Artists Narcissister and A.L. Steiner recently unveiled their Winter/Spring Collection on MOCAtv. This Los Angeles–inspired collaborative video plays with the strange and messy combinations of the city—its cold/hot couplings of flesh and plastic, organic and unreal, pretty and grotesque.

Merging together materials from fashion, art, porn, and nature, Narcissister and Steiner create strangely familiar and uncomfortable amalgamations in which the seams show and the parts don’t match up. Bringing to the collaboration their shared interest in forms of exposure, they have made a video that is appealingly alienating—something that might be said of good art and the city of LA. The video’s bricolage of bodies, objects, images, and sounds culled from natural and cultural terrains of the city creates confusion about what is flesh and felt, what is constructed and produced—the lines between these are sometimes distinct and sometimes blurred, as the video playfully utilizes and subverts images of pleasure.

The politics of this aesthetic are present in Steiner’s body of work—her installations, video, photography, collage, performances, and writing. In a 2011 interview, when asked about what she is working on, Steiner replied, “hustling as a cultural worker in a late-capitalist economy” (Wright, New York Times, May 2011). Steiner’s cultural work—and hustle—has produced dynamic forms of art, so it makes sense that she and the equally provocative performance artist Narcissister would come together, and that LA would be in on it.

I recently saw Brooklyn-based Narcissister perform at Human Resources in Chinatown. In one of her performances there, she did a reverse striptease to “I’m Every Woman,” dressing herself up by pulling outfit pieces from her large afro-wig, mouth, vagina, and anus—retrieving heels, earrings, purse, miniskirt, and halter top. The performance struck me as absolutely funny and totally serious in its suggestion that if a woman is her body parts and orifices in a patriarchal capitalist society, then she’ll make use of this—and have fun with you as she does it. Shifting from one identity to another, Narcissister is a pretty white Barbie, a strong black Mammy, a piece of work, a hot commodity, an animal, an advertisement, a fake, a threat, an erotic pleasure. Though she displays a body, her identity is ambiguous. She doesn’t expose herself, she exposes her audience, showing us what we have come to see, want, and love—what we have become or are becoming.

I mention this performance because Narcissister brings this seductive, queer, and discomforting role to Winter/Spring Collection, in which she enacts mechanical self-loving on a Los Angeles lawn. The video opens onto a summer scene with a bright blue pool, green shiny shrubbery, and Narcissister as an LA lady of leisure—wearing her expressionless pretty pink-lipped face mask, plastic jewels, and an acrid-green evening gown with her bottom exposed to the sun. She robotically wields a long tree fruit picker and pool leaf skimmer. Perfect pink flowers and strange dead plants float around.

The menacing, fuzzy white noise that plays as the soundtrack and the too white sunlight are oppressive. Extra legs loosely attached to her body make things awkward. She spreads all her legs and pees in the grass, and against the adobe white walls and backyard bushes. Bathing herself in cut grass, her legs splay and her white-heeled feet flail about as she frantically masturbates her metallic music sampler under a gold bikini thong. She moves inside to the art table, where she poses and is both a model and her own puppet master—manipulating, admiring, and caressing her sexy artificial parts. When she’s back on the lawn, pastel flowers, a pink puppy fetus, juicy oranges and grapefruit, and hordes of gauzy multi-colored tulle spring forth in bulk from the large hole in her delicate pink Chinese-lantern vagina. A white orchid comes out, and she presses it to her nose to smell.

The video makes the fine lines between the erotic and the abject fun, and the excessiveness of these tired tropes of female sexuality, fertility, and (re)production is hilarious—and effectively disconcerting. In this city of overripe, rotting fruit and flowers, within its white-walled overly manicured lawns, there is an abundance of frustrated self-pleasuring and sterile leisure—we are exposed and the exposure is unsettling.

Alexandra Shilling’s Absence: A History deconstructed, performed by Sarah Jacobs, Aaron Kahn, Carol McDowell, and Madison Page

There’s a grand experiment afoot; the pioneering dance maven Rebecca Bruno, in partnership with the folks at Pieter and the Dance Resource Center, is seeking to infiltrate private homes throughout Los Angeles with a “site-sensitive” dance series called homeLA. The concept is a mutually beneficial one; the city’s small but scrappy experimental dance community opens up new performance venues for itself, while the sites themselves are enhanced by evocative dance works that play off their unique architecture.

