Sixty Inches From Center’s Top Picks From 2012

Read the complete post here. My contribution, highlighting the Rapid Pulse Performance Festival, is below.

Remnants of Sallie Smith’s performance at Rapid pulse 2012. Photo credit: Casey Searles

Out of the vast array of arts happenings in Chicago I find myself predominately attending three types of events: opening and closing receptions, performances, and artist talks and lectures. The first is an opportunity to meet and greet those embedded in the art scene; but rarely an opportunity to truly look at the art; the second is (dare I use the word typically?) an art event with some sort of viewing structure, a set time for observation and contemplation; and the third is a time for stretching, flexing, and feeding the mind.

The June 2012 Rapid Pulse International Performance Festival offered a smorgasbord of the arts experiences explained above. On the evening of June 8, 2012 I had the opportunity to see Sallie Smith’s (Chicago) project, Cycle. Smith, clad in re-appropriated athletic wear, that covered very little of her body, rode a bicycle atop two cinder blocks for a grueling amount of time. Straddling a line of torture and comedy she grunted her way through her “ride” and finished with a climactic, messy, eruptive bang. The performance was sexually charged, strenuous, and explosively shocking. Later that evening Loo Zihan (Singapore) shared his performance, Cane, which is a re-enactment of Josef Ng’s controversial 1993 performance, Brother Cane from 1993. Ng’s Brother Cane sparked a debate in Singapore about obscenity in art. In his stirring version Loo educated the audience about Ng’s original performance by re-enacting and poignantly appropriating the original piece.

The following day I attended the artist talk,  “Body/Absences/Liveness,” with Arthur Elsenaar, Julie Laffin, and Jane Jerardi, moderated by executive director of Defibrillator, Joseph Ravens. Each artist presented his or her artwork, and afterwards a multi-faceted discussion about the categorization of performance art ensued.

Next year’s Rapid Pulse International Performance Festival is scheduled for June 1—12, 2013. Follow the updates on the event here.

Sunday Morning Coffee (Pink Splash on a Monday Morning)

Source.

Disco in downtown Chicago!

Ex-North Korean artwork shown in the U.S.

Speaking of North Korea, please check out this project! Young Sun Han is an SAIC grad and currently lives in Chicago. Some of his family is from North Korea and a portion of the proceeds from his sales go to Life Fund for North Korean Refugees. (Yes, Zane Davis, I am highly recommending you watch the short video.)

On the Wallstreet Journal Blog, Singapore Considers “No-Censorship Zones”

Art Radar’s 16 most searched Asian artists from July-December 2011. It looks like Ai Weiwei was number one but they also reported a surge in searches for Korean artists (I hope thats not just me doing thesis research!). Lee Yong-baek is number 8 on the list, I am in the midst of writing a chapter on him.

Sunday Morning Coffee

Miru Kim, Composition 2, 2011

I’ve been spending the last week writing a chapter of my thesis on Miru Kim. More on her in another post.

If you haven’t decided who to vote for in the fall let me help you. Michelle Obama does the interlude dance. 

Starving for Perfection–a follow up on some of these artists.

Get some art in the mail for free!

Singapore Considers “No-Censorship Zones”–Read this article

Okay, back to my thesis.

Making Chinatown by Ming Wong

Ming Wong, Making China Town, 2011

I learned about Ming Wong from e-flux.  This is what e-flux had to say.

Find Ming Wong’s website by clicking here.

Read about his work on REDCAT‘s website.

My initial attraction to the work was purely visual but after reading a bit about it my interest grew,

“Working through the visual styles and tropes of such iconic film directors as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wong Kar-wai and Ingmar Bergman, Wong’s practice considers the means through which subjectivity and geographic location are constructed by motion pictures.” -REDCAT

“Wong’s reinterpretation, Making Chinatown, transforms the exhibition space into a studio backlot and examines the original film’s constructions of language, performance and identity.” -e-flux