Future Perfect Trash

I: Future Trash

Last night I dreamt we were all gonna die. The rich ones, the poor ones, were all gonna die. The white ones, the black ones were all gonna die. The old ones, the young ones were all gonna die. We were walked down to a small lake or a pond at dusk. We were told to lie down. Some put their feet in the muddy water, but I did not, as I didn’t want death to come from the water. It was getting dark, but we could still see. Our assassins were young and beautiful, like rock stars. They were not cruel, nor out to torture us. They took no pleasure in their task, but they showed no mercy. My assassin looked like St. Vincent. I looked at her and I knew she was mine. We were told to close our eyes, that we would know when it was our turn, by a poke or a prod. Next to me lay a young girl, a child of nine or ten. She was curled up against me in fetal position, her shins nestled against my ribcage. When it was her turn to go, our assassin asked me if I wanted to kiss her goodbye, as we were companions. I could not open my eyes to look at her face —but I kissed her legs and her knees, the bones of her feet and the flesh of her calves, knowing it would soon be gone.
I woke up with a song in my heart. It was Antony Hegarty singing: “It will grow back like a starfish. It will grow back like a starfish. It will grow back like a starfish. It will grow back like a starfish.” But now that I am fully awake, I am not so sure. [1]

Emotional Landscapes

Jetlag is the Devil’s work!

Or is it a First World problem?

First World problems are the Devil’s work and jetlag is the hands-on reminder that in this day and age it is never really enough, if at all possible, to be in one place at a time, when you can be all over the place.

How’s My Painting? Call 1-800-EAT SHIT

 

Ok, so this happened: this morning, as I was about to leave my hotel, there was some screaming and commotion in the hallway. A woman was yelling for help. I rushed outside and saw the staff, room service, the reception clerk, and some other hotel guests (military men, judging by their uniforms) swarm in from all corners an descend on the hotel room right next door to mine, where a young woman was standing in the door way, whimpering. She looked like she had just been on the way in or out of the shower (out, I think as I believe her hair was wet). She was half naked, or half dressed – but despite her state of undress, she did not look at all like she was “asking for it” – she just looked scared, in shock actually, and tried to compose herself as she struggled to give a coherent account of what had just happened.

Swimming Tiger Lotus Envy

Then, we tried to name our babies
But we forgot all the names that
The names we used to know
But sometimes
We remember bedrooms
And our parent’s bedrooms
And the bedrooms of our friends

–Arcade Fire

 

All The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell

One early morning last week –as I was getting ready to go down to Navy Pier to put the finishing touches on my installation for the “Art Prom” that is the third annual installment of Chicago’s own Expo Chicago—I woke up to a picture in my Facebook feed, of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in full Ziggy Stardust make up.

Visions of Rihanna

In Norse mythology, Kraka (born Aslaug) stands out as the archetypical “clever peasant girl” who, by orchestrating her stunning looks in cunning ways, gets the kingdom, the wisdom and the glory.

Chair Pose

 

At the mini mall where I buy my art supplies, next to Starbucks and Whole Foods, there are two design furniture stores to supply the well to do urban area where we live.

In the window display at Design Within Reach is a Fritz Hansen Egg chair, designed by Arne Jacobsen for the Radisson SAS hotel in Copenhagen in 1958. Originally produced in green wool, the most popular model, like the one it the window, was upholstered in black leather.

A classic.

In The Year Of The Scavenger, The Season Of The Bitch…

… in the fossil fueled states of American gloom and doom, we are headed south on LSD, a donnerwetter looming on the horizon as a tic in the corner of our left eye. Shot-size raindrops splatter against the wind-shield from the sky turning from gunmetal grey to violaceous to petroleum green behind the silhouetted skyscrapers, swaying gently in the balmy November breeze as the wind picks up and a tornado warning tics in on the mobile device, interrupting Kanye West singing:

It’s a beautiful day for jumping out the window/letting everything go/letting everything go…

Indeed it is a beautiful day!

A Space Where Your Voices Can Live (An installation for 6018 North@Expo)

Artist’s Statement:

The “fakeness” of glam points (like the finger at the mirror ball, its reflection pointing back at itself) to the bigger “fakeness”, the samsara of everything else, yet at the same time to the melancholia of our codependency on this fake old world –hence the true melancholia of true glamour. It’s only Rock’n’Roll, but we like it.

HOME@Expo, Interview with Caroline Picard

This Interview by Caroline Picard with Tricia van Eck, John Preus, Sabina Ott, Jane Jane Jerardi and myself was originally published on the blog Bad at Sports. It is reblogged here with her kind permission:

Under the eaves of Navy Pier, four artists install four iterations of domestic space. These spaces — a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and studio — are envisioned expressly as artist domiciles, fittingly embedded in the commercial throng and hype of a contemporary art fair. Fitting, I suggest, because they are interdependent while nevertheless at odds. The aroma, mess and casual experimentation of a kitchen is a far cry from the professional white sea of gallery cubicles. Yet of course they are interconnected; the artist must sleep somewhere, just as he or she must also engage a commercial market. This juxtaposition manifests like a dream; it is hard to know if the domestic space is dreaming that it is in an exposition hall, or if the exposition hall is dreaming that it harbors domesticity. Emphasizing this surreal tension HOME reminds fair-goers of the quotidian world behind the otherwise sharp and prestigious kingdom of commerce. In the following interview I was able to discuss the project with curator Tricia van Eck and its participating artists, Lise Haller Baggesen, Sabina Ott, John Preus and Jane Jerardi.