Performing Artists

Yesterday we celebrated Posada with Gorado and Marta and their family. I am not sure what it is, but its related to Christmas and involves singing, role play and the whole neighbourhood eating together in someone’s backyard. We had great fun.



I’ve been thinking about performance a lot. Different qualities and aspects, really. Let me give you examples. A class I should have taken this semester taught by Martin Kersels - Performance & Execution – had an end-of-class-performance at Santa Monica Museum where Martin Kersels currently has an exhibition. Me and husband went along. We missed some stuff, it went on for hours and most of it was impenetrable showings-off made by undergrads. Joanne, from my class, collaborated with a woman called Flint in a rather fascinating piece – both women pressed noses against each other and then in turn helped each other to strip, swap clothes and keep on swapping clothes. The women, both lesbians and presenting very different approaches to both femininity and androgyny in their everyday wear, drew attention to this by moving through different outfits that pointed to different identities and kept on moving through identities until we returned to normality. It was extremely intelligent and very well rehearsed, and resisted platitudes and easy answers. I describe this all as an aside. What I really want to say is that the most awful performance was one that went on for what literally felt like an eternity. It involved a young performer reading against Darwin’s theories of evolution – a creationist view, whilst putting on different ill-fitting items of clothing, cutting into the clothing and felt-tipping words onto his torso. This gesture was repeated over and over and over again. Tension began to fill the audience – when will this end? The audience was composed of CalArts students and faculty. For this performance there was an additional, most attentive audience member – a small-framed man in cap and sunglasses, with white/grey hair. Who was this performer? Who was this audience member? Henry Hopper with father Dennis Hopper enthralled. Oh yes. Hollywood is very much a hop, skip and a jump away from CalArts and with my own navel gazing musings here I sort of forget to report back on that type of thing. I really should share some of my gleanings one day.

Why has Henry Hopper’s performance lingered with me? Well, I got to thinking about narcissism. Narcissism without talent is a repellent gesture to an audience. Its as if the audience are surplus to requirements. But, narcissism with talent is an inviting, generous gesture. Think of Rita Hayworth’s performance of ‘Blame it on Mame’ in Gilda (I mention that moment as it is one I am working with for my thesis show). The audience is invited to collude with the performer, a flirtation between watcher and watched. Craft is an interesting strategy – something held up to the viewer, something generated by the performer. I’ve been thinking about this in relation to women in classic Hollywood film and I’m nearly there with my thoughts – it has got something to do with the agency of the performer and the female masquerade. I’ll get back to you on it.

The visiting artists must perform themselves. Each Thursday night in F200 (aka the room in which I broke my wrist. Incidentally, that was right before doing a performance in an end-of-class showing. I’ll come back to that in a bit), an invited artist shows examples of their work and/or gives explanations or reads aloud recent written material. They then take part in a Q & A session, which is un-moderated and can become an opportunity for the audience to pick holes in the artists work. There is no promise of politeness at a CalArts Q & A – some artists will not come become of its reputation. A team of three students is paid to coordinate the lectures. I find the structure of the whole thing interesting in that the student body shapes the series. The artists often do studio visits too. Isn’t it all performing? Like a performing seal? Performing the self. I remember Sharon Kivland’s maxim: - “an artist is always on duty”. I am going to list all the visiting (performing) artists in the series from the last three semesters. I’ll mark where I attended with a §, when I asked a question with a π and where I had a studio visit with the artist with a Ω.

