To the art college this evening for an installation by Dan Shay "exploring the blurring boundaries between the real and the virtual world, as apparatuses change how we see the world". I took a few photos and here they are:
Rudolf Schwarzkogler (13 November 1940 in Vienna – 20 June 1969) was an Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese Actionism group that included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Hermann Nitsch.
He is best known today for photographs depicting his series of closely controlled "Aktionen" featuring such iconography as a dead fish, a dead chicken, bare light bulbs, colored liquids, bound objects, and a man wrapped in gauze. The enduring themes of Schwarzkogler's works involved experience of pain and mutilation, often in an incongruous clinical context, such as 3rd Aktion (1965) in which a patient's head swathed in bandages is being pierced by what appears to be a corkscrew, producing a bloodstain under the bandages. They reflect a message of despair at the disappointments and hurtfulness of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Schwarzkogler
3rd Aktion, 1965
Schwarzkogler is one of four Viennese artists who grouped themselves under the title Wiener Aktionsgruppe,or
the ‘Vienna Action Group’, in 1965. Hermann Nitsch (born 1938), Otto
Mühl (born 1925) and Günter Brus (born 1938) created ritualistic
performances or Actions aimed at releasing repressed desires and
bringing about a state of cathartic awareness through acts which often
subverted traditional authorities and broke taboos. The Actions were
initially conceived in relation to the activity of painting. Paint and
organic substitutes for paint, such as blood and food, are common
materials used in combination with the artists’ and performers’ bodies.
Despite individual differences, the members of the group frequently
collaborated and performed in each others’ Actions. Ludwig Hoffenreich, a
well known Viennese press photographer, documented Actions by all
members of the group during the 1960s and 70s. Schwarzkogler was
particularly attracted to the work of early Austrian Expressionists such
as Egon Schiele (1890-1918) and Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980), the more
recent French artist Yves Klein (1928-62) and the Viennese artist Arnulf
Rainer (born 1929). He created a total of six Actions, five in 1965 and
one in 1966. Although the first, Wedding,
was performed in front of an audience, Schwarzkogler found it so
distracting that he staged all subsequent actions purely for the camera.
His use of a clinical white background and his careful arrangement of
the constituents of each photograph distinguish his work from that of
the other Actionists, for whom the experience of public performance was
the principal goal. An extreme aesthetic simplicity, complemented by
photographing in black and white rather than in colour, and the
repetition of props and themes, confer a formal clarity on his images.
Elements recurring in the 2nd, 3rd, 4thand 6th Actions
include razor blades, fish, a white chicken, a black mirror, cosmetic
utensils, white bandages - wrapped around a male body and covering a
large white ball – and other medical equipment such as scissors,
scalpels, glass bottles and plastic tubing.
Elizabeth Manchester http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schwarzkogler-2nd-action-t11846/text-summary
6th Aktion, 1966 Hermann
Nitsch, one of his friends and a fellow artist, talked about a "febrile
erotic sweetness" around the issues of creativity and death in Vienna,
where both artists had worked. Nitsch
quoted, as attendant intoxicants to this state of mind, the late works of
a dying and diseased Schubert, and Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder"
("the songs of dead children"). Both are examples of a heady, romanticised
relationship between works of art and mortality.
Much of the fascination
Schwarzkogler holds is due to the sheer lack of available information, and
to the tragic brevity of his adult life. As is perhaps understandable in such
a case -- at least in terms of journalism -- rumours about him abound. Most
notable is that of his death itself. "Everyone seems to know by now that
Rudolf Schwarzkogler did not actually kill himself by cutting off his penis
in slices during an Action," Keith Seward wrote in Artforum in
1994. In fact, Rudolf either leapt or
fell (most assume the former) from his apartment window after a long period
of extreme depression. Yet the penis-slicing mutilation is a recurrent myth,
reported as the apex of his creative oeuvre. Ironically, it was in previous
issues of Artforum that I had first found the erroneous story. First
in October 1972, and again in January 1978: "We must not forget that
Rudolf Schwarzkogler went further than any other masochist body worker, for
he proceeded inch by inch to amputate his penis whilst a photographer recorded
this art event". The root of this
myth is a rather wilful misinterpretation of Schwarzkogler's photographs,
shown posthumously at Documenta in the 1970s. Philip Wincolmlee Barnes http://reconstruction.eserver.org/023/Barnes.htm
6th Aktion, 1966
Rudolf Schwarzkogler’s 6th action was his last
photographically documented performance before his death. After that he
collaborated on projects with Otto Mühl and Günter Brus, presumably he
held another three actions that he did not document, further actions
of his were only conceptualised on paper.
