We’ll be hosting an event in his loft space in Oakland later in the month, or early in October, so stay tuned for more details.
MWG Preview
I’ve just uploaded the next online exhibition at Marjorie Wood Gallery to our test server. If you’d like a preview before it goes up on the main site tomorrow night, check out The Studio Dong Collection, Nick Dong’s finely crafted functional and absurdist objects, including his Inter-Personal Masculinity Evaluator (which I recently bought). He wants to host an event in which the object comes into my possession, which would include a public evaluation and demonstration of my own personal equipment.
fly at Marjorie Wood Gallery
I’ve just uploaded a new exhibition to the Marjorie Wood Gallery, an online animated sound installation by Su-Chen Hung called fly.
Check it out.
Live Nude Action!
Okay, I was just trying to get your attention, my thrill-seeking friends. My nude-free exhibition is finally up and viewable now at the Marjorie Wood Gallery. It’s called Out of Breath. It’s slightly different from my beta version–I’ve added different voices, including the sexy aspirations of Iain and the post coital murmurings of Manny.
Enjoy!
My Lunch With Arnie
I just stumbled up my hill, after a lunch with Arnie at Luna, or whatever they’re calling it now. We still call it the Castro Gardens. Arnie is about 70 now, still very active and as curmudgeony as when I met him. The thing I love about my lunches with Arnie is that he still treats me like a twinkie. I was 18 when I met him, and he still thinks of me as being that age. His lover and mine died around the same time, and we’re the last of our original group. I sometimes don’t even have cash in my wallet as I pull it out saying, “Let me get it this time,” and he throws a fit–“No, no… you’re an artist.” Fine with me, let him get the bill. He’s off to Israel where he’s endowing a fund for a Lesbian and Gay Studies scholarship at Hebrew University. He used to be a pilot for United. I think he flew me out here when I moved from Birmingham in ’84. Anyway, he’s having a private jet built for him that’ll be ready next year. I told him if he flew me to Paris I’d treat him to a chocolat at Francine’s. Arnie came to the Marjorie Wood Gallery opening Saturday night, thinking that Big Chris was married to Marjorie, and that the event was at their house. I told him Chris was my friend and that Marjorie Wood was a fictitious character based on the Barbara Bel Geddes role in Vertigo. He couldn’t comprehend it. “I am Midge,” I told him. “How are you going to make money?” he kept asking. “There’s no real space?” “What about Yoko Ono?” On leaving, he gulped down a viagra with the last of our wine, and hopped away with his hands in his pocket, meeting his 30-something playmate for an afternoon romp. He has two boyfriends, both of whom have lovers that don’t know about Arnie. The Other Woman Arnie, my buddy and neighbor.
Beta Exhibition
I’m toying with the idea of creating an online sound installation. I’m not experienced at embedding sound files in html documents, so if anyone wishes to check out my first draft, without the actual sounds that I’m going to use, follow this link. Any input would be appreciated. And yes, I’ve changed the gender of the title–a conceptual decision that I may toss out.
Anyway, here’s a description of the installation as proposed a few years ago:
I wish to create a charged space in which the viewer may investigate his/her reactions to an overwhelming masculine presence. The space may be reminiscent of a prison environment – a common setting in gay pornography. A French slang term for orgasm, “petite mort,” is translated literally to mean “little death.” The installation suggests a multiplicity of interpretations: a record of the lives wasted in jail cells; the last exhausted breaths of men waiting to die; the heavy breathing of a rapist; or the sounds of men having orgasms.
Masculinity here is reduced to a basic component. There are no signifiers of gender other than the hint of a voice behind the breath – no clothes, no genitals, no bodies; no representations or stereotypes. I wish to investigate the images of masculinity that are embedded in our culture and unconscious life. The only image the viewer will experience is the one which is created in the mind after hearing the breathing and reading the title.
In all of my work, I try to evoke a response that is not verbal, but visceral. I believe that we all share a language of images and sounds that call forth specific meanings in each of us. It is this language that I use to solicit a response.
Big Chris Toasts
Whew. Well, the Midge opening went very well, and everyone had fun. Too bad you missed it. I made a digital slide show of images from the website, that we projected onto Big Chris’ big screen, creating a visual cacophany well-suited to the eclectic mix of songs sung “blue.” I and my sisters played long past BC passed out in the Green Room. They even helped clean. Chris and I have decided to host events in conjunction with each exhibition, and to have artist talks, presentations, screenings, etc… at BC’s. My exhibition will be next, in the MAY-JUNE slot, and I’m thinking of screening the film that I’ve been working on, or having a bear fashion show (just fur, maybe shoes). Stay tuned.
Me and Emily Wilson and Dean Smith…
Mr. Coco, Mr. Coco
I’m drinking a Georgian wine, in honor of Comrade Stalin, from the Kakheti region, it’s awful, the flavor of socialist feet, which I’d prefer associated with a guy named Alexi instead of a wine, but it’s doing the trick, I have the nicest buzz, I just worked out, so there are also the endorphins, I saw the greatest movie this afternoon, yes I did my work, 4th workday of the rest of my life, I’m even ahead, an adaptation of Pinter’s The Homecoming from 1973, with a very young not-yet-bald Ian Holm, incredible, oops, there’s Reese, gotta go…Dinner and then fractions, finally Reese gets long division, he’s soaking in the tub now, Big Chrissy just called, the party’s on Saturday, everybody’s coming, oh no what to do, we’ve created a multi-media presentation for the party, Emily’s exhibition is called Unrequited (Blue) so Chris has cleverly prepared a play list of songs that each feature the word blue, “Blue Moon,” etc… Okay more later, I’m going off to did I get the html right? Boris’s feet I want to have a little buddy who calls me “Mr. Frodo,” …”Mr. Coco”
The Marjorie Wood Gallery
BC and I have been working on a project called the MARJORIE WOOD GALLERY. Remember the Barbara bel Geddes character, Midge, in Hitchcock’s Vertigo? Her full name is Marjorie Wood. This is the online art gallery that she started years after the events depicted in the film. I’m curating (as Midge) and designing the site, and Chris is to manage the business end of it. This is my first attempt at implementing my own web design, so any feedback on ease of use, design, etc is welcomed and appreciated. We haven’t officially launched, but most of the site is viewable, so check it out.