>in</strong>ter<br />
Dmitri Valone's PERCEPTION till February 28. The work is<br />
not just about look<strong>in</strong>g, but remember<strong>in</strong>g and revisit<strong>in</strong>g to<br />
see someth<strong>in</strong>g new.<br />
Neiman Marcus, 5 Copley Place, Boston is featur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the art of Judith Shah, Dmitri Valone, Peter Glebo, Ethan<br />
Gaston, Tracy Girdler and Joseph Pulitano. Fashion and Art<br />
play Muse to each other, through January 30.<br />
The Liberty Hotel, 215 Charles Street. Tuesdays are<br />
Gallery night <strong>in</strong> <strong>this</strong> jailhouse turned hotel February 19.<br />
Photographer Graham Wait<strong>in</strong>g will be <strong>in</strong> the ma<strong>in</strong> salon<br />
6-8 p.m. with his show Constra<strong>in</strong>ed by Liberty.<br />
ALL ASIA, 334 Mass Ave., Cambridge Don’t miss<br />
CNC Indie Music Marathon January 31, 6-9:30 p.m. www.<br />
allasiabar.com<br />
Johnny Ds, 17 Holland Ave., Somerville presents<br />
Hayes Carl February 8 at 7:30 p.m.. Carl connects with<br />
music lovers of all genresTickets are $17 <strong>in</strong> advance, $20<br />
day of show. www.johnnyds.com<br />
Middle East, 472 Mass Ave., Cambridge features<br />
Big Dipper February 27 p.m., Downstairs. They are back to<br />
do it aga<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong> 2013.<br />
Check out the Art & Music programm<strong>in</strong>g on BNN<br />
TV. LIVE STREAM www.BNNTV.org click What’s happen<strong>in</strong>g<br />
now! Check out THE TERRIFICS on MONDAY, JANUARY 28,<br />
6-7 p.m. with Steve George and Rich Cesar<strong>in</strong>i on piano,<br />
acoustic, guitar, ukulele ,mandol<strong>in</strong>, accordion and vocals.<br />
Artist ETHAN GASTON, February 4, 6-7 p.m. Abstract<br />
pa<strong>in</strong>ter and sketch artist shares his vision of the world<br />
through his art<br />
DONNA DODSON, March 25th 6-7, p.m. Donna’s<br />
sulptures explore fem<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>e beauty and evoke humor,<br />
playfullness, as well as grace, power and emotional<br />
stength.<br />
For more list<strong>in</strong>gs go to www.itsallaboutarts.com<br />
Suzanne Schultz is founder/CEO of Canvas F<strong>in</strong>e arts <strong>in</strong><br />
Boston, and co-host of BNN TV's ITS ALL ABOUT ARTS<br />
Show, suzanne@canvasf<strong>in</strong>earts.com<br />
I brushed past both pages on my way to another article,<br />
barely register<strong>in</strong>g the images. Five m<strong>in</strong>utes later, the<br />
grenade and lemon had fused <strong>in</strong> my subconsious and<br />
I was on my way to the grocery store to start the creative<br />
process.<br />
The series is not meant to be anti- or pro- anyth<strong>in</strong>g. It<br />
is a representation of my own apprehensions of the<br />
effects we have on the world we exist <strong>in</strong>, move through<br />
and change on purpose and accidentally.<br />
With our movement is our potential for amaz<strong>in</strong>gly<br />
beneficial effects and tragically horrible results. Often<br />
from the same human generated event.<br />
We are at a cross roads, as we always have been.<br />
Nature has grown up around us, despite us, <strong>in</strong> spite of<br />
us, and, even, because of us. Our metaphorical fuse<br />
has formed it and given it structure, even as it f<strong>in</strong>ds its<br />
own way around our best <strong>in</strong>tentions.<br />
Sweet Shrapnels bright colors and simple shapes are<br />
a juxtaposition of the chaotic “natural” state over the<br />
ordered state that is attempted by the hand of man. It<br />
is pr<strong>in</strong>ted on polished alum<strong>in</strong>um and presented without<br />
a frame, but ready to hang.<br />
If the p<strong>in</strong> is pulled, it will destroy the fruit. But, the fruit<br />
is only the transportation system for the seed, which is<br />
designed to be distributed, often violently, to propagate<br />
new life. Matt McKee will be show<strong>in</strong>g <strong>this</strong> series at Arts<br />
Project Sotogrande Spa<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong> 2013.<br />
162 Boylston Street, 6th floor<br />
Boston, MA 02116<br />
617. 470.1889<br />
Saturday 11-4 or by appo<strong>in</strong>tment<br />
www.gallery601boston.com<br />
Peppah Spray!<br />
Banana Slap!<br />
Peppah Spray!<br />
REVOLT<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013<br />
40
George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton<br />
and<br />
aka Dr. Funkenste<strong>in</strong><br />
Economics<br />
Photo by William Thoren<br />
George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton aka<br />
Mr Wiggles the Worm, Lollipop Man, The Grandest Wizard and Atomic Dawg<br />
Baba Supreme is an American icon and one of the foremost <strong>in</strong>novators of<br />
Funk music. He was the pr<strong>in</strong>cipal architect of the large ensemble known as<br />
P-Funk and was <strong>in</strong>ducted <strong>in</strong>to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame <strong>in</strong> 1997.<br />
The <strong>in</strong>f<strong>in</strong>ite <strong>in</strong>telligence with<strong>in</strong> you know the answers<br />
Its nature is to respond to your thoughts…<br />
You rise as high as your dom<strong>in</strong>ant aspiration<br />
You descend to the level of your lowest concept of yourself<br />
Free your m<strong>in</strong>d and your ass will follow<br />
The k<strong>in</strong>gdom of heaven is with<strong>in</strong><br />
― Funkadelic, “Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts” (1974)<br />
of FUNKADELIA to counteract the <strong>in</strong>ane, <strong>in</strong>fantile antics of those pimpatory,<br />
sapless stooges and exploitive ecdysiasts of evil. FUNKADELIA IS UPON<br />
THEE!"<br />
― L<strong>in</strong>er notes, Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop, 1973<br />
‘The Funk is its own reward’<br />
BY KATIE CERCONE<br />
― P-Funk mantra<br />
“Put a glide <strong>in</strong> your stride, a dip <strong>in</strong> yo' hip and come on up to the mothership”<br />
― George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton<br />
“I didn’t really believe <strong>in</strong> religion until I took acid” ― George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton<br />