From the 2nd action
Schwarzkogler reduced the colour range and so adapted to the
photographs that were taken on black and white film only. The image
above shows him in white bandages in a white room, a square, black
mirror is leaning on the wall and there are a big and a small white
globe. During the performance a dead white chicken, as well as a light
bulb and a black electrical cord are added.
He held his
actions for the camera only, there was no dramaturgically structured
course of events, as was the case with Mühl, Brus and Nitsch who acted
in front of spectators and often got the audience involved in the
process. His photographs are perfectly composed arrangements in space.
In his drawings he predefined all elements that would be used. As no
audience was present, the actions could be stopped as many times as
needed to change camera angles or correct and improve the composition.
In spite of the important role that photography plays in
Schwarzkogler’s oeuvre, there are only few existing prints of his work
presumably due to his precarious financial situation at the time. There
are only few prints that were made during the lifetime of the artist.
The larger part of the photographs circulating today was commissioned
by his girlfriend and the manager of his estate Edith Adam, Ludwig
Hoffenreich or the Italian collector Francesco Conz. Hermann Nitsch,
Ludwig Hoffenreich and Edith Adam often chose the picture detail of the
image.
The actionist photographs of Schwarzkogler were never
exhibited during his lifetime. In 1970 Günter Brus magazine Die
Schastrommel first published a selection of photographs. They only
reached wider acclaim when they were shown at the Documenta 5 in Kassel
curated by Harald Szeemann in 1972.
To the Generator this evening for They Had Four Years, an annual show featuring new works by recent
graduates selected from three of Scotland’s art schools: Eilidh Mckay and Craig
Thomson (both graduates from Duncan of Jordanstone, Dundee) William
Darrell (Edinburgh College of Art) and Hans Peter Auken Beck (Glasgow
School of Art). No handouts or titles were forthcoming, but I took a few photos and here they are:
The Russians Send the First Rocket into Space from Suddenly this Overview, 1981-2006
Peter Fischli (born 8 June 1952) and David Weiss (21 June
1946 – 27 April 2012), often shortened to Fischli/Weiss, were an artist
duo that had been collaborating since 1979. They were among the most
renowned contemporary artists of Switzerland.
Suddenly this Overview (1981) is a collection of unfired clay sculptures imaginatively recreating various events in human history.
The figures range from those rendered in meticulous detail, to coarse,
sketch-like pieces. As is implied by "The World We Live In" – the title
originally envisaged for the work – this panorama of interwoven
happenings in the world arising out of the artists' subjective
viewpoint, with its assembly of events both large and small, questions
what it means to be alive. First unveiled in 1981 as an installation
consisting of around 200 objects, a new version comprising about 90 was
presented in 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fischli_%26_David_Weiss
Herr and Frau Einstein shortly after the conception of their son, the genius Albertfrom Suddenly this Overview, 1981-2006
Suddenly this Overview 1981/2006 presents its own microscopic
model of the world, consisting of dozens of hand-modelled unfired clay
sculptures. As Weiss has explained, ‘The intention was to accumulate
various important and unimportant events in the history of mankind, and
of the planet – moments in the fields of technology, fairy tales,
civilization, film, sports, commerce, education, sex, biblical history,
nature and entertainment.’ The scenes they selected include Herr and
Frau Einstein shortly after the conception of their son, the genius
Albert, and Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after
composing ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’. Other works in the series
include everyday items such as a loaf of bread, a teaset and a pot – an
early example of the artists’ fascination with the ordinary. A third
category portray what the artists refer to as ‘Popular Opposites’, such
as work and play, theory and practice, high and low, big and small.
According to Fischli, ‘the viewer cannot simultaneously take all the
sculptures or all the stories into account…The title [Overview]
describes the opposite of what is actually the case: the confusion and
the swamp and the simultaneity of these things’.
Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing 'I
Can't Get No Satisfaction' from Suddenly this Overview, 1981-2006
Dozens of wonderfully sculpted clay models on plinths give us an
overview of the world - from the breakthrough into daylight during the
digging of the Gotthard tunnel, to the moment after the conception of
Albert Einstein (so the title informs us), his parents in bed in
innocent slumber. Here's Dr Albert Hoffman cycling home for lunch in
Basle after imbibing the LSD he has just synthesised; St Anthony tempted
in a cave, with no one for company but his own imagination; a DJ mixing
at his turntables. There are Swiss scenes: clay walkers looking at a
clay waterfall, mountain passes, snow, forests and rocks, as well as
rowing boats braving storm-tossed clay seas, and the moment when a fish
first decides to heave itself onto dry land. Here are Mick Jagger and
Brian Jones walking home after having written Satisfaction. So much is
included - a punctiliously rendered bowl of crisps, twiglets and olives,
an airliner crashing into the sea; so much of the world is left out.
Adrian Searle http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2006/oct/10/comedy
Popular opposites; little + big from Suddenly this Overview, 1981-2006
A couple of cartoonish ghosts descend a flight of stairs. On the
floor some vermicelli-shaped objects are arranged to resemble chains,
broken bones and skulls. Facing the ghosts, on top of the wall, a bat
spreads its wings. Together with another 200 or so unfired clay
figurines and sculptures, this work, entitled Im Keller (In the Cellar),
is part of Plötzlich diese Ubersicht (Suddenly this Overview), an
installation from 1981 that was the earliest major collaborative project
between Peter Fischli and David Weiss. This was the first time the work
has been shown since, which made the exhibition pretty significant. One
hundred and thirty-five of the original pieces were included, set on
plain white pedestals.
Strolling among the work you could encounter characters from comic
books and popular culture (Clark Kent, Max and Moritz), famous Swiss
products such as Cervelas (a fat, short pinkish wurst), biblical scenes
(The Parting of the Red Sea, Saint Francis Preaching to the Animals), or
events of earth-shattering significance (the conception of Albert
Einstein, the Italy vs Germany World Cup Final). Some of the works have
straightforward, descriptive titles: a piece of crystal, for example, is
entitled Rock Crystal, and a Christ on the Cross is just that. But then
you might come across a sculpture of a man riding a motorbike entitled
Dr Hoffman after the First LSD Trip. Insanely wide-ranging and
permanently incomplete, Suddenly this Overview is a leisurely and
hilarious catalogue of scenes created from memory. There is a magical
and almost hallucinatory quality to such a proliferation of
particularities. Looking from label to sculpture to check if what you
read was really what you got, you could sense how much fun the artists
must have had making the work.
This playfulness is where the installation’s subversive force lies:
working in unfired clay, a technique you would normally use for
preliminary studies in traditional sculpture, Fischli and Weiss found a
form of process art that steered clear of both Expressionist pretensions
and Conceptual taxonomies, stressing the idea of two people managing to
joke together and still being able to call that ‘work’.
Popular Opposites: Theory and Practice from Suddenly this Overview, 1981-2006
The gentle humour and superficial simplicity of this art belies its
depth. In a 1981 piece, Suddenly This Overview, they attempt to tell the
history of the world in 300 small-scale unfired clay sculptures. On the
surface, these look like the things children might make in art class.
But the more you look, the more you realise that the work attempts to
deal with everything that ever happened, from the big events (a
Christmas crib) and anonymous tragedies (an airliner crashing into the
sea) to the moments that history forgot to record ("Mr and Mrs Einstein
in their bed shortly after the conception of their son, the genius
Albert", for instance).
Perhaps the thought that a child could make this art is the
whole point. Only a childish (or an artistic) intelligence is capable of
seeing the world with this innocence. These hugely sophisticated
artists are playing dumb in order to open themselves (and us) up to all
human experience, and particularly to the kind of experience that
children appreciate but that adults despise.
Richard Dorment http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3656144/The-best-and-the-wurst.html
Moodymann also known as Kenny Dixon Jr or KDJ for short, is a Techno/House musician based in Detroit, Michigan.
He creates a thoroughly hybrid form of techno/house dance music, jazz, soul, disco and funk via his innovative use of reworked riffs, samples (including old movie soundtrack samples mainly culled from the old blaxploitation and b-movie genres), and grooves taken from Detroit's historically influential jazz, R&B, soul, funk, and disco scene. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodymann
This amazing LP contains few singles that have come
out on KDJ, a beautiful collection of pure electronic soul. Moodymann
made a great work contaminating electronic music with jazz samples and
some space disco grooves, giving to us a brilliant mixture of different
styles. There are also some excellent deep house tunes such as "In
Loving Memory" that was one of my favourite tracks on this masterpiece.
