A Thoughtful Blending...
There are 3 canvases in the works in my studio this month,
all in various stages of completion… “French Film Blurred,” “Love Bends the
Earth,” and “Read & Burn.” Anyone
with a penchant for 80’s experimental post-punk will correctly suss out my title
inspirations. The copy of MOMA’s “Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde” perched precariously
on the edge of my drawing board is simply a diversion, but it did get me
traveling back in time to reexamine two old favourites:
Japanese filmmaker, Hiroshi
Teshigahara, the first Japanese filmmaker to be nominated for an
Academy Award, and American installation/performance artist, Vito Acconci.
I first discovered the films of Teshigahara in college
during an avant-garde film and video class taken simply for the units, but the class
ended up spurring a lifelong interest in the art of film-making.
Teshigahara is best known for “Woman In The Dunes,” a film that
won the Special Jury Prize at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, and which brings
to mind the surrealist work of Luis Bunuel. The film, roughly based on “The
Myth of Sisyphus,” tells the story of a teacher who sets out to explore some
sand dunes, but soon becomes entrapped in a strange village where he must help
a widow in her task of digging sand. Sand…quicksand and the metaphor of
entrapment and how he learns to come to terms with his situation, are the
central themes of this haunting story. Teshigahara’s other works include “The Pitfall,” and “Face of Another.” In his later years his ambitions centered around
documentaries and television. Teshigahara passed away in 2001 at the age of 74.
I had the rare opportunity of seeing Acconci’s work at the
James Corcoran Gallery in LA in the early 90’s just before it closed its doors.
I haven’t actually thought about this artist or the gallery in some time, but when
I recently read that the Whitney in New York is including Acconci’s work in a
new exhibit that focuses on downtown Manhattan performance art of the 70’s, (Rituals of Rented
Island), I felt it worth a mention.
Acconci is an iconoclastic conceptual New York artist. Originally
a poet during the 60's, whose work has been compared to Samuel Beckett, Acconci turned
to visual art in the early 70's in order to “define his body in space.” Today he
is best known for his video and performance art, in which he often uses his own
body as an artistic performance tool. His provocative and often controversial works
center around public participation and the interchange between artist and
viewer. Much of his work through the 80's also involves public reaction and
engagement. Like Teshigahara’s, “Woman In The Dunes,” a sense of isolation is a
prominent theme in Acconci’s late 70’s video, “Red Tapes.”
"Lobby-For-The-Time-Being" (Acconci) The Bronx Museum of the Arts
“Rituals of Rented Island” will run through 2014. As a noir-inspired artist, I would be remiss not mentioning that while at the Whitney, you
can also see the original study for Edward Hopper’s noir-themed, “Nighthawks,” -
through 6 October.
Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance, and the New Psychodrama—Manhattan, 1970–1980.
About to get back to painting…too much French Roast has me feeling
a little “wired.”
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