"I recall, when I left a little town <strong>in</strong> North Carol<strong>in</strong>a, I tried to escape <strong>this</strong><br />
music. I said it was for the old country folks. I went to New York, got slick, got<br />
my hair made (heh-heh- heh-heh), I was cool. I was cool. But I had no groove,<br />
no groove. I had no groove. But now, fly on baby...Dig...Can you feel that<br />
baby? It's called Funkadelic music. It will blow your funky m<strong>in</strong>d."<br />
―"Mommy, What's A Funkadelic?" Funkadelic, 1969<br />
"What is soul?<br />
I don't know! Huh! Uh!<br />
Soul is a hamhock <strong>in</strong> your cornflakes"<br />
―"What Is Soul" Funkadelic, 1969<br />
"Should there be some who would choose to ignore <strong>this</strong> maladroided<br />
message of doom, I further proclaim it to be the right of the noble followers<br />
Photo by William Thoren
The Aesthetic<br />
of Funk:<br />
An Intergenerational Dialogue Spotlight<strong>in</strong>g Fiber Artist and<br />
Cultural Activist Xenobia Bailey<br />
BY KATIE CERCONE<br />
It must be time for humans to get back<br />
<strong>in</strong> touch with ancient knowledge (1)<br />
― George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton<br />
When I began writ<strong>in</strong>g about the Spirituality<br />
of Hip Hop, it was mostly based on a hunch. At the<br />
time I was wash<strong>in</strong>g down yoga teacher’s tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g<br />
with gangsta rap – High on my sh<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g skull breath<br />
<strong>in</strong> the morn<strong>in</strong>g and down dirty drown<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> Snoop<br />
as I biked to class on the w<strong>in</strong>ds of false adrenal<strong>in</strong>e,<br />
bass and the American sex fetish. I was beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g<br />
to see easy transitions between yoga poses, booty<br />
gr<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g and break danc<strong>in</strong>g. Downward Dogg was<br />
sissy bounce. Pussy popp<strong>in</strong> on a hand stand was<br />
a lot like pull<strong>in</strong>g a root lock dur<strong>in</strong>g Sirshasana.<br />
Archetypes of African myth and ritual on the<br />
steroids of global digital <strong>in</strong>terface and Ancient<br />
H<strong>in</strong>du Transcendentalism sold under the guise of<br />
eternal youth and beauty meant Hip Hop and Yoga<br />
were surely the collective pseudo-religions of my<br />
generation.<br />
All was golden. The only th<strong>in</strong>g that scared<br />
me was the one white voice on my iPod “Battery<br />
low.” I just didn’t know how much I was dr<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the Kool Aid.<br />
As bell hooks put it, “The overall impact<br />
of the postmodern condition is that many other<br />
folks now share with black folks a sense of deep<br />
alienation, despair, uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty, loss of a sense<br />
of ground<strong>in</strong>g." (2) Bass is ground<strong>in</strong>g. Hip Hop and<br />
Yoga both take us back to <strong>this</strong> notion of territory,<br />
the clan. Both are fundamentally about Earth and<br />
Sky awareness.<br />
Then one day I met fiber artist and<br />
cultural activist Xenobia Bailey, whose creative<br />
practice concern<strong>in</strong>g The Aesthetic of Funk merges<br />
the discipl<strong>in</strong>es of <strong>in</strong>dustrial design and social<br />
change. We were both speakers on a panel about<br />
Intergeneration Fem<strong>in</strong>ist Dialogue at the College<br />
Art Association conference <strong>in</strong> LA last Spr<strong>in</strong>g. After<br />
hear<strong>in</strong>g Bailey talk about her work around the<br />
Aesthetic of Funk, dropp<strong>in</strong>g words like ‘Cosmic<br />
REVOLT<br />
Elders,’ ‘Tribe Vibe,’ and ‘Sister Paradise’ (3)<br />
(Bailey’s Superhero Alter Ego) I pounced on her<br />
afterward to <strong>in</strong>troduce myself.<br />
Several weeks later I met Xenobia at her<br />
studio <strong>in</strong> Harlem to get <strong>in</strong>to the nitty gritty. This<br />
article, what is meant to be a profile of Bailey with<br />
respect to my own <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong> ‘The Spirituality of<br />
Hip Hop’ is based on our conversation and draws<br />
heavily from Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent’s book FUNK: The<br />
Music, The People and the Rhythm of THE ONE<br />
(1996).<br />
When I made my trek up to Harlem to visit<br />
Xenobia, I had very little context regard<strong>in</strong>g the Funk<br />
(musical predecessor of Hip Hop), and through<br />
much of our conversation I felt almost as if we were<br />
speak<strong>in</strong>g separate languages. This made perfect<br />
sense when I later learned that Funk music was<br />
an <strong>in</strong>tergalactic psychedelic mythology of antiassimilationist<br />
African Diasporic peoples faced with<br />
the tripartite horrors of <strong>in</strong>stitutionalized racism,<br />
economic disenfranchisement and ghettoization.<br />
Consider<strong>in</strong>g how I’m a white female of a privileged<br />
class, most of what I’ve learned about black culture<br />
is from boyfriends and books.<br />
I first imbibed the nectar of Hip Hop via<br />
white washed ‘urban contemporary’ corporate<br />
radio stations. After TLC before the death of the<br />
female MC. Or perhaps put better, “Discuss<strong>in</strong>’<br />
corporate radio - Hot This, Jamm<strong>in</strong> That, Q<br />
This, Blaz<strong>in</strong>’ That – is like debat<strong>in</strong>g the pros and<br />
cons of rape. (4) For Xenobia, her <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong><br />
Black Music is about transatlantic Africa Cultural<br />
memory as creative enterprise, “Art is to me<br />
is like a psychological encyclopedia, it’s a way<br />
of becom<strong>in</strong>g visible.” (5) Bailey expla<strong>in</strong>ed how<br />
the creative process was her conscious and<br />
unconscious connection to her African Roots.<br />
Her primary medium recounts traditional African<br />
aesthetic expressions account<strong>in</strong>g for a cultural<br />
landscape where<strong>in</strong> textiles were long the object of<br />
massive transcont<strong>in</strong>ental trad<strong>in</strong>g networks and a<br />
cultural marker of Africa’s artistic heritage. (6) For<br />