Beginning in 1996 or so, Kenny Dixon, Jr. quietly began releasing on his own KDJ label a number of remarkable 12" EPs as Moodymann, which were in turn cherry-picked by Carl Craig's tastemaking Planet E label soon afterward for a phenomenal full-length debut, Silent Introduction. The album is a compilation of previously released tracks -- among them "Misled," "I Can't Kick This Feeling When It Hits," "Answering Machine," and "Sunday Morning" -- yet Dixon creatively edits them into a fascinating whole that is as cinematic as it is danceable, partly audio montage and partly DJ-style mix. It's an excellent introduction to Dixon's world of deep house music-making, and it also makes a wonderful accompaniment to his 12" EPs, which tend to be dancefloor- rather than listener-oriented, not to mention downright challenging to find. More than anything else, Silent Introduction is the release that catapulted KDJ from simply underground to underground legend in one fell swoop. It's arguably his best full-length release, as his subsequent ones take on a more experimental tone, and moreover, it's undoubtedly ground zero for exploring his twisting, curious catalog.
The talking, the narration that caused so much controversy—all that.
That was the first time that I ever dealt with anything that had all
that controversy. He made some statements—Detroit militant
statements—that were more him being silly than anything that he ever
believed. Of course, it always seems like when it comes down to race,
that it's a one-sided story with a lot of folks, and I think people got
that kind of concept from it. But he's not that kind of guy.
Illustration pour Histoire d O-Pauline Reage, 1968
Leonor Fini (August 30, 1907 – January 18, 1996) was an Argentine surrealist painter.
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she was raised in Trieste, Italy. She moved to Milan at the age of 17, and then to Paris, in either 1931 or 1932. There, she became acquainted with, among many others, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Georges Bataille, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picasso, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, and Salvador Dalí.
In the 1970s, she wrote three novels, Rogomelec, Moumour, Contes pour enfants velu and Oneiropompe. Her friends included Jean Cocteau, Giorgio de Chirico, and Alberto Moravia, Fabrizio Clerci and most of the other artists and writers inhabiting or visiting Paris. She illustrated many works by the great authors and poets, including Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire and Shakespeare, as well as texts by new writers. She was very generous with her illustrations and donated many drawings to writers to help them get published. She is, perhaps, best known for her graphic illustrations for Histoire d'O.
It has been said about her that she is the only artist to paint women without apology. Many of her paintings feature strong, beautiful women (many times resembling herself) in ceremonial or provocative situations. Men are often portrayed as lithe figures who are under the protection of her females. The sphinx and cats play major parts in her paintings, as does the theme of 'the double'. She was equally adept at etching, drawing, watercolor and oil painting. She lived with many cats; up to a total of 23 at one time. The illness of one of her cats could send her into a deep depression. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonor_Fini
Illustration pour Histoire d O-Pauline Reage, 1968
Born in Buenos Aires, Leonor Fini moved to Trieste as a girl when her parents separated. After holding her first solo exhibition in Milan in 1929, she relocated to Paris in 1931. There she quickly insinuated herself among the artists of the Surrealist movement, exhibiting with them in 1933 and holding her first one-person show in Paris in 1935. As a result, she became very close friends with a number of the major surrealists, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Eugène Ionesco, Georges Hugnet, Georges Bataille, Max Ernst, Paul Éluard, and Giorgio de Chirico. A prolific libertine, Fini provided some of the material for Pauline Réage's novel Story of O. According to her obituary in The Guardian:
At one gallery opening she wore a beautiful Siberian wolf-fur coat, which she had exchanged for a painting. When someone suggested it was rather warm for such clothing, she opened her coat to reveal that she was naked. George Hoyningen-Huene photographed her dressed in nothing but black feathers. In 1937 she designed the Shocking scent bottle in the shape of Mae West's torso for Schiaparelli, and exhibited her own furniture.