2007
20th Sept Lisa Anne Auerbach §
25th Sept Mark Lewis
27th Sept Kamau Patton
4th Oct Stanya Kahn & Harry Dodge
11th Oct Francesca Gabbiani
18th Oct Sue de Beer
1st Nov Morgan Fischer
8th Nov Mathias Poledna
15th Nov Frances Stark
29th Nov Symbiotica
6th Dec Lisa Lapinski §
13th Dec Mel Ziegler
15th Jan Miles Coolidge
17th Jan Walid Raad § π
22nd Jan Nicole Cohen
24th Jan Patrick Killoran
29th Jan Edgar Heap-of-Birds §
31st Jan Katja Eydel § π
7th Feb Michelle Grabner
14th Feb Hirsch Perlman
21st Feb Carolla Dertnig (visiting faculty) §
28th Feb Robert Pruitt
6th Mar Richard Hawkins
12th Mar Stefan Romer screening of film Conceptual Paradise §
13th Mar Janice Kerbel § Ω
20th Mar Lane Relyea §
10th Apr Ben Weissman (visiting faculty)
17th Apr Seth Price
24th Apr Lecia Dole-Recio (visiting faculty)
1st May Mary Kelly §
8th May Rebecca Morales
18th Sept Mungo Thomson (Coneptual) §
25th Sept Mindy Shapero (Sculpture/Drawing)
2nd Oct Linda Palmer (Neuroscience of Kantian Philosophy)
9th Oct Yvonne Rainer (Experimental Choreography & Film) §
16th Oct Charles Long (Process-Based Sculpture)
23rd Oct Kim Fisher (Abstract Painting)
30th Oct Panel Discussion: Efficacy of Art & the Politics of Change (participants - Natalie Bookchin, Andrea Bowers, Ashley Hunt, Daniel Joseph Martinez) §
11th Nov Eve Fowler (Portraits/Photography) §
13th Nov Matthew Coolidge (Center for Land Use Interpretation) §
18th Nov Sarah Thornton (author, Seven Days in the Art World)
4th Dec Marnie Weber (Multi-Disciplinary) § Ω
11th Dec Joan Jonas (Video & Performance) § Ω

Each lecture I usually have a question to ask, but I am unable to say anything through (audience) performance anxiety.



In my meeting with Marnie Weber, she told me how it was nice to use my dance knowledge in my artwork. She thinks it is nice when you incorporate your skills into your practice. She was looking at my cigarette-card dancer photos on my studio wall whilst I was telling her about the day I broke my wrist right before our performance presentations. The event was put back a week and I did my performance with a bandaged wrist and on heavy painkillers. Marnie saw a link with my dancers project to this performance – the subversive element of the real person coming through.

Giving and Thanking

We spent Thanksgiving at the Ranch, and friends of Ellen and David came to celebrate it with them. We were invited up to the main house to join in with the meal and merry-making. I took pan-baked brussel sprouts which were so yummy and got lots of compliments. Leslie Dick and her daughter were amongst the merry-makers and it was lovely to spend some time with them. Leslie was really impressed with husband too.

I omitted to mention that a couple of weeks back, the Semiotics class looked at Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida. Ellen asked me to choose the reading excerpts from the book for the class and to deliver my interpretation on the readings in class. It was a bit of an honor to be asked and a great experience. Of course, I got the pacing all wrong in my delivery but Ellen jumped in and helped me out when more explanation was needed.



I have had many, many meetings recently and I shall try to give some kind of a description of them. I met with Kerry Tribe, who is incredibly fast-talking, but charming, warm and gave some interesting thoughts. She was just around this semester as a one off and I regret not working with her more. Michelle Dizon is visiting faculty (Allen is taking a year out, Billy had this semester off and Kaucyila is having next semester off so there are lots of visiting faculty this year) and everyone adores her. She is extremely softly spoken, gentle, considered and polite. She seems to have a gift of being able to get into everyone’s headspace. I think CalArts should really make efforts to keep her. I had a wonderful meeting with her and really want to do an Independent Study with her next year. Martin Kersels has been a wonderful consoler, he’s great at bringing soothing and forgiving words to the situation when you think maybe your whole work is a big mess.

Although Leslie Dick has a brain as sharp as a tack our meetings feel like girly chats. By that I mean, I un-load my feelings of inferiority to her, she brings me uplifting and hilarious anecdotes, often very personal, as she is so wonderfully open. She said in one meeting that I was ‘smarter than 90% of the people here’, which I doubt, but I appreciated the sentiment. I give her my ideas, she builds on them and gives them back to me and I reciprocate. Leslie easily gets into my area of thinking, very much like Kaucyila, with whom I swap lines from 1940s musicals and film noirs. Kaucyila gets really invested in my work and to some extent a kind of defensiveness comes out sometimes when I tell her about my criticisms and discussions from others – comments like, ‘What is relevant about the 1940s to now?’ Kaucyila has given me a bank of quips to deal with such lines of thinking. Patrick Killoran met with me the other week and he saw my show last year. He came in and told me what a great show it was and gave me his read of that work. That started a really probing conversation about my work and as I was the last meeting of the day he talked to me for an 1 ½ hours instead of the allotted 45 minutes.