communities of African descent, art is utilitarian:<br />
dance <strong>in</strong>itiates adulthood, masks channel spirit,<br />
cloth<strong>in</strong>g conveys status, and the drum talks. (7)<br />
Says Bailey of her exhibition (Re)Posessed at the<br />
K<strong>in</strong>g Arts Complex <strong>in</strong> Ohio, “Inspired by my African<br />
American 20th Century experience and created to<br />
meditate on the loss of identity, home, history, and<br />
culture, I use the <strong>in</strong>spiration of African American<br />
mythology, popular funk, jazz and soul music and<br />
contemporary urban folklore to materialize utopia<br />
<strong>in</strong> the Aesthetic of Funk.” (8)<br />
Hav<strong>in</strong>g received her degree <strong>in</strong> Industrial<br />
Design for mass production from Pratt University <strong>in</strong><br />
1977, Bailey learned very early on that she’d have<br />
to carve out a new cultural space for her work. “I<br />
didn’t go <strong>in</strong>to that field as a profession because of<br />
my strong African Aesthetic. I really liked gett<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong>to the African storytell<strong>in</strong>g, songs and fables.<br />
With<strong>in</strong> that tradition there’s a lot of futuristic<br />
elements to the aesthetic. I have someth<strong>in</strong>g that<br />
I want to resolve and that affects the work. It’s<br />
almost like a talisman or amulet, a magic wand, or<br />
magic carpet.”<br />
The honor<strong>in</strong>g and strategic disavowal of<br />
African cosmological values such as myth and<br />
ritual is a prom<strong>in</strong>ent feature of African American<br />
cultural production s<strong>in</strong>ce Modernism. Part of a<br />
strategy to “merge social, political and artistic<br />
values <strong>in</strong> a frontal assault on access to the fruits<br />
of white society,” Black urban <strong>in</strong>tellectuals “driven<br />
by the <strong>in</strong>dividualist impulse” of the Modern age<br />
conformed to or adopted <strong>in</strong> part a Western secular<br />
and scientific approach to art and music. (9) For<br />
<strong>in</strong>stance, Scott Jopl<strong>in</strong>'s early Modern folk opera<br />
Treemonisha was one of the first black operas<br />
to receive widespread crossover recognition <strong>in</strong><br />
part because of its rejection of African myth and<br />
ritual <strong>in</strong> favor of Enlightenment style <strong>in</strong>dividual<br />
determ<strong>in</strong>ism. Treemonisha’s poetic armature was<br />
the polarization of education and light aga<strong>in</strong>st<br />
superstition and darkness played out <strong>in</strong> the title<br />
character receiv<strong>in</strong>g school<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> a white woman’s<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 42
home. Later on as the Civil Rights and Black Power<br />
movement caused important psychological shifts<br />
with<strong>in</strong> the Diaspora, Afro-centrism became no<br />
longer at odds with Intellectualist pursuits <strong>in</strong> Music<br />
and Arts by the late sixties and seventies. By the<br />
end of the eighties, you’d see prom<strong>in</strong>ent Black<br />
Artist’s such as Spike Lee celebrat<strong>in</strong>g the Afroaesthetic<br />
and <strong>in</strong>vit<strong>in</strong>g artists such as Bailey, whose<br />
designs appeared <strong>in</strong> his 1989 film Do The Right<br />
Th<strong>in</strong>g, to jo<strong>in</strong> his efforts.<br />
Bailey’s work, based on West African<br />
symbolism, ritual and the neo-tribal consciousness<br />
of Funk music, takes the form of energiz<strong>in</strong>g surface<br />
designs <strong>in</strong> contrast<strong>in</strong>g colors and l<strong>in</strong>ear patterns<br />
or spiral<strong>in</strong>g crochet mandalas. Handmade wall<br />
hang<strong>in</strong>gs, floor cover<strong>in</strong>gs, soft furnish<strong>in</strong>gs and<br />
meditation stations comprise Bailey’s “Crochet<br />
Arts-of-Jubilation.” As process and product they are<br />
artifacts that bear witness to “Re-Possess<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
Ever-last<strong>in</strong>g, Ever-flow<strong>in</strong>g, Susta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g Spirit of the<br />
Aesthetic of Funk, and the abilities of <strong>this</strong> under<br />
cultivated aesthetic to enhance daily life of the<br />
Super-Natural Nature of Everyday People.” Bailey<br />
also calls it “Paradise Reconstruction.” Often, she<br />
works from recycled materials to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> her<br />
ethic of “Deliverance <strong>in</strong>to the self-susta<strong>in</strong>able.”<br />
As an expression of Inspiration-vibration African<br />
Vernacular folk art Xenobia fashions domestic<br />
altars, thrones of power and Priestess collateral<br />
out of recycled fashion magaz<strong>in</strong>es, newspaper,<br />
cardboard boxes, glitter & glue, Scotch Tape,<br />
imag<strong>in</strong>ation and patience. She also goes out <strong>in</strong>to<br />
the community, for <strong>in</strong>stance her “Deep Green<br />
Recycled Arts of Adornment Workshop” two<br />
summers ago at the Studio Museum <strong>in</strong> Harlem<br />
where she taught hundreds of visitors how to make<br />
recycled newspaper flowers. Sounds div<strong>in</strong>e, so<br />
much that you might be th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g – could <strong>this</strong> relate<br />
any less to Hip Hop? And what the fonk is Funk?<br />
If you really want to know STOP READING<br />
NOW. GET UP. AND GET DOWN. In fact, “The more<br />
one th<strong>in</strong>ks about it, the harder it is to get the feel<br />
of FUNK. It’s just done.” (10) Funk is a prism of<br />
Black consciousness with a furious jam factor.<br />
Funk is soundly rooted <strong>in</strong> African cosmology and<br />
the notion that people are created <strong>in</strong> harmony with<br />
the rhythms of nature and that free expression is<br />
tantamount to spiritual and mental health. Funk<br />
was a return to the collective, spontaneous and<br />
organic ideals of the African Ensemble <strong>in</strong> the<br />
face of technology push<strong>in</strong>g popular music toward<br />
formulaic artificiality. Funk is comfortable with and<br />