Fini lived for forty years in a menage-a-trois with Count Stanislao Lepri and Constanine Jelenski. She kept a large number of cats -- as many as 23 at a time -- which she would take with her when she travelled. http://www.nndb.com/people/419/000082173/
Illustration pour Histoire d O-Pauline Reage, 1968
Leonor Fini's art offers a woman's take on surrealism, which large dealt with male fantasies, by offering a female view of the female body and of erotic pleasures. Fini was one of the more international figures of the Surrealist movement. She was born in Argentina, raised in her mother's home town of Trieste, Italy, and spent most of her artistic life in Paris, where she had her first one-person show in 1932 (her first one-person show took place in Milan at the Galerie Barbaroux in 1929; her first one-person show in Paris was at the Galerie Bonjean in 1932). Although she was friends with many of the leading surrealists (including Paul Eluard, Max Ernst, Rene Magritte and Victor Brauner), she never formally joined the movement though she did include her works in several of their International Surrealist Exhibitions. After the Second World War, she had many one-person shows in Europe and America (plus a major retrospective in Japan in 1972). Although she is best known for her paintings, prints, and drawings, she also created stage designs for operas and ballets including one of her own, Le Rêve de Leonor (1949), which was choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton and performed to music by Sir Benjamin Britten. Fini's works are to be found in many important collections of modern art. Her obituary in The London Times stressed her physical beauty, her erotic art, and her legions of lovers, whose names "read like a roll call of the literary and artistic talents of that brilliant age." http://spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Fini.html
Wolfgang Riechmann started his musical career in 1966.
After playing in a school band with Michael Rother and Wolfgang
Flür, later famous with Kraftwerk and Neu!, he then became member of another Düsseldorf band called "Streetmark".
It was end of 1977 when Riechmann started working on his solo career.
The result was the LP Wunderbar which was released on SKY Records.
Unfortunately he did not experience the release.
In August 1978 Riechmann was killed - without any reason - by two drunk guys, who stabbed him to death. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Wolfgang+Riechmann
Wunderbar is a wunderful album. If you like Man Machine era Kraftwerk
then you'll love this. Wolfgang looks extremely cool on the cover
despite wearing blue lipstick (I kid you not !)
In the 60's Wolfgang was in Spirits of Sound with Wolfgang Flur later of
Kraftwerk. In the 70's Wolfgang played a major role in Streetmark's
classic album 'Eileen'. However, 'Eileen' was not a huge commercial
success and so Wolfgang was full of doubts about his own abilities when
he set about recording Wunderbar.
The opening track of the album is the title track 'Wunderbar' which is
ultra-catchy. They must put something in the water in Dusseldorf which
results in superb melodies.
Another standout track is 'Siberland' which is effectively a slowed down
version of Kraftwerk's 'Metropolis' from Man Machine. The parallel here
is interesting as Man Machine and Wunderbar were both recorded in 1978,
although I don't know which one hit the shops first. Who is copying who?
'Himmelblau' would not sound out of place on a La Dusseldorf album.
Clearly Dinger and Rother have based their whole career around songs
which feature the words 'La' and 'Dusseldorf'. In the case of
'Himmelblau' Riechmann goes one step further by only using the word 'La'
in the lyrics. Simplicity is best.
The album finishes with a short omninous sounding instrumental. Sadly,
shortly after Wunderbar was recorded Wolfgang was murdered (having been
stabbed in a Dusseldorf barroom brawl). This is a great shame as
judging by the evidence of Wunderbar, Wolfgang could have gone on to
great things.
Julian Cope http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/487/
On his first and, regrettably, last recordings as a solo artist, Riechmann was in an eclectic
mood. Distant echoes of the so
-
called Berlin School (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and the
like) can be detected on
Wunderbar, as well as the clear influence of the so
-
called
Düsseldorf School (NEU!, Kraftwerk, La Düsseldorf). Not that Riechmann was attempting to
copy their styles in any way. Whilst contemporary influences need not be denied,
Wunderbar
hints at the direction he would take in terms of sound and composition, reflecting a powerful,
independent musician’s personality, one which would have caused quite a stir, had it been
given the chance to unfold.
This unmistakably optimistic music is characterized by simple sequencer and drum patterns,
with Riechmann adding his own highly individual layers of harmony. And then there are the
melodies: simple, sometimes to the point of being simplistic, but never naive. »Wunderbar«
is
modern, electronic pop, in a league with Kraftwerk and NEU!.
Wunderbar is Wolfgang Riechmann's only album and consists of progressive electro- pop not too unlike the work of Kraftwerk, only less mechanic. Wunderbar is much spacier and airy than Kraftwerk's music, as well a bit more optimistic in tone. Each track on this albums is very close to the sound that Tangerine Dream was accomplishing on Phaedra, with the catchy melodies and steady slightly-bassy sequencing, only these tracks are much shorter. Some of the tracks on Wunderbar sound too similar to each other, giving this album a negative quality of redundancy, which leads me to believe that Wolfgang Reichmann ran out of steam due to lack of creative ideas - the reason why this is his only album. But the reason for this being his only album is much more unfortunate - he was stabbed and killed before this album was even released. colorofmoney91 http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3123#reviews
