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frac champagneardenne

réouverture en 2015 reopening in 2015

frac champagne-ardenne fonds régional d’art contemporain 1, place museux f–51100 reims t +33 (0)3 26 05 78 32 f +33 (0)3 26 05 13 80 contact@frac-champagneardenne.org www.frac-champagneardenne.org

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Johanna Viprey and Jean Wave New album upcoming : NO PANORAMA 6

JOHANNA VIPREY The Artist As A Cabdriver. A Methodological Journey with Jeff Perkins, Professional Outsider Published by NERO

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Y KB OO B S, ,A NTE ED 014 A 2 V ISH CER BER AS UBL VEM G P O R E LB THE Y I N N N A VA OF A WIL S , N SB U S O S SI TO ARI I A P C C IN JER HE OC CO TO MU T HO EXI P AT ,M A L M E R IS D ORIAL MO T I ED

S(h)e who laughs last, laughs best: Mujercitos in the nota roja periodical Alarma!

By Susana Vargas Cervantes

On November 17, 1901, “Homosexuality was invented in Mexico” (Monsiváis, 2003). For the first time, word of same-sex desire and relations appeared in the Mexican press. Not even the Oscar Wilde trials had been reported in Mexico. It was the scandal of La Redada del Baile de los 41 (“The Raid of the Ball of the 41”) that marked the relationship between gender transgression, same-sex desire, class, and the press.

At 3 in the morning in a private house located on La Paz Street in downtown Mexico City, police raided a private party attended by a group of 42 men. Twenty-two of them were dressed with mostly masculine signifiers at the time. The other nineteen wore mostly feminine adornments, like dresses and shawls, and also makeup. According to the story, neighbors complained about the noises and scandal to the police who then raided the private party.

Periodicals initially reported that there were 42 participants. The number was then changed to 41, and according to rumors, the man who vanished was Ignacio de la Torre, “the ‘son-inlaw’ of the nation,” that is the son-in-law of Porfirio Díaz, the dictator of Mexico at the time. The reports were illustrated with a lithograph entitled,“Aquí están los maricones. Muy Chulos y Coquetones” (“Here are the maricones. Very cute and flirty”) by Guadalupe Posada, now worldreknowned for his depiction of the female figure of Mexican death, La Catrina. La Redada del Baile de los 41, one hundred and thirteen years later, fluctuates between historical truth, gossip, and urban legend.

The Redada has marked the number 41 in the history of Mexican peripheral sexualities.

Today, the number 41 has become a synonym with homosexuality. A man turning 41 would never pronounce that number, but instead would say, “40 bis” or “zafo” (“not me”), as if by not pronouncing the number 41, he was confirming his very heterosexual subjectivity. Today, the number 41—or its different versions—continues to signify a threat to masculine and heterosexual subjectivity, and embodies signifiers and innuendos concerning male effeminacy and homosexuality.

It almost seems that this news event created a formula to be deployed thereafter, one in which men dressed in feminine attire enjoy themselves with other men dressed in masculine signifiers during a private party, making so much noise that neighbors complain to the police. The police then raid the private party and based on the very ambiguous definitions of offense to public morals, they arrest those bearing signifiers of femininity.

That same formula is repeated in the reports of peripheral sexualities in the exemplary nota 1 roja periodical, Alarma! The “cute and flirtatious,” “effeminate” men from 1901 are the mujercitos in the 1970s. The term mujercitos plays with gender through a grammatical feminization of the male subject used by Alarma! as a synonym for “effeminate man,” one whose gender/sexual identity is not the same as that of transsexual or transgender subject.

The photographs of mujercitos posing for the camera of Alarma! from 1963 to 1986 are not what one expects form a periodical of nota roja known for its real and gruesome photographic content. These seem to belong more to a fashion magazine. Although the text that accompanies these photographs continues morally condemning gender transgression, the photographs destabilize the homophobic discourse established against peripheral sexualities a century earlier.

1 Nota roja is a Mexican cultural tradition associated with lower socioeconomic classes. The term designates periodicals with gruesome textual and photographic content, newspaper sections that deal with violent events, or sensationalist television, all tainted with morbidity.