celebrates sex and the body. It is a rejection of the<br />
Western tradition’s formality, pretense, and selfrepression.<br />
(11)<br />
S<strong>in</strong>ce Bessie Smith sang Need a Little<br />
Sugar <strong>in</strong> My Bowl, the earliest Black commercially<br />
recorded music has relied on euphemisms of sex<br />
that bolster the Racist and Sexist rhetoric of a<br />
white patriarchal capitalist economy still ensconced<br />
<strong>in</strong> a Puritanical fear of The Dark Cont<strong>in</strong>ent –<br />
women, people of color, sexuality and nature.<br />
Nobel Prize w<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g novelist Tony Morrison echoes<br />
<strong>this</strong> sentiment <strong>in</strong> a passage from The Bluest Eye<br />
look<strong>in</strong>g at ‘white’ Americans. Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent borrows<br />
Morrison’s passage to help support his conception<br />
of the Funk:<br />
"They learn…How to behave. The careful<br />
development of thrift, patience, high morals, and<br />
good manners. In short, how to get rid of the<br />
funk<strong>in</strong>ess. The dreadful funk<strong>in</strong>ess of passion, the<br />
funk<strong>in</strong>ess of nature, the funk<strong>in</strong>ess of a wide range<br />
of human emotion. Wherever it erupts, <strong>this</strong> funk,<br />
they wipe it away; where it crests, they dissolve it,<br />
wherever it drips, flowers or cl<strong>in</strong>gs, they f<strong>in</strong>d it and<br />
fight it until it dies. They fight <strong>this</strong> battle all the way<br />
to the grave." (12)<br />
Photo of Xenobia Bailey, courtesy of the artist<br />
When my Mom was <strong>in</strong> Junior High <strong>in</strong> the<br />
sixties she made friends with some black boys<br />
<strong>in</strong> the Jazz dept. of the neighbor<strong>in</strong>g high school<br />
and <strong>in</strong>vited them to play at the school dance. My<br />
mother was the Class President at the time. Dur<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the dance, the Jazz music the guests were play<strong>in</strong>g<br />
was so danceable people started storm<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
stage and go<strong>in</strong>g so hard the event was shut down.<br />
It wasn’t the The Rite of Spr<strong>in</strong>g (13) or anyth<strong>in</strong>g,<br />
but it did cause my mom to be expelled temporarily<br />
from school upon which her father sat her down<br />
to say “We’re not racist, but we don’t want to see<br />
you with that black boy aga<strong>in</strong>.” My Mother, be<strong>in</strong>g<br />
freed from the fate of her Mother (8 Catholic<br />
babies, alcoholism and an absent, unfaithful mate)<br />
by a 2nd Wave Fem<strong>in</strong>ist Movement that spr<strong>in</strong>gboarded<br />
off the Black Civil Rights energy and yet<br />
disproportionately effected middle class women<br />
with white privilege, went on later <strong>in</strong> life to become<br />
a sound healer. And yet unfortunately, it’s that<br />
"We’re not Racist", but mentality that cont<strong>in</strong>ues<br />
to pervade the American cultural arena, a chief<br />
source of Hip Hop’s money-garner<strong>in</strong>g potential and<br />
public controversy.<br />
Recall Michelle Obama gett<strong>in</strong>g major heat<br />
for <strong>in</strong>vit<strong>in</strong>g the rapper Common (You know, the<br />
one that drops rhymes like “There is a light that<br />
sh<strong>in</strong>es special for you and Me”) to read poetry at<br />
the White House. (14) Meanwhile, white blonde<br />
Barbie breath Aussie rapper Iggy Azalea is the first<br />
female MC <strong>in</strong>cluded <strong>in</strong> XXL Magaz<strong>in</strong>e’s Freshman<br />
Class round-up, another <strong>in</strong>dication of an economy<br />
<strong>in</strong> which blackness is feared and marketed through<br />
non-white bodies. Says Hip Hop journalist Akiba<br />
Solomon, “That wasn’t a Hip Hop decision, it was<br />
a market<strong>in</strong>g decision.” Solomon says they call<br />
it go<strong>in</strong>g for the “Drama Jugular,” which doesn’t<br />
excuse the duplicitous subtext: “What’s the only<br />
th<strong>in</strong>g better than a black girl with a big ass?<br />
A white girl with a big ass.” (15) Youth these<br />
days – many of a racially mixed background -<br />
have a remarkably different understand<strong>in</strong>g of the<br />
construct of Race, both its hyperreal limits and<br />
<strong>in</strong>f<strong>in</strong>ite permutations carried out through lived<br />
experience.<br />
Artist Lorra<strong>in</strong>e O-Grady, an advocate of<br />
“Miscegenated th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g,” makes an <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g<br />
po<strong>in</strong>t with regards to the career of Michael<br />
Jackson, whom she dubs “The last real Modernist.”<br />
In O’Grady’s lights, Modernists strive to become<br />
God <strong>in</strong> order to make Make art with God. “Michael<br />
Jackson believed he could unite the whole world<br />
with music, the most God-like vision of an artist.”<br />
She names Thriller as the perfect crossover album<br />
and expla<strong>in</strong>s how “Michael changed his body to<br />
embody the whole world” and succeeded as a<br />
Universal Figure until his attempts literally ate<br />
him alive. The world was both <strong>in</strong>credibly will<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and unready to support his vision. (16) Today<br />
we see the appeal of Hip Hop rival<strong>in</strong>g that of<br />
Michael Jackson, but we also see Hip Hop stars<br />
ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g a communal support system through<br />
the establishment of crews and parent companies,<br />
whereas Michael was forced to go at it alone –<br />
trapped by the Modernist cult of <strong>in</strong>dividual genius.<br />
As it turns out, Xenobia had some pretty<br />
<strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g th<strong>in</strong>gs to say about Hip Hop, and she’s<br />
not your typical naysay<strong>in</strong>g elder either, she’s<br />
just Funky. For <strong>in</strong>stance she says, “The Hip Hop<br />
aesthetic is the style of the work<strong>in</strong>g class. It takes<br />
sneakers, hoodies and jeans to the max. It’s like<br />
the Rococo of the twenty-first century.”