The first installment of homeLA took place this past weekend at the home of Chloë Flores and Tim Lefebvre—a stunning, custom-built modernist compound nestled at the top of Mount Washington. The four-story main house and adjoining guest house, which sit elegantly on a hillside and deftly engage indoor/outdoor dynamics with elements like sliding glass doors and hidden patios, offered many unique spaces for dancers to experiment with movement.

Stand Still – Segments, presented by Selen Ermanav Dance Theater

About 200 people piled into the place to check out the festivities, which gave the evening an electric energy but also made the experience feel scattered and dispersed at first. Distractions abounded and it could be hard to focus on the work. As you got used to the environment, however, things began to gel and subtleties became more articulated.

In the living room, dancers improvised movements while weaving in and out among guests. Looking out the back of the house, you could see Amanda Furches on an adjacent hill in the distance, dancing through trees in a bright red dress. Meanwhile on the ground closer to the house, Nick Duran enlisted audience members to gaze into the distance while dancers performed movements in their peripheral vision. On the roof of the guest house, Melanie Rios set up a bed and slept for the duration of the evening while a sign next to her proclaimed that she was Dreaming of Greatness. Rios was visible from the dining patio above her, which gave people a God-like view of the sleeping artist.

Melanie Rios is Dreaming of Greatness on the roof of GuestHaus Residency at left

A few works that packed a stronger punch were saved for the end of the evening, which made for a satisfying finish. Flora Wiegmann did not disappoint with her highly anticipated Swimming Laps, in which she interacted, like a nymph from another era, with an outdoor pool that is still waiting to be completed and filled. Many people proclaimed Jill Stein’s ZZA Sduai Airbara, a spectacular sound/light/movement installation that took place inside the glass-walled recreation room, their favorite piece of the evening.

Selen Ermanav Dance Theater’s Stand Still – Segments

Kate Gilbert and Meg Wolfe could be seen performing Floor Plans on the second floor “sleeping porch.”

Nick Duran’s Peripheral Son

Ronit Kirchman performs Liminal: Night while Kate Gilbert hovers above

Alexandra Shilling’s Absence: A History deconstructed

Flora Wiegmann’s Swimming Laps

Jil Stein and various collaborators present ZZA Sduai Airbara

I’m excited to see more installments in this series. If you or someone you know is interested in offering up their home for an event, please send a message to homeLA dot hello at gmail dot com.

For a pretty comprehensive account of the evening, including quotes from the organizers, check out this blog post in today’s LA Weekly.

Six Twelve One by One, the Saturday evening movement performance by six pregnant women choreographed by Emily Mast and Hana van der Kolk, has generated quite a bit of buzz in the community. Several people have approached me to ask what it was like. One of those people was John Burtle, who together with his friend Guan Rong puts on a radio show called “nooooooooooo” every Monday night on KCHUNG. After we talked, John decided to devote the other night’s show to live-calling several friends to discuss the performance. I participated along with Corey Fogel and Elana Mann. I thought the results were quite excellent so instead of writing a review I am providing a link to the archived show here. As a bonus, check out a few of my poorly lit photos while you are listening.

If you did miss the performance, which took place in the historic and architecturally unique Onion building in North Hills, don’t despair. Complete video footage was taken, not just of the performance but of rehearsals too, and a documentary film is in the works.

Six Twelve One by One, a performance by Emily Mast and Hana van der Kolk. With Abbey O’Bryan, Emily Mast, Julie Clark, Leslie Stevens, Ruby Rain and Whitney Carter. Photo: Martin Dicicco.

I know this is random since it's been forever since I've posted about upcoming events. But I realized there are intriguing performances happening every night this weekend, so I might as well share the wealth.