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As such, these photographs can be read as a site of resistance and subversion to the homophobic narratives found in the press and in Mexican culture-at-large.2 For instance, consider the headline of Alarma! in December 1970, “What is happening, nobody wants to be a man? More Mujercitos. Secret Parties of Inverts. Disgusting sexual depravation!” This story repeats the narrative of the Redada del Baile de los 41. Mujercitos were at a private party, creating so much scandal that the police had to raid their reunion. Although this is the cover story of Alarma!, the report is minimal. With adjectives such as “perverts” or “inverts,” the article describes the 37 “homosexuals” with their respective “husbands” who were “dressed in women’s clothing, attired in miniskirts” and partying in an “orgy” during which they danced to “exotic melodies,” “cheek to cheek.” The “deviants laughed in an obscene way,” so much so that the neighbors complained and called the police. The 37 attendees of the party were detained and taken into police custody. The article doesn’t specify their crime, how long they were detained, or whether they were going to be incarcerated.

The photographs, however, tell a different story. La Morris is wearing a white short dress that allows the viewer to see not only her bare legs as she stands up against a wall, but most importantly, her underwear. She is striking a very feminine and womanly pose, one arm diagonally covering her waist, slightly touching her hip, while her left arm folds upward in the middle and rests on her neck. She is looking out into the distance, almost coordinating her gaze with her bent right knee. Right next to her is La Chiquis, wearing a woman’s blouse and looking directly at the camera. Wearing white pants and delicately holding the ruffles of her puffy blouse, La Chiquis is slightly smiling.

In the photograph right beside this one, there are three mujercitos standing. The photographs inside also show mujercitos having a good time. One can infer they are in police custody through the grey background and a profile of the police in one of the inside photographs. However, the cover photograph of Alarma! shows the mujercitos posing for the camera, laughing, seemingly not really worried about their detention.

In another cover of Alarma! from 1971, “They were caught in a despicable orgy! Homosexuals enjoyed in an intimate party. The mujercitos dressed and danced like classy ladies,” a party was interrupted by police after neighbors complained. The photograph shows a mujercito in the middle lifting her slip slightly with her right hand, showing her tights to the photographer and the viewers as her leg is pushed forward and as she looks directly at the camera flirtatiously.

The mujercito next to her is looking directly at this action.

The story discusses the mujercitos in “prohibited meetings” in which “chefs of high class restaurants, stylists of famous television personalities and actors’ managers” were present. As in the story described above, the written text continues to follow the narration of La Redada del Baile de los 41 as it describes the mujercitos’ attire in a similar way. It talks about “wigs, fake hips and breast.”

It is the same for “Mujercitos in Fashion: They Use Hot Pants,” the cover story of Alarma! from May 1971, and in “Eleven ‘Mujercitos’ in an Orgy,” the back cover of the same issue, where eleven mujercitos holding an intimate private party that was raided by police since neighbors “couldn’t take the noises and scandals” and were taken into police custody and detained.

The cover of Alarma! 1971 shows a photograph of two mujercitos clearly posing for the camera. The mujercito on the right, “La Susy,” seems to be seducing the photographer, looking directly at the camera in a 3⁄4 pose, wearing a short, white satin dress, while her left hand lies delicately on her tights and shows off her bare legs. She is wearing pointed white shoes that match her dress. Right next to her is another mujercito, “La Toña,” also standing and looking at the camera, wearing a loose patterned dress with silver tights and black shoes.

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This essay is an excerpt of my doctoral dissertation in which I look at all the Alarma! Issues from 1963 to 1986.

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The photograph shows a desk and a calendar behind the mujercitos, and one can assume they are at a police station, but their poses seem more those found in a photo album or dating website than a nota roja periodical. There is no denying that “La Susy” and “La Toña” are posing and that through their posing, their bodies can be read as making a statement which intersects with gender, sexuality, and criminality. Of their own will, or that of the photographer’s, the mujercitos’ posing occupies the entire cover of Alarma!, constructing a field of vision that contradicts the textual language used to describe them.

While the photograph shows a pose that evokes desire and expresses feminine subjectivity, the text describes them as “degenerates,” who through their “sins against society are heralding the end of the world.”

What is the possible coherent reading of mujercitos’ provoking desire through their poses in the photograph while the text condemns them for exactly this posing and desire? While the photograph of “La Susy” and “La Toña” posing elicits homoerotic desire, the text just below announces “after this... the end of the world.” The photograph shows their short and sexy dresses, but the text condemns their clothes as part of an “immense seduction.”

