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Like Godzilla, Charlie Sheen’s “My Violent Torpedo of Truth” tour continues to roam the countryside, fortunately leaving ontological, rather than physical, destruction in its path. In New York City, however, at the MoMA through August 1, 2011, a different kind of truth delivery is taking place. Belgian performance artist Francis Alÿs stars in the retrospective Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, which is more of a “gentle tornado of art” with a side order of truth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. With a selection of his “greatest hits” in video form and some accompanying graphic works, Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception tells the story of how a Belgian architect came to understand the world via Mexico City, a whirlwind of corruption, beauty, and absurdity—like pretty much everywhere else. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "
Francis Alys: Gentle Tornado of Art."
[Francis Alÿs (Belgian, born 1959). Tornado. 2000-2010. Video (color, sound), 39 min. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Volkswagen of America. © 2011 Francis Alÿs.]
[Many thanks to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for providing the image above from and other press materials for Francis Alÿs: A Story of Deception, which runs through August 1, 2011.]
Like way too many Americans, I, too, have been captivated by the fast-moving human train-wreck slash slow-motion suicide phenomenon of Charlie Sheen. Not since Hot Shots! Part Deux have I watched as much footage of Martin Sheen’s youngest and most likely craziest son. Fueled by “Adonis DNA” and inspired by his “Goddess” muses, Charlie Sheen’s been playing the part of his and maybe our lifetime to what may be the last drop of his “Tiger blood.” Performance art usually receives condescending smirks in the United States as the last kid picked for the cultural game of kickball. With Charlie Sheen’s big adventure, however, maybe performance art has finally come to the colonies. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "The Desperate Man."
[Image: Gustave Courbet. The Desperate Man. 1843.]
Until she was 10 years old, performance artist Marina Abramović believed her parents when they told her that her birthday was November 29th, “Republic Day” in her native Yugoslavia. They moved the date from the actual November 30th to link her birth with the fortunes of her country, which both her parents fought to make free during World War II. Years later, she met her long-time life and artistic partner Ulay on her birthday, only to find that November 30th was his birthday, too. “Now, rather than a date to be ignored as a depressing annual reminder of lost time and inevitable oblivion,” James Westcott writes in When Marina Abramović Dies: A Biography, the first biography of the artist, “November 30 quickly became a cosmic guarantee of a shared destiny and a symbiotic union.” Just as her birthdate took on “cosmic” significance, Abramović’s flirtations with death and suffering take on greater meaning through her performance art. Westcott guides us through the maze of meaning Abramović weaves and helps us come through to the other side where death oddly gives birth to a whole new kind of life on this earth, if not necessarily the next. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Birthday Girl."
[Many thanks to MIT Press for providing me with a review copy of James Westcott’s When Marina Abramović Dies: A Biography.]