Xenobia Bailey, Aesthetics of Funk, Northwest African American Museum © 2011 Robert Waderen<br />
She admires the genre <strong>in</strong> that, “Hip Hop is s<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the blues, and they’re gett<strong>in</strong>g paid. The genius<br />
of Hip Hop is black owned companies.” She also<br />
set the record straight on Hip Hop’s orig<strong>in</strong>s, “Hip<br />
Hop comes out of funk, which is an aesthetic of<br />
a displaced people. It relies on African cultural<br />
memory that has been put to use to serve an urban<br />
population of blacks <strong>in</strong> resistance to assimilation.”<br />
We talked a lot about how Hip Hop and Funk are<br />
both therapeutic and holistic mediums - they are<br />
regenerative – mean<strong>in</strong>g, says Bailey, “More comes<br />
out of them than what goes <strong>in</strong>.”<br />
And yet, members of the Funk generation<br />
have made righteous pleas for a contemporary<br />
Black art that is serious, not “Chocolate coated,<br />
freaked out and habit-form<strong>in</strong>g.” (17) Pimp<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
pleasure pr<strong>in</strong>ciple is par for the course these days<br />
leav<strong>in</strong>g the consumers of music, to paraphrase<br />
George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton “Fat, horny and strung out.” (18) So<br />
how did we go from a Bessie Smith’s A Little Sugar<br />
to James Brown’s Cakes to Lil Wayne’s L-l-l-ick<br />
Like a Lollipop… Make that ass jump like schzerp<br />
schzerp?<br />
Rap music came <strong>in</strong>to the world as<br />
“Syncopated speak<strong>in</strong>g over a funk beat.” (19)<br />
Anyone that is serious about Hip Hop knows<br />
the genre’s orig<strong>in</strong>s well. Says Hip Hop journalist<br />
Touré, “It all began with a few parties. Jams <strong>in</strong><br />
New York City Parks thrown by DJs like Kool Herc,<br />
Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa…<br />
the police not far away, wait<strong>in</strong>g for just the right<br />
moment to shut it down.” The music? “James<br />
Brown, Sly Stone, Funkadelic, and anyth<strong>in</strong>g with a<br />
stone cold bass and drum rhythm you could rhyme<br />
over – breath<strong>in</strong>g mean<strong>in</strong>g and substance and soul<br />
<strong>in</strong>to our bodies. It gave life. It was God.” (20)<br />
REVOLT<br />
In Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent’s lights, The Hip Hop<br />
World is actually the “fifth funk dynasty.” Clearly,<br />
it’s the first Black dynasty to seriously get paper.<br />
In fact, most early n<strong>in</strong>eties rappers rose to fame<br />
sampl<strong>in</strong>g Funk. You might recall Dr. Dre’s threemillion<br />
sell<strong>in</strong>g LP The Chronic featur<strong>in</strong>g Snoop<br />
Doggy Dogg. The Chronic title song remixes The<br />
Parliament’s ‘P-Funk make my Funk the P-Funk’<br />
replac<strong>in</strong>g ‘funk’ with ‘shit’ and ‘P-funk’ with<br />
chronic.” (21) “Most of the ‘greatest hits’ of the<br />
Funk era have been stripped of all usable parts<br />
like an abandoned car,” (22) which means most<br />
Funk artists were not recognized or compensated<br />
adequately for their contributions to the cannon of<br />
American Music. If the Funk classics haven’t been<br />
stripped and rebooted under the corporate rap<br />
banners of titties, ass, drugz and gunz they’ve been<br />
mass marketed as compilation and tribute albums<br />
which are bor<strong>in</strong>g “hit parades” deny<strong>in</strong>g the Funk’s<br />
political consciousness and spiritual beliefs. (23)<br />
Which is exactly why the work Xenobia<br />
Bailey is do<strong>in</strong>g is so critical. Let’s break summa<br />
dis down. Bailey is speak<strong>in</strong>g the language of<br />
Black Vernacular Folk Wisdom and considers<br />
herself a “Cultural Rehabilitator.” Her human-size<br />
<strong>in</strong>stallations uplift and <strong>in</strong>spire while bely<strong>in</strong>g the<br />
African American aesthetic as a qu<strong>in</strong>tessential part<br />
of American daily life. She is also speak<strong>in</strong>g a very<br />
West-Coast language. Like Jimi Hendrix, Xenobia<br />
Bailey was born <strong>in</strong> Seattle. Be<strong>in</strong>g a West-Coaster<br />
myself, today I can jive on the utopian, mystical<br />
treasures of the Aesthetic of Funk. Although it’s<br />
a message that just a few years back, knee deep<br />
<strong>in</strong> the New York Ego-trip, would have made me<br />
anxious and cynical. Runn<strong>in</strong>g on false adrenal<strong>in</strong>e is<br />
like spend<strong>in</strong>g your sav<strong>in</strong>gs; and I’ve bottomed<br />
out enough times now to take an <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong><br />
Groundedness. Hip Hop’s appeal relies on the<br />
communicability of trauma. Black Music is the type<br />
of medic<strong>in</strong>e that gives you a lot of what you want<br />
and even more of what you need. It revs you up<br />
as it anchors you to the beat, the bass, the drum<br />
as mythic communication channel and “symbol<br />
of primordial sound, and vehicle for the word,<br />
for tradition and for magic.” (24) There’s actually<br />
say<strong>in</strong>g, “You have to root to fly.”<br />
Bailey recalled the American Civil War and<br />
the way that it resulted <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>evitable stalemate:<br />
“Both sides had been tra<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> the same<br />
methods, neither knew the way of the true warrior.”<br />
As a former student of Industrial Design, Bailey<br />
is <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> Funk music and its relationship<br />
to urban and rural development. She identifies<br />
less as an artist and more as a cultural <strong>in</strong>novator<br />
whose products – from Funky Fly Crowns to urban<br />
tea ceremonies to the l<strong>in</strong>e of post-consumer<br />
material based paper mache furniture she’s<br />
planned to construct <strong>this</strong> summer - are utilitarian<br />
and functional. Her colorful areas for meditation,<br />
alters and other operational items are geared for<br />
a revolution <strong>in</strong> consciousness. She also plans to<br />
eventually offer the Aesthetic of Funk as an onl<strong>in</strong>e<br />
curriculum for constituents around the world. She’d<br />
like to see the Aesthetic of Funk Industrialized <strong>in</strong>to<br />
a holistic community model for the rejuvenation of<br />
the work<strong>in</strong>g class.<br />
She’s also not above play, magic and<br />
fantasy – it’s Funky. Dur<strong>in</strong>g our conversation<br />
Bailey recalled one day years ago when she was<br />
out walk<strong>in</strong>g along Park Avenue and noticed all the<br />
women around her had beautiful fur coats on. She<br />