The formula established since La Redada of the 41, in which neighbors complain because of scandal, degeneracy, indecent acts, or simply excessive noise has long been the justification for police raids on private parties. These raids invariably end with the arrest and detention of those individuals performing any gender transgression, or as they are named, “effeminate,” those men choosing to identify with the cultural signifiers assigned to the opposite gender/sex. Most importantly this criminalization is inseparable from the social status of the mujercitos. That is, the gender transgression seems to only be recognized as such when it intersects with lower class status.

Moreover, the narrative established more than one hundred years ago describes the mujercitos’ gatherings invariably as “orgies” or “sexy parties,” although the police have never found the attendants actually performing any type of sexual activity. The term orgy recalls unrestrained sexual activity—a social gathering in which attendants are wildly enjoying promiscuous sexual activity, excessive drinking, and indulgences of all kinds. Promiscuity is heavily associated with peripheral sexualities, and is one of the characteristics stereotypically attributed to homosexual men. The use of the terms promiscuity and orgy to describe the private parties held by mujercitos continues the moral condemnation established by la Redada and embedded within the righteous undertones of Alarma!’s stories.

Since 1901, the relationship between the press, gender transgression, and sexuality was established through the morally lynching reports against peripheral sexualities. However, the photographs of mujercitos reported in various issues of the weekly Alarma! are spaces of resistance to homophobic narratives that qualify them as “degenerate” and “pervert.” Through the reappropriation of ironies, the photographed mujercitos have sought a space of female subjecttivity. Their photographs show the contradiction in the homophobic discourse that condemns them. On the one hand, the photographs evoke a homoerotic desire that eroticises their gender transgression while the text humiliates them precisely for this transgression. La Chiquis and La Morris smile knowing the agency they exercise when facing the camera. These mujercitos laughed at those photographs during the seventies and they continue laughing today, as they did in November 1901. Mujercitos laugh at the envy of neighbors who complain of their homoerotic desires. Mujercitos laugh at the police who arrested them, and homophobic society that denies them. The spirit of the 19 arrested in 1901 prevails because it is through persistence that they have managed to create a space of subversion of their female subjectivity. Mujercitos laughed in their photographs at the time of arrest, for they know that s(h)e who laughs last, laughs best.

Photos © Potros Editores S.A de CV et Alarma!

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Saison 2014 – 2015 http://ou-la-persistance-des-images.net/00js116mn IErl6secIactiveIIofficial&safe0isch.jpg Exposition en cours : John Smith, “Le Baiser” du 27 septembre au 13 décembre 2014

Artiste en résidence : Julien Creuzet de septembre 2014 à avril 2015

La Galerie centre d’art contemporain 1, rue Jean Jaurès 93130 Noisy-le-Sec www.lagalerie-cac-noisylesec.fr Entrée libre Du mardi au vendredi de 14h à 18h Samedi de 14h à 19h

La Galerie, centre d’art contemporain, est financée par la Ville de Noisy-le-Sec, avec le soutien de la Direction régionale des Affaires culturelles d’Île-de-France – Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, du Département de la SeineSaint-Denis et du Conseil régional d’Île-de-France.

John Smith, Gargantuan, 1992. Film 16 mm, couleur, son, 1'

Celemania

XXVIIIe Ateliers Internationaux du Frac des Pays de la Loire >->> une scène mexicaine exposition du 27 novembre 2014 au 1er février 2015 artistes invités : DIego Berruecos, sAntIAgo BorjA, AnDreA chIrInos, cynthIA gutIérrez, gABrIeL rosAs ALemán, jorge sAtorre commissaire associée : DAnIeLA Pérez exposition organisée avec un soutien exceptionnel de la région des Pays de la Loire

FrAc Des PAys De LA LoIre La Fleuriaye, boulevard Ampère 44470 carquefou / tél. 02 28 01 50 00 www.fracdespaysdelaloire.com twitter@FrAcpdl facebook.com/FrAcpdl www.pinterest.com/fracpaysdeloire

visuel : jorge satorre, The Barry’s Van Tour, 2007 (détail) œuvre de la collection du Frac des Pays de la Loire acquise en 2008

galerie@mehdi-chouakri.com Answers:

A Rock in the Forest Marina Pinsky V told me the next day she’d be going to Maastricht, to an art fair. I wasn’t so inteested at first—I thought I knew what an art fair was. But when she told me it was a fair for old masterworks and antiquities, I was intrigued. Very early we took the train from Brussels to Maastricht. We walked from the station in a cold drizzle, past some homogenous buildings that looked like they might house biotech companies, to the convention hall. Once we got inside, everyone was very well dressed, mostly in suits, and pretty much everyone was over 40. It was just as crowded as a contemporary art fair, but much, much quieter.