Friday through Sunday, you can catch a new performance/lecture by Sara Wookey at Automata in Chinatown. Wookey is a dancer who gained a bit of notoriety two years ago by posting Open Letter to Artists, an eloquent statement of protest against art world labor standards as represented by Marina Abramović’s notorious 2011 MOCA Gala. This weekend’s performances will continue dialogues around dance practice and the economics of art. Seating is limited so get your advance tickets here.

An epidemic of pregnancy has recently overtaken the LA art world. I personally know 11 artists or dealers who have just given birth or are expecting soon. To commemorate the Great 2013 Baby Boom, artists Emily Mast and Hana van der Kolk have put together a choreographed evening of movement by pregnant women, to take place in the iconic Onion building in North Hills. RSVP here.

Finally, LAND will present its latest Nomadic Night on Sunday at Human Resources. The event will feature a performance by Anna Sew Hoy, Math Bass, and Claire Kohne. A poem will be read while a clay ball is rolled around on the floor; guests are encouraged to bring small items like pennies, shoestring, old cables, etc. that can be thrown on the floor to be picked up by the balls. RSVP by Thursday to rsvp at nomadicdivision dot org.

Jane Brucker with cellist Mary Beth Bolin, UNRAVEL 2009–present.
Photo: Brian Getnick.

Amidst the substantial art fanfare of this past weekend, Native Strategies somewhat quietly released the third issue of its LA-centric performance art journal with a two-day series of performances at Human Resources. Unlike previous issues of the journal, which were created and published as documents long after their accompanying performances took place, issue 3 was created first and served as a sort of incubator or idea manual for the subsequent performances. The dynamic that results between publication and event is an entirely different one, perhaps less unified than the previous editions, but no less substantive.

The artists included in the journal’s essays and interviews include David Wojnarowicz via an interview with biographer Cynthia Carr, Samara Golden, Liz Glynn, Samuel White, Amanda Yates, Rafa Esparza, Alexa Weir, Jane Brucker, Tanya Rubbak (who is also co-director and designer for Native Strategies), and the collective Signify Sanctify Believe. It’s an interesting mélange of people who all, in the eyes of chief NS visionary Brian Getnick, speak to the artist’s “hope to communicate to audiences who will survive them.” Death, history, ritual, and magic are all part of this dialogue. The artists who gave performances over the weekend included White, Yates, Brucker, Weir, Esparza, and Guru Rugu (who is a freelance member of SSB).

Samuel White, left, with Johanna Kozma and tattoo artist Clay Gibson

I only made it to the second half of the first evening of performances. I was especially excited to see new work from Samuel White, whose nascent career I’ve been following for a while, and whom I interviewed for the journal. White has launched a new body of work in which he conducts month-long “residencies” with individual artists in order to explore the meanings and development of intimacy, his ongoing central theme. The performance on Friday night was titled Johanna and represented the culmination of his residency with artist Johanna Kozma. In it, White enlisted Clay Gibson to tattoo the outline of Kozma’s body on his back. His hope was that this act would represent a “spiritual marriage” between the two artists.

White had already begun to use his body as a raw canvas on which to explore vulnerability and intimacy. Tattooed on his right shoulder were several phrases written in Lebanese script; these were the fruits of another project in which the artist travels to different cities and allows his audience members to dictate words to be tattooed on his back in their native tongue. The first phase of this project was done in Beirut, and White hopes to continue it in other cities, eventually amassing a multilingual skin tableau. Visually, the new tattoo seems to act as a sort of shadow or border around the present and future texts.

The tattooing took place over the space of a few hours, inside of an alcove at Human Resources. The two artists lay quietly on a table side-by-side while Gibson worked on White. What was most striking to me was how close and intimate the two were with each other, sometimes embracing or kissing one another, without the vibe between them being at all sexual. The act was a fairly extreme one, and yet it felt quiet and almost chaste. White later told me that he was not satisfied with the performance, that he felt it was too overwrought and perhaps needed to be mediated with some textual readings, as he’s done in past performances. I could see what he meant, as the performance seemed to represent something of a detour for him, both visually and didactically.

Amanda Yates, Happening Magic: The City Speaks.
Photo: Brian Getnick.

