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[jorgeclardiary]

«PRISMATIC» Spotify Playlist

As an homage to my recent Prismatic performance, HERE is a playlist of 23 songs that journey from the external world—with its passions and drama—to the inside world of a spiritual forest of repose and beyond.

Prismatic, the performance, was presented within the context of Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat’s Prism show, shown at the Ivy Brown Gallery during the summer of 2018.

For this playlist, I selected songs that would allude to the journeys of both artists, from the Rock-it gallery in Minneapolis—which was founded and run by Van from 1979 to 1982, and was a meeting place for the Minneapolis art tribe that migrated to the East Village in the early 80s—to the B-52s, with whom Kelly would travel with and photograph.

I also wanted to incorporate songs from the classic East Village scene, and also allude to the cowbell, which has a similar sound to the pipe I banged on towards the end of the performance.

I included David Bowie’s “Watch That Man,” which I only recently heard for the first time but means a lot to Van and Kelly, as well as an obscure song by the cult Italian disco group Macho, “Cose There’s Music In the Air,” produced by the legendary Mauro Malavasi. I love the chorus of the song: Where’s there’s action/There’s reaction….”

The Prismatic performance was meant to unleash healing energies into the world via the activating of a Portal. As the avatar of New York, the mission is complete, and great changes and healing are already in motion.

Hapi Phace and I visited the 14th Street Target on its opening week. He encouraged me to buy the t-shirt I’m wearing in the photo, along with Levi’s Engineered Jeans from the aughts, Keen yoga shoes, Sabine Be ‘be happy’ glasses outfitted by Artsee, Camino de Santiago bandanna which Tony Allicino gave me, and a serendipitous Prismatic tote bag by Cavallini & Company, which I found at Random Accessories on 4th Street. Hapi spotted the location near the Peach Mental Palace where he was staying and took the photos you see here.

Photos by Hapi Phace

[jorgeclardiary]

Activating the Portal

For my recent Prismatic performance at the closing of the Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat show Prism this past 15 August at Ivy Brown Gallery, events and objects aligned to facilitate the activation of a portal.

While being at the studio throughout the making of the pieces, I absorbed the energy of their fabrication—the soul infused into the resulting sculptures.

As the opening of the show neared, chopine bases as counterweights were being made for a sculpture comprising charred wood columns and a water gilt pole. I thought of the gold and black of Egyptian tombs—and the kernel of the performance emerged.

We planned to have the performance on the closing day of the show as a celebration.

Part of the allure of the Prism was the transformation of notions of functional objects into objects of art inhabiting a different area of functionality—both mental and oneiric.

As Rafael Sánchez and I were discussing one day, the one object that could be activated to go between the physical dimension and others is the Portal.

This conversation crystallized the performance for me; it would be a salute to spirit in three parts. Rule of Threes!

After my introductory call to an invisible friend and a salute to an imaginary catalpa tree, I walked past the Ladder towards the Portal holding papier-mâché branches—which Hapi Phace had made for the Karload of Klowns troupe I belong to—and an antique wagon wheel with eight spokes Van procured as a prop. I invoked the Buddhist levels of consciousness, represented by the spokes of the wheel: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mental, awareness, and all-encompassing foundation consciousness.

Then it was on to the Stage Set installation of the show, where I stood in front of its silhouettes of morphed building-shoes and recited poems about my love of New York buildings since childhood. Revealing the poet as an avatar, an age of wellness is ushered in.

From there I went to the altar-like installation of sculpted lambs with crystals and petit fours on the water gilt mirror. I sang an ícaro to the ancestors in Spanish and saluted all those present. I used a piece of pipe Van had found on Bond Street, near the Gene Frankel Theatre, as a cowbell.

For the performance, I wore a papier-mâché hat Joel Handorff made especially for the performance, ‘be happy’ frames by Sabine Be (outfitted by Artsee), military camo cape from Uncle Sam and vintage painter pants by Smith’s—both of which Scooter LaForge turned me on to—and Adidas Stan Smith sneakers hand-painted by Halla Moda/The Old Black.

Photos: 1. Rafael Sánchez. 2, 3. Jorge Clar. 4. Van Wifvat

[jorgeclardiary]

Prism by Kelly Bugden and Van Wifvat at the Ivy Brown Gallery

I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the development of this show, currently on view at the Ivy Brown Gallery in the Meatpacking District, since its inception.

In their Van Gregory & Norton studio, where Van and Kelly have been making high-end mirrors and curtain hardware for years, the artists started reutilizing some of the materials that remained from making their furnishings, creating whimsical sculptures with a presence.

After the positive response to the early sculptures, and the encouragement of friends in our artist community—like spontaneous ‘Magic Mirror’ drawing circles at Joel’s house, where ideas mesh far and wide at an almost unconscious level—Kelly and Van continued experimenting with materials in both sculpture and painting.