didn’t have a coat that was nice at the time, so she<br />
Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 44
Sistah Paradise, Photo courtesy of the artist<br />
decided to make one for herself. The handmade<br />
one-of-a-k<strong>in</strong>d coat Bailey made soon became<br />
the target of many uproarious compliments from<br />
passersby on the street and was years later<br />
purchased by the Museum of Art & Design <strong>in</strong> New<br />
York City.<br />
When I asked Bailey about her relationship<br />
to female icons and archetypes of African<br />
mythology, she expla<strong>in</strong>ed that although she has<br />
studied some African folklore outright and made<br />
work <strong>in</strong> that ve<strong>in</strong> – for <strong>in</strong>stance her piece about the<br />
mythic African woman whose cook<strong>in</strong>g stopped a<br />
War - she is just as <strong>in</strong>vested <strong>in</strong> the extraord<strong>in</strong>ary<br />
everyday woman and girls of her Seattle and New<br />
York City communities. Most of her designs are<br />
less an expression honor<strong>in</strong>g an ancient deity than<br />
a blue pr<strong>in</strong>t of her higher self: Xenobia the urban<br />
African American woman resist<strong>in</strong>g assimilation and<br />
filter<strong>in</strong>g a profound, perhaps semi-conscious or<br />
even ‘imag<strong>in</strong>ed’ cultural memory <strong>in</strong>to Art. Bailey’s<br />
alter ego Sister Paradise recalls the custom of<br />
adopt<strong>in</strong>g a knickname many fans of George<br />
Cl<strong>in</strong>ton’s P-Funk engaged <strong>in</strong>.<br />
The Parliaments or P-Funk (short for<br />
‘Pure Funk) were a fifty plus ensemble of rotat<strong>in</strong>g<br />
members. What some have even termed an ‘Afro<br />
Alien Diaspora,’ P-Funk was more than just music.<br />
As articulated by Michael O-Neal <strong>in</strong> ‘The P-funk<br />
Aesthetic’ P-Funk contributed to the positive<br />
identity formation of blacks: Sir Nose and Starchild,<br />
and Dr. Funkenste<strong>in</strong>, as animated (as opposed<br />
to real) superheroes, give black children a sense<br />
of animation <strong>in</strong> their own likeness that previously<br />
they have been denied – especially by the media.<br />
These superheroes offer them a mythic sense of<br />
possibility.<br />
S<strong>in</strong>ce slavery the notion of Black liberation<br />
had been framed by Christian theology and what<br />
Tamara W<strong>in</strong>frey Harris is call<strong>in</strong>g ‘Respectability<br />
Politics,’ a platform which adopts the manners<br />
and morality of the dom<strong>in</strong>ant culture <strong>in</strong> an effort<br />
to aggressively derail negative views of blackness.<br />
Respectability politics calls Erykah Badu “trash<br />
with great hair” for hav<strong>in</strong>g 3 kids and “a grow<strong>in</strong>g list<br />
of baby daddies” and celebrates Beyonce because<br />
she (<strong>in</strong> the word of P Diddy’s son Just<strong>in</strong> Combs)<br />
“dated, married, THEN got pregnant…ladies<br />
take notes.” (25) P-Funk, like many non-Western<br />
philosophies, centered around a notion of ‘cosmic<br />
oneness’ which defied the divisive b<strong>in</strong>aries of<br />
Western ideology such as virg<strong>in</strong>/jezebel, dark/light,<br />
spiritual/secular, <strong>in</strong>tellect/<strong>in</strong>tuition. (26) In P-funk<br />
as <strong>in</strong> African folk wisdom, the sexual be<strong>in</strong>g and the<br />
spiritual be<strong>in</strong>g co<strong>in</strong>cide. The P-Funk’s elaborate<br />
fantasyscapes drew a generation of urban youth<br />
<strong>in</strong>to their post<strong>in</strong>dustrial black urban folklore.<br />
Church-based funk chants, ritualism, mantras,<br />
symbolic stage props and gospel like <strong>in</strong>vocations<br />
elevated popular music out of <strong>this</strong> world.<br />
Cl<strong>in</strong>ton’s P-Funk put the African American<br />
ethic at the center of the universe while<br />
P-Funk’s "One Nation Under A Groove" banner<br />
communicated to millions worldwide how Funk was<br />
a ‘life force’ comparable to other Eastern concepts<br />
such as Ra <strong>in</strong> Egypt, Kundal<strong>in</strong>i <strong>in</strong> India and Chi <strong>in</strong><br />
Ch<strong>in</strong>a. (27) Black African music bridges the m<strong>in</strong>d<br />
and the body through rhythms. Accord<strong>in</strong>g to UC<br />
Professor Roy Thomas, <strong>in</strong> many African languages<br />
"no dist<strong>in</strong>ction is made between music and<br />
dance.” (28) In effect, African cultural rituals<br />
<strong>in</strong>corporat<strong>in</strong>g melody and movement embody<br />
relationships of “<strong>in</strong>terdependence and reciprocity”<br />
of the human and spiritual realms. (29) With<br />
respect to its offspr<strong>in</strong>g Hip Hop, M.K Asante Jr.<br />
asserts that the word ‘Hip’ actually comes from<br />
‘Hipi’ a term of the African Wolof Language (spoken<br />
<strong>in</strong> Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania) which means<br />
literally to be enlightened or to open one’s eyes<br />
and see. (30)<br />
P-Funk, perhaps one of the most<br />
successful attempts to fuse the secular and the<br />
sacred through popular music for the masses,<br />
has performed live for over five decades now,<br />
meanwhile acts of <strong>in</strong>dustry copyright fraud, theft,<br />
and <strong>in</strong>tellectual <strong>in</strong>justice have left many of its<br />
members with very little capital to speak of while<br />
generations of rappers to follow have sampled<br />
their music and reaped great rewards. Well <strong>in</strong>to his<br />
seventies, George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton cont<strong>in</strong>ues to perform and<br />
<strong>in</strong> addition to his most recent legal actions aga<strong>in</strong>st<br />
corrupt bus<strong>in</strong>ess practices of music <strong>in</strong>dustry<br />
mega-players he has been work<strong>in</strong>g together with<br />
congressmen, elected officials and lawyers <strong>in</strong> a<br />
full-scale effort to avenge and “[Emancipate]<br />
himself and other African-American musical artists<br />
from a history of unfair barga<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g and a culture of<br />
exploitation." (31)<br />
A recent crowd-sourc<strong>in</strong>g venture to raise<br />
$50,000 for the restoration and preservation of<br />
orig<strong>in</strong>al P-Funk record<strong>in</strong>gs and the repair of the<br />
family record<strong>in</strong>g studio offered items such as a<br />
P-Funk Mega Mix Download, a call or voicemail<br />
from George and a private concert with your set list<br />
as bonuses for $5, $300 and $25,000 donations.<br />
The righteous campaign by its end had surpassed<br />