While White was getting tattooed, Amanda Yates was conducting Happening Magic: The City Speaks inside of a cardboard replica of LA’s City Hall. The idea was that Yates would channel the spirit of Los Angeles, whose energy was composed of everyone who is now or has ever been in this city, to answer people’s questions. I waited my turn in line to sit across from the artist and ask a question, fully expecting to be answered by some kind of conceptual flippancy, like the time I texted the Lady Gaga oracle and received a TMZ-flavored answer. To my surprise however, Yates held my hands, closed her eyes, and gave an answer that I could feel was sincere and indeed, channeled from somewhere. The cardboard City Hall, which had plenty of windows cut out of it, seemed to act like a pyramid, drawing and focusing psychic energy. I wrote down the answer she gave me in my journal that night. Its usefulness was a pretty amazing takeaway.

Guru Rugu, A Brief Invocation. Photo: Brian Getnick.

The most breathtaking performance of the night (that I saw—I unfortunately missed Jane Brucker’s UNRAVEL 2009–present) was Guru Rugu’s A Brief Invocation, an unexpectedly moving experience that is probably more accurately described as a convocation. It began humorously, with a microphone mysteriously levitating into the air like that old Indian snake dance trick. With the help of a near-invisible string, it levitated all the way up the back wall until Guru Rugu’s hand came out of one of the projector windows to grab it. From inside the upstairs gallery, Guru delivered his words via PA system to the audience, who stood around in the darkened lower gallery. His invocation consisted of a long series of questions that he had sourced from his community of fellow artists. The questions, phrased like the questions used in SSB’s cult recruitment video, spoke to our common experiences as artists, writers, and art world laborers. Here are some highlights:

do you ever feel overwhelmed and anxious?
do you ever spend an entire day feeling detached, but then realize at the end of the day that it was just the medication?
after your last show, have you noticed yourself binging on alcohol?
do you ever feel like you’ve run out of people to talk to about your art?
do you ever feel like your work will never be taken seriously unless you get out there and socialize a little more?
do you ever feel like it’s all a little too much about who you know?
do you ever get tired of seeing so many people you haven’t seen in awhile when going to an opening?
do you ever feel disappointed when you can’t hear or see an artwork at an opening because old friends keep walking up to talk to you?
do you ever feel like you know too many people?
have you ever hopped from one event to the next, and then wished you’d never left the first one?
do you ever wish you’d taken your own car instead of carpooled?
do you often feel tired as you walk out to drive to the first event of the evening?
do you often genuinely pray for a 2nd or 3rd wind?
do you ever feel guilty for staying in and missing your friends’ events?
do you ever feel like you’re missing out at your own show?
do you ever feel sorry for those who decided to come out to see your show?
do you ever go out and feel like you got pretty much what you expected?
after returning from a trip, do you ever feel detached from your community?
after returning from a trip, do you ever feel like nobody noticed that you were gone?
do you ever worry that by asking an institution for what you need that you’re acting like a prima donna?
have you ever said “yes” to showing your work in a space run by someone you dislike?
do you feel like your work is often misunderstood?
do you feel like your work is often mischaracterized?
are you ever referred to as a “social practice artist”?
are you ever referred to as a “queer artist”?
is your work ever referred to as “kinda like fluxus”?
is your work ever referred to as “very los angeles”?
do you ever worry that a curator somewhere will someday state in vinyl that your work is “visionary”?
do you ever worry that no one will ever consider your work visionary?

(Above text courtesy of Guru Rugu.)

The questions, many of which were an uncannily accurate reflection of my own day-to-day life, snaked into my consciousness and down into my spine, where they seemed to live like a dark animus. As I listened I walked around the room, around the various bodies that were positioned throughout, some of whom I knew and some I didn’t, but all of whom were members of this community that shared the same questions, the same experiences. The same animus lived inside of each of us, usually unspoken, but here it was given palpable life by a disembodied, god-like voice. It was like being taken on a communal visit to the near reaches of our collective consciousness.

Guru Rugu speaks. Photo: Brian Getnick.

