The following pictures were taken at the Dia:Beacon, one of the Dia Art Foundation‘s residencies in the state of New York. They have an impressive collection of iconic pieces of art, and each artist has their own room inside their wonderful building, the former Nabisco box printing facility built in 1929.
A definite highlight (for me) of the Whitney Biennial was the work ‘We like America and America likes us’ (2010), by The Bruce High Quality Foundation.
With its title and form referring to Joseph Beuys’s performance ‘I like America and America likes me’ (where Beuys was picked up from the airport with a Cadillac ambulance and brought to the gallery, where he lived with a coyote for three days) an old ambulance stands in one of the rooms of the Whitney, a film playing on its windshield. The film is comprised of different clips taken from youtube videos. The female voiceover tells us about her difficult relationship to America, while it is constantly unclear whether America is a man, a woman, a lover, a friend, or really just the country.
The original video that’s shown on the windshield of the ambulance.
Paul McCarthy: Destruction of the Body. A documentary by Jörg and Ralf Raino Jung (2001).
More from this documentary:
‘America we stand as one’ (2002) by Dennis Madalone. One of the highlights of Whatfilm 2!
Check www.americawestandasone.com with sing along karaoke version!
Yesterday night was the Whatfilm night at the Film Foyer in Tilburg, organised by Whatspace. An evening of nice shortfilms selected by Rotterdam VHS Festival and presented by Niels Post of Trendbeheer. After the Read More some blurry photo impressions:
(More photo’s on Whatspace and Trendbeheer!)
Andy Warhol eats a hamburger (1982)
More people eating hamburgers: Read More
‘Sonne statt Reagan’ (1983) popsong by Joseph Beuys.
A protest song against America and its use of nuclear weapons.
‘I like America and America likes me’, Beuys’ famous performance in New York (1974).
In May 1974 Beuys flew to New York and was taken by ambulance to the site of the performance, a room in the René Block Gallery on East Broadway. He shared this room with a wild coyote, for eight hours over three days. At times he stood, wrapped in a thick, grey blanket of felt, leaning on a large shepherd’s staff. At the end of the three days, Beuys hugged the coyote that had grown quite tolerant of him, and was taken to the airport. Again he rode in a veiled ambulance, leaving America without having set foot on its ground.
Goshka Macuga’s ‘(On) The nature of the Beast’
Goshka Macuga, ‘The nature of the beast’ (2009)
Macuga was commisioned to make new work by the Whitechapel Gallery in London, where Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ had once been exhibited. Inspired by this historic fact, Macuga made a replica of the Guernica tapestry that Nelson Rockefeller commisioned in 1955. Some thirty years later this was lent to the United Nations Headquarters in New York where it has hung ever since outside the Security Council. Offered as a deterrent to war, in 2003 the tapestry was covered by a blue curtain in front of which Colin Powell delivered his fateful speech on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Macuga’s installation ‘The nature of the beast’ in the Whitechapel Gallery consisted of the Guernica’s replica, as well as a round meeting table (a symbol of democracy) in front of it. The room had been designed to accommodate meetings, discussions and debates around the central table, with Guernica once again as a backdrop. Groups were invited to organise these events free of charge during opening hours.
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