This led to an exploration of forms from the atomic (an allegory in an interlocking untitled sculpture) to the everyday (a ‘husband’ pillow transformed into small-scale intrigue). A painting series (Where the engine is) combined memories of trucker iconography—ignited by finding a Peterbilt mud flap one night when we were walking down Avenue A—and the floral bedspreads and ball fringe of bedspreads ubiquitous in sisters’ rooms.

Drawings and models for sculptures flowed forth, as Van and Kelly evolved into a mini-collective where ideas were proposed by one and the other, synthesized into consensus and executed by maximizing individual skill sets…resulting in a large inventory of objects from which several stories could be culled.

Making the artwork becomes a ritualistic process through which emotions are processed. In Prism, Kelly brought in images from his love of baking, resulting in sculpture ‘cakes’ and ‘petit fours.’ Resin-cast quartzes combined with actual quartzes on lambs Van remembered from a relative’s tombstone led to a sculpture with a lamb and nine drips—which spuriously happened and ended up representing the nine siblings in Van’s family.

Shoes became another motif, morphing into a cityscape, and into sculptures incorporating wood and leatherette, as well as chopines that morph into creatures and the base of a gold and black portal. Lambs, petit fours, and nipples combine on a table culled from a large scale water gilt mirror as surface, with a fabric border that salutes the often-thankless skill party decorators employ to make table skirts. Next to the table are wafer-like ‘hosts’ placed on marbling with an orgonite-spiked round frame.

Communication happens when we are open to embodying the qualities of each other. The creation of these objects exists somewhere between one state and another. Kelly and Van in a sense mesh to create a seamless, allegorical story.

When the viewer approaches the water-gilt table with the lamb and objects, an intensity is felt. The objects in the show invite interpretation and connection, emanating the intention that goes into their making. The name Prism evokes the point of view and focus that makes the work a synthesis of two complementary aesthetics.

An Artists’ Talk with Kelly and Van in conversation with Ivy Brown, Joel Handorff, Rafael Sánchez and yours truly will take place Thursday, July 19 at the Ivy Brown Gallery, 674 Hudson Street, 4th Floor.

The show is up through August 15, when I will be presenting my Prismatic performance to celebrate the closing. 

I am wearing my brand new ‘Be Happy’ glasses by Sabine Be Eyewear outfitted by Artsee at 200 West Street, a custom lamb tee painted by Scooter LaForge Garments on the occasion of the Prism opening, vintage Smith work pants, and Riccardi Tisci + Nike AF1 sneakers. 

Photos by Goor Studio

[jorgeclardiary]

Gardens Performance at Ivy Brown Gallery, Part 1

On October 24, 2016, I presented a performance titled Gardens at the Ivy Brown Gallery in the Meatpacking District.

For this presentation, I wanted to transport the audience to the world of my early childhood, which included frequent visits to my grandmother’s house and her garden—where much daydreaming took place—as well as the presence of radio and records.

I had stopped by the gallery about a month and a half before the opening of Angelica Bergamini’s Conscious show. Ivy had shown me some of the works that would be exhibited. I thought the setting would be a perfect context to present my performance, creating a mise-en-scène within Angelica’s representations of nature.

I wanted three outfits for the show. The first one, which was a long priestly gown in mud cloth, I found at the Malcolm Shabazz Market on 116th Street during a stop there with Henry, Scooter and Van before picking up Helmut (Henry’s Volkswagen) and heading to Ocean Grove.

I immediately fell in love with this garb. Scooter put it on and I made a little video of him walking to the parking lot to see the movement of the garment. I understood it was perfect to enter the stage at the beginning of the performance and salute the directions, to the tune of Art of Noise’s “Battle,” a brief overture.

During the first part of the performance, I recited phrases alluding to the atmosphere in Grandma Bessie’s house, describing the café con leche and Export Sodas crackers she would serve me after school, as well as her dark mahogany rocking chairs, giant television set and small elongated garden with overgrown mini bamboo. As I spoke the phrases, I hung Angelica’s cloud sculptures from pipes on the ceiling and placed her stone sculptures on the floor...doing allegorical landscaping while moving. Behind me was her "Freedom” piece, and on the ground an air bed covered with Ivy’s own Vera comforter, a gift from her mom during her childhood years. 

I was wearing through all costume changes a vintage pair of (originally) white Levi’s 501s Tony had gifted me, and which Joel had painted with green acrylic, creating borders around delineated “arrow trees.” I spent some three afternoons at Joel’s kitchen table, tracing the trees in pencil following Joel’s placement. In conversation during these visits, we discussed about how composition is all about figuring out the edges.

I was grateful to see so many friends in attendance and felt right at home as I began the performance.