After about half an hour of these almost chant-like questions, Guru led the room in a brief ceremony of communal release, in which we were asked to lay hands on one another and “breathe in all our quandaries… breathe out all that is light… converting all sorrow into strength for tomorrow.” It was a nice enough finishing touch, but for me, the strength of the performance lay in the simple, stark examination of our shared lives together.

Courtesy Corey Fogel

Recently I included Chloë Flores’ Facebook residency, in which a different artist occupies the curator’s Facebook identity every month, in my list of 10 “alternatives to the alternative art spaces” on the LA Weekly. These residencies, which are rigorously curated and theorized by Flores, are in essence highly specialized spaces for performance and social practice. Although subversive in nature—especially in the beginning when few were hip to what was going on and thus subject to being “punked” by the fake Flores—the residency does have a few strict rules that can’t be broken: the settings can’t be changed, i.e. the page must remain public at all times; the About page, which explains the project, can’t be altered; and the password can’t be given out, so as to avoid unwanted hacking. In principle, everything on the page could be deleted by any of the participating artists, but so far no one has decided to go the Erased de Kooning route.

This past week, artist/musician Corey Fogel completely exploded the social media occupation model by granting admin privileges on his fan page, corey marc fogel, to 1,000 of his unsuspecting Facebook friends. Rampant chaos, alarm, and merriment ensued. Some, believing that their friend’s account had been hacked, valiantly attempted to delete the page. Others, understanding that it was a prank/performance/random action, played along, repeatedly saving the page from deletion, messing with its various controls, and running wild with the corey marc fogel identity.

For a couple of days, users’ newsfeeds were overrun by embarrassing cmf status updates, cranky demands for removal, and references to the über-meta nature of what was going on—some people posted screen shots of themselves as cmf responding to other posts from cmf, and so on. One ingenious interloper even got blogger Geoff Tuck to allow all cmf postings to show up as part of his Twitter feed, further complicating the identity stew.

As one of the admins, I contributed my fair share to the anarchic amusement, posting status updates, checking cmf into Club Rock-Za (Honolulu’s tackiest strip bar), and restoring the page’s visibility after another admin made it visible only to people in Kazakhstan, North Korea, Iceland, and Canada. I felt like one of a multiplying army of cmfs, like Agent Smith in “The Matrix,” coming for the total destruction of the one, true Corey Marc Fogel. Only instead of the uniformity of purpose of Agent Smith, all of the cmfs were at odds with another, constantly deleting one another’s posts and undoing one another’s actions. Being inside cmf felt like being inside Thunderdome—who would emerge from its ashes when it was all over?

Outside of cmf, a strange sense of conceptual solidarity sometimes emerged. A few people posted “I am Corey Fogel” or “We are all Corey Fogel” on their own walls. Everyone seemed to be discussing it, or bitching about it. One anonymous prankster even created an alternate Corey Fogel universe in which his identity is in turn hijacked and taken over by a fake Joel Kyack.

After about two days of heightened activity, cmf came to an abrupt, mysterious, and perhaps inevitable end. After admins received the announcement that “R. Stevie Moore has scheduled the Page ‘corey marc fogel’ for deletion” (only the latest of a long string of such announcements), the page disappeared from view. Many assumed that Moore had succeeded in finally killing the page, but others pointed out that there is a 14-day safety period before a page is actually deleted, and that currently, cmf still appears in FB searches. The page was still there, it had just been rendered invisible, and most people had been forcibly removed as admins. Some remaining admin was holding it hostage.

As it turns out, things were way more meta than that: someone had actually managed to terminate himself as admin and the cmf page at the same time. After Fogel posted a Missing ad in an attempt to retrieve the page, Dominic Cramp came forward with the following confession: “…in the spirit of celebrating the anarchic ridiculousness of Facebook and as an Admin with the 500 other Admins, I confess! I did it, I exercised my right to do whatever I want, which was to make the page only visible in Kazakhstan and some other random place which I can’t remember because the whole thing took 10 seconds and much has happened since. I thought it was funny and although didn’t quite think through that would be the end of the piece until someone figured it out, there you go. I also deleted myself but it didn’t delete me at the time, although now I do seem to be deleted. All very confusing…”

Fogel asked him if he was the one who deleted the other admins. Cramp responded: “Nope. I think that was probably just people deleting themselves. Literally all I did was that. I was really trying to participate rather than mitigate. That would be no fun. Shit, sorry to gum up the works but that’s anarchy for ya haha. I think you really exploded this thing in an interesting way. I am all for more of it!”