This particular art world wasn’t like any I’ve witnessed so far. It’s the old beaux-arts world that still exists, in Basel, Zurich, Geneva, Luxembourg, Monaco, and various day sales at Sotheby’s. It operates on a different register entirely than what I know of the contemporary art world, and economically it seems vastly different. The people who buy art in this market are buying bonds instead of stocks.

Everything in the fair was a “masterpiece”. The “booths” were not booths at all, but were scaled down versions of the actual galleries they represent, at times outfitted with all the “fixtures” of the real gallery (i.e. chandeliers and cabinetry). The sparest booth still had dark velvet covered walls, hardwood baseboards and detailing, marble floors, and spot lit artworks.

The hallways were lined with giant vases of tulips—not just regular tulips, but the rare, multi colored, massive frilly kinds of tulips in Dutch still life paintings—the tulips that allegorized speculation and bubble economies long before the existence of mortgage backed derivatives. Here were the real things, somehow. Could they have been cloned from seeds saved from the 17th century? In the center of the whole fair was an arranged pool of thousands of these bulbous tulips spanning roughly thirty feet. The fairgoers rested on a bench that encircled them, casually sipping on water from some futuristic-looking ionic purifiers.

We passed through the antiquities, so many Greek, Roman, Egyptian busts; mosaics, inlaid tables, handmade clocks; tapestries from Peru, ancient Egypt, medieval France. There were booths that only sold medieval manuscripts, illuminated by Boccaccio. Then there was the painting section. Each booth really did have mostly old master paintings, with some Impressionist or German Expressionist paintings to add a sort of youthful feeling. We checked out a solo presentation—by Pieter Bruegel (albeit the younger). Anyway, eventually V and I split up to look on our own.

I wandered the halls in a sort of daze, still overwhelmed by all of it—it was like being in an encyclopedic museum but everything was out of order and on sale. Then as I meandered in one booth I saw a painting I couldn’t look away from. It didn’t jump out at first; it was really pretty small. A simple self-portrait painted by Millet. He was about my age now when he painted it, about 27. Head and shoulders, three quarters view, on a dark background, tightly framed.

About half size. Structurally it was so modest, conventional. But everything about the painting was incredible. His look is sharp, direct, wild-eyed, tough, questioning. It’s the face of a young man who wants to know everything, who won’t let anyone stop him and who definitely is unafraid. But the paint is applied with full sensitivity and self-awareness; nothing is rushed, there

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are no special effects. Everything is deliberated into a finality that is impossible in the speed of our time. Nothing about the painting is overworked and there is no bravado; it’s efficient and loose.

After looking for a while, I went to find V to show her. She asked the dealer if he could give some more information, and he came over to tell us more. “Millet painted this very early, and he hadn’t fully developed his style. Here in the scarf you can see Delacroix, if you look at the shoulder there’s Géricault. You can see his ambivalence, but that’s actually what gives the painting power. He hasn’t yet made his path, he’s not yet a rock in the forest.” He looked deeply into the painting, and it was clear that he was really and truly moved by it. “You can tell by the subject and the light also that he probably painted it in the winter. He wasn’t living out in the field, and he didn’t have any models to paint from, so he had to paint himself. He hadn’t yet gotten any success, or any commissions, he was probably pretty hungry, but he needed to practice.”

I thought for a long time about how this painting says so much about being a young artist, especially in our own time. In my wanderings through various art worlds, I often feel we are in a holding pattern of appropriated imagery. The academicism of thirty, forty, really actually a hundred years of inherited doctrine about the fallacy of originality allows the propagation of what I might call “normal art” (after Thomas Kuhn’s idea of “normal science”). Maybe every stolen image inkjet printed on pre-fab canvas by a rising star is like that imitated scarf—proof of the vacillations of young people pleading to be accepted by the academy, looking bold faced at their audience of experts but wearing the garb of the old order. Millet’s own vacillations about this are all over this painting, and his struggles in appropriating the manner of his predecessors actually become crucial here. What becomes apparent is his ability to construct a realistic selfhood far brighter than the encircling emulation.