its goal br<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> $50,419.<br />
Fishbone, a band whose horn-driven, bassheavy<br />
punk-funk fusion sound <strong>in</strong>fluenced the Red
Photo courtesy of the artist<br />
Hot Chili Peppers and No Doubt, have slipped <strong>in</strong>to<br />
a similar situation of f<strong>in</strong>ancial decl<strong>in</strong>e while they’re<br />
white predecessors - Gwen Stefani <strong>in</strong> particular –<br />
cont<strong>in</strong>ue to take the nation by storm. In<br />
the Lev Anderson and Chris Metzler documentary<br />
Everyday Sunsh<strong>in</strong>e: The Story of Fishbone, we see<br />
an all powerful blond Stefani prais<strong>in</strong>g the band<br />
profusely and call<strong>in</strong>g out Angelo Moore (Fishbone<br />
frontman) as her greatest “style <strong>in</strong>spiration.”<br />
Meanwhile, Angelo Moore, well <strong>in</strong>to his late forties,<br />
is evicted and moves back <strong>in</strong> with his Mother. The<br />
film recounts the legacy of Fishbone as hav<strong>in</strong>g<br />
emerged out of the late 1970’s desegregation<br />
laws mandated <strong>in</strong> L.A. that resulted <strong>in</strong> a number<br />
of black <strong>in</strong>ner city kids be<strong>in</strong>g bussed to the white<br />
suburbs to attend school. Fishbone formed and<br />
quickly dove <strong>in</strong>to the white dom<strong>in</strong>ated punk scene<br />
and enchanted audiences across the nation for<br />
decades.<br />
The film recalls their story and <strong>in</strong>cludes<br />
<strong>in</strong>terviews with a number of prom<strong>in</strong>ent forces <strong>in</strong><br />
the music scene. Says rapper Ice T <strong>in</strong> Sunsh<strong>in</strong>e<br />
“Fishbone just caught all of LA off-guard. The<br />
gangbangers would be look<strong>in</strong>’ at em like, who<br />
are these crazy motherfuckers?” Often, Fishbone<br />
played for mostly white audiences. Says Angelo<br />
Moore recount<strong>in</strong>g the response he’d get from the<br />
black community, “We a<strong>in</strong>’t try<strong>in</strong>g to hit that str<strong>in</strong>gy<br />
haired white music.” Says Fishbone keyboardist<br />
Chris Dowd, “We stylistically went so many places<br />
because we wanted to unify everybody.” At the end<br />
of the day they were still, as George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton put<br />
it, “Too black for white people, too white for white<br />
people, too white for black people.”<br />
Despite the confus<strong>in</strong>g response of listeners<br />
and Columbia records – where music was still<br />
segregated <strong>in</strong>to departments by race when the<br />
band was signed <strong>in</strong> the 80s, Fishbone prevailed<br />
– through the crack epidemic, the growth of the<br />
prison <strong>in</strong>dustrial complex, the Rodney K<strong>in</strong>g Riots<br />
and the escalation of black-on-black violence, gang<br />
warfare and police brutality. As evidenced <strong>in</strong><br />
Sunsh<strong>in</strong>e, the band is to <strong>this</strong> day still<br />
recognized by many <strong>in</strong> the field as one of the best<br />
live acts and most <strong>in</strong>fluential bands ever to exist.<br />
Remarks Eugene Hatz of Gogol Bordello echo<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the roots emphasis of the Funk genre, “The white<br />
imag<strong>in</strong>ation of America is just much more bl<strong>in</strong>d<br />
and doesn’t have roots, the longevity and the<br />
history. [Fishbone] drew on sources that were<br />
to vast for the common m<strong>in</strong>d.” Like P-Funk and<br />
Xenobia, Fishbone resisted assimilation. Also like<br />
Xenobia, Fishbone was called upon by Spike Lee to<br />
appear <strong>in</strong> a film (Sunless Saturday, 1991).<br />
Ultimately what these three projects<br />
provide is an anti-assimilationist counter narrative<br />
that challenges the conf<strong>in</strong>es of regulatory<br />
blackness, ghettocentricity and respectability<br />
politics alike. They also confront ma<strong>in</strong>stream<br />
narratives about art which constantly appropriate<br />
Black creativity without giv<strong>in</strong>g proper credit and<br />
compensation where it’s due. As discussed <strong>in</strong><br />
Everyday Sunsh<strong>in</strong>e, Fishbone’s achievements may<br />
h<strong>in</strong>ge on the fact that many of its members were<br />
(post-desegregation) sheltered from some of the<br />
crueler realities of the enforced Black ghettos. In<br />
the film band member Dirty Walt (vocals/trombone)<br />
recalls how uncanny it was when he met Angelo<br />
Moore who had grown up <strong>in</strong> the suburbs and was<br />
“devoid of hood sense…He’d be smil<strong>in</strong>’ all the<br />
damn time you just can’t come to the hood smil<strong>in</strong>’<br />
all the damn time.<br />
Unfortunately, com<strong>in</strong>g of age dawns darkly<br />
for most. It’s still the case that all <strong>in</strong>novations<br />
<strong>in</strong> music – most of which have been by black<br />
projects – will still be deflated and vacuum sealed<br />
<strong>in</strong>to bubblegum pop scented th<strong>in</strong>/Blonde/white/<br />
female-fronted Mall noise. What Xenobia Bailey’s<br />
‘Aesthetic of Funk’ project provides is an expansive<br />
trac<strong>in</strong>g of the trajectory of conscious cultural<br />
<strong>in</strong>novators like Fishbone and P-Funk, build<strong>in</strong>g on<br />
their vision and mak<strong>in</strong>g it tangible, communal<br />
and real. It also encourages the young folk, myself<br />
<strong>in</strong>cluded, to ‘unplug’ long enough to confront the<br />
orig<strong>in</strong>s and significance of the meat and bones<br />
of popular consumption; ultimately encourag<strong>in</strong>g<br />
counter-consumption, (re)assemblage, recycl<strong>in</strong>g<br />
and non-l<strong>in</strong>ear holistic ways of act<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the cultural<br />
sphere.<br />
1 George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton, foreword, FUNK: The Music, The People and<br />
the Rhythm of THE ONE, Rickey V<strong>in</strong>cent, New York: St. Mart<strong>in</strong>’s<br />
Griff<strong>in</strong>, 1996, p. xv<br />
2 bell hooks, “Postmodern Blackness,” Postmodern Culture,<br />
Vol. 1, No. 1, September 1990<br />
3 Xenobia Bailey, “Paradise <strong>in</strong> Her Hands: Blasts of Inspiration,<br />
the Activation of Creative Flow, and the Discovery of the<br />
Wonder-Worlds of Fiber,” paper delivered dur<strong>in</strong>g ‘Necessary<br />
Positions’: Intergenerational Collaboration <strong>in</strong> Fem<strong>in</strong>ist Art<br />
and Activism, Maria Elena Buszek, moderator. CAA Annual<br />
Conference, LA Convention Center, February 22, 2012.<br />
