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HIPPY HOLIDAY
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Nicola Trezzi on Joao Simoes’ closing reception at Emily Harvey Foundation NEW YORK - As the Bernadette Corporation put it, “New York itself strives to become the ultimate collective experiment in which the only thing shared is the lack of uniqueness.” This certitude was heralded once again on a night when I found myself on Broadway, following an invitation to the mysterious closing reception of a tentacular project by Portuguese artist and architect Joao Simoes at the Emily Harvey Foundation. | | |  | | Ann Craven's Shadow projected on Taketo Shimada performance aftermath; Artists Sergei Tcherepnin and Ei Arakawa. All Photos: Joao Simoes. | | | Before recounting the events of that dark night I think Harvey (who passed away in 2004) deserves a few lines: according to the website biography she was “a strong individualistic child, an instigator” (basically everybody’s dream!). I think that these feelings were invested in the gallery she opened in 1985 in New York exclusively devoted to Fluxus, Conceptual Art, Mail Art and Performance, which has shown people like Robert Filliou, George Maciunas, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, Carolee Schneemann, Daniel Spoerri, Ben Vautier and LaMonte Young. Then she married a Venetian man and started a new branch of the gallery in Venice, which apparently after a period of inactivity will reopen next year under the vision of Simoes, who for this show in New York has literally received carte blanche from the foundation head Christian Xatrec. | | |  | | Anthony Huberman, Maï-Thu Perret, John Armleder, Jutta Koether, Ann Craven, Amy Granat, Jacob Kassay and Ana Cardoso; Amy Granat and Emily Sundblad's Lisbon Films, created during the meeting in Lisbon for TEST project in February 2008. | | | Occupying for 3 weeks this odd cultural identity on 537 Broadway — whose space, with large windows and wooden floor, seems a smaller and more extreme version of the neighboring Swiss Institute — Simoes activated a series of film screenings, collaborations and happenings as crazy initiatives that are as technically low profile as they are conceptually strong. Witnessing the last day was an experience: in the center of the room a series of synthesizers and keyboards were spread out like a big octopus; in the center a series of sound performances were manoeuvred by Stefan and Sergei Tcherepnin (with a clown nose), eventually accompanied by artists Amir Mogharabi and Robert The. Later on, this almost insane performance was interrupted by Fluxus veteran Jeff Perkins, who started speaking of how Yoko Ono and John Lennon spent their time screaming at one another and who then culminated his turn in throwing paper towel and paint from the stairs. In that moment I realized that the common toilet sign “PLEASE FLUSH THE TOILET” was certainly invented by a Fluxus Artist! | | |  | | Taketo Shimada performing; Artist John Armleder and art critic Adrian Dannat. | | | Following Perkins was an even more surreal performance by Taketo Shimada, who created live a brick-a-brack CD player that produced a melodious noise for a petrified audience. Concrete poetry, oxymoron, divinations… here we are! | | |  | | Artist Ana Cardoso; Artist Robert The. | | | Rendering the night even more exciting was a painting collaboration by Ana Cardoso Jacob Kassay and a very special couple of films: Ann Craven’s wonderful and all-is-full-of-love Shadow, which featured the artist’s cat projected onto the decays of Shimada’s arrangements, followed by the Lisbon Film by Amy Granat and Emily Sundblad. | | |  | | Artists Matt Keegan and Amy Granat; Emily Harvey Foundation veterans Yolanda Niederkorn and Anne Wilson. | | | This ongoing Swedish-American collaboration, simply entitled Sundblad/Granat film (finally a slash female competitor for Guyton\Walker?), has already proliferated in several places: from Kunsthalle Zurich, part of Bernadette Corporation one-year project “How to Cook a Wolf,” to Castillo/Corrales, under the name Les Femmes Qui Dorment; from White Columns to the next screening at Filles du Cailvaire in Brussels. In this new European art-magnet, opening on February the 7th, the female duo is planning to present many of them, including the latest Lonesome Cowgirl (filmed in Tucson and inspired by Warhol’s Lonesome Cowboy) and Turkey and Lobster Film, showcased the day of thanksgiving when they prepared, with a beehive on the their head, a delicious dinner for a circle of close friends. Their stage: Broadway 1602 gallery, which is the third place on Broadway where Granat has presented her work — The Saints, a film she did following Steven Parrino’s testament, was premiered at the Swiss Institute a while ago… | | |  | | Robert The, Joao Simoes and Sergei Tcherepnin; Sergei and Stefan Tcherepnin performing with Amir Mogharabi. | | | Underlining the “timeless situation,” the Lisbon Film — starring Granat, Sundblad and curator Mathieu Copeland and filmed in Lisbon where Simoes has his headquarters TEST (http://00351.org) — could have been done yesterday as in the ’60s or the ’70s… or maybe next year, why not? The atmosphere and the treatment of the film is enchanting, beautifully ruined. | | |  | | Sergei Tcherepnin performing; Taketo Shimada performing. | | | Simoes himself was always directing, presenting, introducing this “holograms’ rendezvous,” with the attendance of artists John Armleder, Maï-Thu Perret, Ei Arakawa, Matt Keegan and Tom Burr, curator Anthony Huberman, art critic Adrian Dannat and a crown (I assume) of real insiders. The climax of the night was reached when my fav-above-all Jutta Koether approached me saying that she liked the juxtaposition of the ladies with Barney’s shopping bags, which read “have a hippy holiday,” combined with the presence of the earnest old-school hippies. In this cool-smart (Cologne Style!) perception of such an event, she kept saying that now that the balance was tipped — when the ladies with the Barney bags had left — she was definitely ready to sneak out… no better end to such a soirée. | | |  | | Stefan Tcherepnin performing; Contemporarysaintlouis Museum Chief Curator Anthony Huberman. | | | |  | | Fluxus artist Jeff Perkins performing; Artists Amir Mogharabi, Joao Simoes and Stefan Tcherepnin. | | | | |
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