Although Fogel, like many of us, is sad at the early demise of a great spontaneous action, he takes it all in stride: “That was the spirit… I’m surprised it didn’t happen much sooner.” Still, he points out that someone could still be an admin on the page, and could potentially restore it. The page was scheduled for deletion on Monday, which means it will take effect on Monday, December 31. Will the last remaining admins please step forward?

Christy Roberts belts out “Bohemian Rhapsody” just for me. Janne Larsen’s scentless air freshener hangs on the mirror.

The latest edition of Los Angeles Road Concerts, an annual daylong art/performance/music/literary event that takes over the entire length of one of the city’s iconic boulevards, took place on Mulholland Drive yesterday. It was very cleverly named Mulholland Dérive, after a Situationist strategy for combating the numbing effects of capitalism. In the words of theorist Guy Debord, “In a dérive [people] drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there.”

It’s a sexy proposition, and previous incarnations of the Road Concerts (taking place on Sunset Boulevard, Washington Boulevard, and San Fernando Road) have been filled with an exuberant, untamed diversity that reflected the nature of the city and its varied inhabitants. This year’s adventure was markedly different; in place of the gritty, unpredictable urban sprawl that characterizes the other streets, Mulholland is a rarefied, bucolic wonderland of uniform class privilege, closely patrolled by a phalanx of park rangers. The long ridge drive that extends from Hollywood to the Pacific Ocean is populated by wealthy home owners, obnoxious Porsche drivers, and a series of state-owned overlooks that provide stunning views as well as the sting of authority.

Tyr Jung’s Threading the Labyrinth: Beginning the Journey

The event was scheduled for noon to 6pm, and I unfortunately didn’t arrive until after 3pm. By that time, I found that many of the projects had either ended or were forcibly shut down by the park rangers. The Road Concerts are always guerrilla-style, un-permitted events, but when they take place on already-nutty Sunset they are less likely to attract attention than when they take place on posh, manicured Mulholland. The overlooks were strictly off-limits and projects taking place there were banished. Three additional projects taking place on the roads were shut down for their incendiary nature: these involved staged car accidents, a near-naked woman’s re-enactment of the infamous Jason Russell freakout video, and the deployment of a drone camera which accidentally got lost inside of Britney Spears’ residence. I wish I’d been able to see these but I only heard about them after the fact, via accounts from organizer Stephen van Dyck, who was given a $350 citation, and artist Matias Viegener, the drone operator who had a rather upsetting encounter with authorities.

Picturing sites of alternate spirituality

Astri Swendsrud and Quinn Gomez-Heitzeberg with their interactive ouija

Still, I did drive the entire length of Mulholland and was able to catch several of the more peaceful projects, which continued undisturbed by authorities. Interestingly, the first stations near the 101 freeway were dominated by spiritual themes. Tyr Jung’s Threading the Labyrinth: Beginning the Journey was an eco-friendly walkable labyrinth made out of sidewalk chalk, bird seeds, and wildflower seeds. Stitched into the dirt on the side of the road, it made for a contemplative start to a long and winding day ahead. After picking up a handy conceptual air freshener from Janne Larsen along with Nicole Antebi’s bumper sticker referencing her work with William Mulholland and the Uisce Trail, I continued on down the road to Astri Swendsrud and Quinn Gomez-Heitzeberg’s Semi-Tropic Spiritualist Test Site No. 1, a beautifully situated and executed piece exploring the history of alternative spirituality in LA. From their mountainside perch, you had a perfect view of the Hollywood sign on the left and downtown LA on the right. A postcard provided a diagram of significant spots downtown where spirituality was practiced; a ouija device enabled visitors to locate more spots for future exploration by the duo.