We had a lottery at the start of the semester for meetings with the visiting artists and I managed to get two – one with Marnie Weber and other with Joan Jonas. Here’s a thought I’ve been thinking: if I were studying in the UK, I wonder what artist’s names would come up most in my meetings. As I am here two LA-based artists crop up the most – Marnie Weber and Andrea Fraser. I was really excited to meet with Marnie, and she was very generous in our meeting and related my work to her work. Joan Jonas was nice, but she was pushed for time and essentially I seemed to tell her all about my work, she asked me further questions then just said, 'great'. The visiting artists have to meet you and perform in 45 minutes and that either works or it doesn't.

I love working with Natalie. I think Natalie and I have great rapport. And I think to work closely with someone on your work; you need to feel that you can trust them. Natalie is great at listening to me talk about my work then pointing out the flaws in my thinking. She spotted a huge flaw recently, around my preference for the still image in relation to issues around women in representation. She really encouraged me to look at that so I’ve been reading a lot of theory and writing my ideas down for her in order to really get a handle on what I think and why its relevant. I’ve been doing a lot of spider diagrams.

I talk with Ellen when we ride to and from school together. We talk about all sorts on the 40-minute commute, but my thinking on my work is one of the recurrent themes. She is really supportive, but she knows Natalie is on my ass so she gives me encouragement and we put our heads together and try to come up with some answers on my work. On the days that I do the commute alone I have audio books on my i-pod which Ellen gave me. It’s a wonderful way to read novels without looking at the pages. (I just finished Lolita read by Jeremy Irons – his dulcet British tones are soothing)

There is a lot of tension and stress floating around the MFA2 Art & Photo people. My support system is husband, the ranch and Lily. Husband copes really really well with the situation – I know many people are experiencing tough times in their relationships due to the stress. Not here. And that’s credit to Husband. Lily is the most kind, friendly and sweet natured Springer Spaniel. (Sometimes I just drive home praying she is at our place so I can give her a big cuddle. The other night she stayed the night here as she does sometimes. She stays on the sofa but manages to find her way onto our bed before morning.)

I was shocked to find out how many people are on prescribed medication for the stress. (It is very American to pop a pill if you are not brimming with happiness. I think that there is a huge pressure to live some kind of an ‘American Dream’ and if things go wrong psychiatrists use medication in the first instance. I find it all rather sad and feel very thankful I am a Brit and am allowed to be mardy sometimes. There is no friendly slang for being moody here and I think that is another symptom of what I am talking about. I miss the word mardy).

CalArts is all about the artists in different fields working under one rough in order to swap ideas and collaborate. Collaboration proper doesn’t happen all that often, but skill swapping and favours do. I’m really excited as I am getting singing lessons as I photographed a singer in 1930s style. I want to be able to sing for a video I am doing that will be in my thesis show – singing and dancing an excerpt of Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasures in Narrative Cinema. Also, I’ve put together some text to do with my cigarette cards/dancers project and I hope to work with a really sweet designer next semester to produce book(let) of the work.

Friday was the last Post Studio and the class went for a meal out together. I came back from the toilet and everyone had left! I missed my opportunity to say goodbye and thanks to Michael. I enjoyed the class, but I did not do as well in it as I first thought. Funnily enough, the conversations hit on areas where I have no expertise - philosophy, Kant, Foucault, Adorno, and stranger still, this seemed to connect to feelings I had around being expelled from school at 16 for not being academic enough. I eventually got some confidence back, but I'm the girl who likened someone's work the the moment in 'This Is Spinal Tap' when the stone henge copies get lowered onto the stage and they are something like 10 inches instead of 10 feet high. I am that girl. I had a meeting with Michael on Thursday and I was nervous about it so I blurted out at the start of the meeting that I did not know if I was Michael-ready yet, and he said, ‘I’m not sure if I’m [Tallulah] ready yet’. The meeting was all too short, but he thought that I might have a case to argue in my work. He really is rather special. I mean that.

Yesterday some people in the class came out to the ranch for a spot of orange-picking – I thought it may be a nice idea as I take a bag or two of oranges along to class so its become a bit of a theme.

Dad is coming to visit on Sunday, 21st December to 1st January and I’m so excited about to see him and show him the ranch.