4 M.K. Asante, Jr. Its Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the<br />
Post-Hip-Hop Generation, New York, St. Mart<strong>in</strong>’s Griff<strong>in</strong>, 2008,<br />
p. 259<br />
5 Xenobia Bailey, Museum of Art & Design Video blog, May 15,<br />
2011, http://madmuseum.org/content/artist-xenobia-bailey<br />
6 Synopsis for the group exhibition featur<strong>in</strong>g Bailey “The<br />
Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End,”<br />
September 30, 2008–March 22, 2009 at the Metropolitan<br />
Museum of Art, New York, NY http://goldwaterlibrary.typepad.<br />
com/rgl/2008/09/the-essential-art-of-african-textiles-designwithout-end-opens-september-30.html<br />
7 Eisa Nefertari Ulen: They’re Not Talk<strong>in</strong>g About Me, Home<br />
Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Fem<strong>in</strong>ism Anthology<br />
Gwendolyn D. Pough, Ela<strong>in</strong>e Richardson, Aisha Durham,<br />
Rachel Raimist, eds., 2007<br />
8 Xenobia Bailey, (Re)Possessed catalog, The K<strong>in</strong>g Arts<br />
Complex, Columbus, Ohio, 2008<br />
9 Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., The Power of Black Music, New York:<br />
Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 134<br />
10 George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton <strong>in</strong> FUNK, ibid p. xiii<br />
11 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK: The Music, The People and the<br />
Rhythm of THE ONE, New York: St. Mart<strong>in</strong>’s Griff<strong>in</strong>, 1996, p. 5<br />
12 Tony Morrison quoted <strong>in</strong> Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 5<br />
13 The Rite of Spr<strong>in</strong>g was a ballet with music by Igor<br />
Strav<strong>in</strong>sky which premièred <strong>in</strong> Paris on May 29, 1913 caus<strong>in</strong>g<br />
the most famous riot of classical music <strong>in</strong> history.<br />
14 Jason L<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>s, “Outrage Flares As Michelle Obama Invites<br />
Common To White House To Read Poetry,” Huff<strong>in</strong>gton Post,<br />
May 10, 2011<br />
15 Akiba Solomon, Nice With Hers, Panel at the Schomburg<br />
Center for Research <strong>in</strong> Black Culture, New York, NY. May 2,<br />
2012<br />
16 Lorra<strong>in</strong>e O’Grady <strong>in</strong> conversation with Kellie Jones, “Portrait<br />
of an Artist: Lorra<strong>in</strong>e O’Grady,” PERFORMA event, April 25,<br />
2012, NYU Campus<br />
17 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 165<br />
18 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 274<br />
19 David Toop quoted <strong>in</strong> Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 9<br />
20 Touré, The Hip Hop Nation <strong>in</strong> And it Can’t Stop: The Best<br />
American Hip Hop Journalism of the Last 25 Years, Raquel<br />
Cepeda, ed. New York: Faber and Faber Inc.,<br />
2004, pg. 276<br />
21 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 241<br />
22 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 9<br />
23 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 27<br />
24 Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (1971) quoted <strong>in</strong> The Power<br />
of Black Music, ibid p. 225<br />
25 Tamara W<strong>in</strong>frey Harris, No Disrespect: Black Women and<br />
the Burden of Respectability, Bitch Magaz<strong>in</strong>e, Summer 2012,<br />
pg. 33<br />
26 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 258<br />
27 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 262<br />
28 Ricky V<strong>in</strong>cent, FUNK, ibid, p. 36<br />
29 Richards, Let the Circle be Unbroken: The Implications of<br />
Spirituality <strong>in</strong> the African Diaspora (1980) quoted <strong>in</strong><br />
The Power of Black Music ibid, p. 20<br />
30 M.K Asante Jr., ibid p. 250<br />
31 Howard Mann quoted <strong>in</strong> “FUNKIN’ Right! George Cl<strong>in</strong>ton<br />
Takes Action,” PR Web: Onl<strong>in</strong>e Visability from Vocus, December<br />
8, 2011<br />
REVOLT Magaz<strong>in</strong>e Number 3, 2013 46
Tribute to<br />
Mark Wiener<br />
1951-2012<br />
http://mwienerarts.com<br />
By Randee Silv<br />
Captivated. I can't stop star<strong>in</strong>g at Mark<br />
Wiener's pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>gs. I can't stop try<strong>in</strong>g to dissect each<br />
piece. Dense narratives of events keep emerg<strong>in</strong>g<br />
<strong>in</strong>to visibility. I'm determ<strong>in</strong>ed to uncover what it is<br />
that keeps me cont<strong>in</strong>ually look<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>in</strong>trigued, never<br />
bored. They're like puzzles, mazes, detective novels<br />
as my eyes seek focus to f<strong>in</strong>d just the right spot<br />
to enter, to jump the fence, to journey among the<br />
streets of these translucent, multifaceted surfaces.<br />
It's as if he's pa<strong>in</strong>ted everyth<strong>in</strong>g known, felt, seen,<br />
every step we've traveled.<br />
Instantly I'm drawn to the immediacy of his<br />
palette, his cleverly diverse strokes, the juxtaposed<br />
spheres float<strong>in</strong>g, ground<strong>in</strong>g with imperfect grids,<br />
pours, drips, erasures, tensions f<strong>in</strong>d<strong>in</strong>g balance<br />
with one another. As I witness these mark<strong>in</strong>gs, the<br />
recollections triggered, recalled, I search for traced<br />
remnants left beh<strong>in</strong>d by salvaged objects, their<br />
impr<strong>in</strong>ts randomly scattered but never lost.<br />
How can you not be tempted to follow these<br />
trails, the simple ones, the challeng<strong>in</strong>g ones, the<br />
marks captured beneath graphite substrate as the<br />
<strong>in</strong>k pa<strong>in</strong>t entw<strong>in</strong>es with acrylic throws, charcoal<br />
dust, to observe the slowness, the speed as water<br />
dries, shades of black reclaimed? How can you not<br />
hear the silences, the explosions, the depths of<br />
stories told, ag<strong>in</strong>g and renew<strong>in</strong>g, always curious,<br />
always question<strong>in</strong>g?<br />
Mesmerized. Instances amid <strong>in</strong>stances<br />
endur<strong>in</strong>g, susta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g attention, regroup<strong>in</strong>g my<br />
thoughts. L<strong>in</strong>es of elegant fluidity, reflective<br />
moments <strong>in</strong> between occurrences, reoccurrences,<br />
syncopations. My gaze deepens <strong>in</strong> dialogue with<br />
these communities of ideas. There's someth<strong>in</strong>g so<br />
resilient, so true, alive. An urban landscape, an<br />
open field, a sense of place.<br />
Photos by: Giandomenica Becchio<br />
Pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g, Mark Wiener, (1) Untitled,<br />
Wed, July 26, 3:11:56 pm, 22" x 30", mixed media on paper, 2011