One of MUC Collaborative’s Idiomatic Road Interventions

An installation by Yarn Bombing LA

A couple of projects played with the idea of road signage. MUC Collaborative’s Idiomatic Road Interventions, which likened turns of phrase to turns in the road, posted such cues as “Take a Hike” and “Can’t Take It With You” at various points. A collective called Yarn Bombing LA used colorful letters knit out of fabric to post crowd-sourced phrases like “Presence Not Presents” and “Ho Ho Ho.”

Corrie Siegel passes out her Star Maps to enthusiastic visitors

The sun sets on the holy land

Other projects drew their inspiration from the surrounding geography. Stationing herself at the Barbara Fine Overlook, Corrie Siegel passed out historical “Star Maps” that referenced Jewish iconography and biblical narrative. Taking the form of a scroll, the map matches biblical quotes with spots like the Hollywood Bowl Overlook, the Nike Missile Site, and two local fire stations. Maryam Hosseinzadeh had the great idea to conduct tours of the house at 13319 Mulholland, an opulent $9.7 million property that is currently for sale by MLS Realty. Apparently the house contains frescoes that were made by museum-grade conservators/fabricators. She was not able to obtain permission for the tours however, so she resorted to projecting images of the house’s interior, taken from the realtor’s website, on a makeshift screen on the side of the road.

No entry to the gated $9.7 million property at 13319 Mulholland Drive

Maryam Hosseinzadeh makes do with a roadside projection of photos from the interior of the mansion

The high point of my whole short day on Mulholland came as I was wandering aimlessly around on one of the scenic overlooks. Suddenly a bodacious redhead came roaring up to me in a bright red Prius. Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was blasting on her stereo and she proceeded to serenade me with a sing-along. It was none other than local superhero Christy Roberts, rocking her Rode Concert piece in which she roamed the length of Mulholland giving people rides and singing to them. Since I didn’t need a ride, we just sat in her car at the overlook for a while, singing the whole song together all the way through to the end while amused onlookers took photos and video of us. Scaramouche, Scaramouche! Do the fandango!

There were lots of projects I missed that sounded great, such as Austin Young’s on-the-spot nude portraits, Margie Schnibbe hitchhiking, Jonas Becker’s Mobile Pinhole Project, various musical and dance performances, and the aforementioned arrest-worthy pieces. Luckily my colleague at LA Weekly, Anna Jones, will be covering the event in more depth on the Public Spectacle blog. You can also check out complete project descriptions and downloadable goodies at the LA Road Concerts website. There is also some great documentation at the live blog and on the event’s two Facebook pages.

Karen Finley, We Keep Our Victims Ready, 1989

This is going to be short because there is no way I can do this justice. I don’t have the time right now to properly meditate on the arc of Karen Finley’s career, which is what this review would require, and due to a very long day, I even fell asleep for part of this riveting performance. It wasn’t at all due to Finley, who struck an amazingly perfect balance between visceral access and commanding poise—the mark of a mature and accomplished artist at the top of her game.

The occasion was the final, culminating event of The B-Word Project, a yearlong symposium on censorship organized by the Carpenter Performing Arts Center at California State University, Long Beach. Incredibly, the organizers had secured all of the original NEA 4 artists (Finley, John Fleck, Holly Hughes, and Tim Miller) for a panel discussion and newly commissioned performances. Finley’s was the last performance and probably the most powerful (I did not see Hughes or Miller’s performances).

What she did could essentially be described as a performative slide lecture with live musical accompaniment in which she reflected at length on We Keep Our Victims Ready, the notorious work that got her into hot water with conservative politicians and helped to launch the culture wars of the 1990s. Finley began with the iconic image of the chocolate-smeared woman, and talked about how it was a response to Tawana Brawley and the wreaking of violence upon the female body. She extended this theme to other instances throughout recent history where violence has been visited upon racially marked bodies, lingering notably on a Japanese photographer who documented Chicago’s St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Chicago, 1929

About 15 minutes into the lecture, Finley retired behind a scrim to take off her clothes and apply chocolate all over her body. The scrim acted as a tasteful veil between artist and audience, allowing us to see what she was doing but putting it into soft focus. She applied the chocolate in the most matter-of-fact way possible—there was even slow, soothing live music playing as she did so. When she was covered in chocolate, she returned to the podium and calmly resumed her lecture. It was a studied re-enactment of what was originally a raucous performance, embedded in a larger consideration of history. At other intervals, Finley added Red Hot candies and then silver tinsel to the sticky chocolate on her body.

