#inconversationparis

[wordshereandthere]

A dream I had

I assume we were somewhere in India - two people had to be executed. One was a young girl my age, beautiful, who was guillotined after being found guilty - I screamed that she was innocent and sobbed as they put her head in the contraption - she smiled serenely (and it must have been sadly) as she was about to die. At one point I ran and pulled her out but she got slightly vexed and fitted herself back in asking for me to be held back - her mother tried to explain to me. The executioner said forcefully though not aggressively that she had been found guilty - placing his emphasis in a way to suggest that though she had done nothing she had to die because she had been found guilty. She was wearing a green sari and had beautiful long almond eyes. Her mother was distraught too that her daughter had been chosen to fill this role, but she stood back quietly. The guillotine wasn't like the French one - it came from the side and cut horizontally as the person did a sort of leaning forward awkward kneel. But I didn't see the cut. I was high up very high up and all I could see was a partly crumpled body with blood on the ground and the small round bloody mass that must have been the head. And then I was on the ground and heartbroken. In dreams emotions are so strong but somewhat shapeless - I was next, I believe, in a supermarket that was gradually closing. Lights turning off and grey walls or some metal rising as I searched for my things. I must have been hungry, all the food items (namely rice cakes and bread) stood out to me and I spent a good amount of time making sure I had the specific one I wanted. I remembered my pain but was truly caught up in my shopping. And then ahead of me in the aisle I saw, walking away from me, backs turned, her family, I think a father and two other children and her mother. I debated trying not to see them but my eyes met with her mother's as she turned halfway to pat one of the little children. The child shuffled off and I approached the mother now alone. She was in white - not a sari, more the desert cloth covering of women in the Sahara. She looked dark, like she was Senegalese. I had the feeling that though the same person this woman was different. I was quite surprised to find that I didn't wake up sad.

[wordshereandthere]

Performance Art is so 'In'

Read this (it'll take all of three minutes and you'll need it for the rest of the post): http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/07/jay-z-marina-abramovic-pace-gallery-picasso-baby.html

When links to vines and text snapshots of what purported to be a Jay Z performance piece at the Pace Gallery in Chelsea popped up directly on my facebook wall (somehow several of my friends have caught on that I... adore Marina Abramovic, and that I... am always interested in happenings that involve her) I wanted to love it. I sort of almost kind of did.  

All the tidbits I read that were produced in the immediate aftermath of the celebrity event called direct attention to the moment between Jay Z and Marina Abramovic, and for a good amount of time I thought that was the whole thing. I thought, "hmm that's different - 'interesting' that she would choose to revisit a work of hers in this way". I was wondering though, why a recalcitrant thread of - suspicion, perhaps, wasn't convinced. 

  Then I found out that Marina was only one person in a string of people that Jay Z rapped at. And then I read that article "The Rapper is Present" by Emma Allen (above). 

  The article is wonderfully observant, and brutally honest. The tone is perfect. It was such a relief to read! I felt like I'd been taken by the hand and brought to look more closely at what turned out to be little but a clear glass above a pool of shallow water. 

There was just so much posturing, so much desire, so little depth and so little meaning. so many white people, so many 'art enthusiasts', so many 'denizens of the art world'. I really - it was just - there was just so little that seemed to be - essential - about the happening. It felt as if Jay Z was trying to be artistic. I think Kanye is more successful than he is at this sort of engagement with art/performance. But Marina, of course she still was able to realise (in the sense of manifest) what intensity of experience could be found. 

  I looked on the Pace Gallery website and it summed it all up for me (http://tinyurl.com/np3b5wd): 

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07/12/13 at 07:00PM

JAY-Z's "Picasso Baby" video shoot at Pace Gallery

Coinciding with the recent release of JAY-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail, Pace Gallery hosted the video shoot for his new single, “Picasso Baby,” on Wednesday. Organized by Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn of Salon 94 withAndrea Glimcher of Pace Gallery, the music video was directed by renowned director/filmmaker Mark Romanek.

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  Not so much essential intentional embodied art seeking to connect people, as opportunity to create artsy on trend (performance art is so in) music video.