The wide-ranging lecture came to a resounding finish when Finley revealed her childhood memories of the day that her father was found dead in their home, having committed suicide. She called it her own St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it had occurred on a Friday, February 13. With this, she brought everything back to its origin, masterfully closing a long and harrowing loop.

The point of this inadequate post is just to tell you that this happened, and recommend that if you have the chance to see this piece performed, do it. It’s incredible and will restore your faith in the possibilities of performance art, and the value of re-performance.

Finally, check out the below series of art+anarchy conversations organized by Addie Vuitton as part of the LA Anarchist Bookfair this Saturday. Conversations will take place out on the balcony of the LA Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. Willie Herrón just got added to the mural discussion. Should be fun!

Christie Herring performs as Vampira in Vincent Ramos’ installation
for the Made in LA biennial. Photo: Charchi Stinson.

Vincent Ramos’ work is an evocation of personal and collective histories that manifests itself in archival installations of heavily researched artifacts and documents. His contribution to the Made in LA biennial takes up a good sized corner of the LA Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park. Walking behind a pair of thick black curtains, viewers are greeted with a cross between a pop culture museum and someone’s cherished attic filled with memories: glass cases and racks are everywhere, filled to the brim with old toys, souvenirs, records, magazines, posters, tchotchkes, etc.

Ramos’ projects have explored a variety of histories, but this one is particularly personal, being the result of a Hammer Museum residency in which the artist investigated 1950s Venice through family and city archives. As such, the installation has a particular focus on the Mexican American working class experience in the city of Venice—a much different place in the 1950s than it is now. The work encourages immersion, time travel, and sifting through the mixed cultural messages of mid-century California.

The sheer volume of data collected can be a bit overwhelming, and so it was a welcome touch to experience it with the light-handed assistance of a period-appropriate host, which Ramos provided in a performance held over the weekend. Following a script penned by the artist, actress Christie Herring was a spot-on Vampira, expertly conjuring the campy 1950s late-night horror movie hostess.

Entering the space as though entering a haunted mansion, “Vampira” opened with her trademark scream and classic graveyard humor shtick (“I sincerely hope that you all had a truly MISERABLE week and that your experience of this Made in LA fiasco, I mean exhibition, has been a real humdinger of true horror….”). What followed was a highly entertaining “experimental lecture” that led viewers through a slice of Ramos’ family history, with the artist himself even making a cameo audio appearance as a sly Mickey Mouse.

Photo: Charchi Stinson

The story that stood out the most for me was the one about Ramos’ aunt who used to work as one of Jerry Lewis’ maids at his home in Bel Air. Apparently Lewis would always wear athletic tube socks, but he’d wear each one only once before throwing it away. Ramos’ aunt decided to recycle the socks and started giving them out to friends and family. Ramos imagined legions of people of every color walking around the city in Jerry Lewis’ socks. Vampira told this story with a prop severed leg wearing a tube sock lying in front of her; as the story came to an end, she painted the leg brown.

Disneyland also loomed large in the narrative, to the extent that the hostess even donned a Mickey Mouse hat that had been embroidered with the name “Vampira.” Ramos himself, as “Mickey,” told the story of how his grandfather and uncle had worked at a West LA nursery that had provided many of the plants that adorned the original Disneyland. Walt Disney himself gave free tickets to the nursery’s owner so that his employees and their families could attend the park’s opening day on July 17, 1955. Sadly, those tickets were given to the owner’s friends and business associates instead. As an addendum to this tale, Ramos mentioned that the 1956 Mickey Mouse Club Annual included a story titled “The Wetback Hound.”

Campy and funky, but with glimmers of genuine social horrors beneath the surface, the Vampira mythos provided a perfect framework for portions of Ramos’ LA history.