The painter Millet grew into, the rock in the forest, was one who stilled his subjects in a momentary sculptural representation. The most obvious, even clichéd, thing I can say is that Millet was “earthly”—rooted to a small territory, and all his paintings show a deep ground.

However, in the best moments his paintings still hold a revolutionary power to me, a power to disturb the ordinary machinations of society simply through the shock of earnestness. The probing look he has in this particular painting is that of someone who probably freaked out a lot of people, but totally didn’t care. That self-portrait is more of a sculpture of the self in a way. In painting it, in practicing despite seeming material impossibility, it seems to me he was trying to do what all of us do when we work—to build himself into a force. Through the process of depiction, he built his own psychological support and found a way to situate himself in his environment. Only later did that world come to support him in any way.

None of Millet’s paintings I’ve seen so far (though I really haven’t seen that many) are filled with the kind of kinetic energy that depicts modernity as a blur, a staple of urban fiction since the 19th century. Think of Dorian Grey, or Frankenstein, or Gogol’s “The Portrait”—all of these works have an invented subject that literally comes to life. In our present moment, the attempt to bring life to the assemblage of seemingly dead matter, to enhance it with some increased energy source is exemplified in Jordan Wolfson’s robot with a staring problem (which follows many formal conventions of early modern automatons) or Oscar Murillo’s epic scrawlings (which are fueled by his autobiographical accounts, and as such become art as “selfexpression,” fitting neatly into a conservative framework). These works are real objects derived from literary myths. All the kinetic energy visible in the work amounts to an illustration.

As an audience in front of these works, we don’t have to exert ourselves in the process of looking. The artist alone can tire himself out performing the same tired myths. The systems built to produce capital through automated background machinations can continue to run, can fuel themselves on these images. In the end the artworks are just by products, they’re dead on arrival.

Any energy within them is expended before they have actually been processed, and therefore the experience of them becomes unsatisfying.

I don’t want to wander any further into this valley. I want to talk about what keeps me going. As a spectator, I’m more into potential energy than kinetic. Potentiality is implied, dependent on external forces acting on a body and involving it in a systematic chain of events.

So, when looking at an artwork, it’s everything that you as a viewer bring to it, and the image elicits a specific kind of empathy (not a patronizing sympathy or an aggrandizing irony) that make this possible. I’m imagining now the Millet painting at the Getty of a man in the middle of a hammer blow. His arm is tensed up, he’s not released the force yet. The concentration of the painter is equated with the concentration of the viewer. The potentiality creates an excitement that doesn’t allow the mind to rest but makes an electrical arc that only you, your body and your eyes can ground.

Or think of his early portrait of Louise-Antoinette Feuardent—her closed posture, closed lips, and calm, slightly downcast gaze encapsulate all the disdain and judgement of a young woman of noble upbringing. She looks so damn judgy when you look at her from across the gallery. But when you come up and really look at the painting, close up, you start to see how deeply sad she looks. Her hand, which from far away looked like it was jutting forward, showing off her newly won wedding ring and securing a sharp elbow just below frame, now seems to actually be holding up her whole frame. After a while, she looks tired but clear eyed, like the last woman standing at the after after after party.

Living in LA, I would often come visit these paintings, and what keeps them alive for me is their remove from some allegory—which seems quite radical in their time, and why they were rejected by the Salon. But the type of reality they show is a modality of modernity rather than a rejection of it. These paintings would be impossible without the industrial world evolving in a wide circle around Millet. His paintings are descriptions of physical events made at a time when science was concerned with the procedural aspects of energy transfers—for example the causal relationships laid out in the theories of thermodynamics of the time. Suddenly art and science were no longer mixing metaphors about what sets life in motion.

When I see so much work now where the meaning is such a stretch, the metaphors in the imagery extended too far, I can’t see what they are trying to reveal of the world. All their complications actually end up simplifying their intent. The works I describe as full of kinetic energy, performed works, are ones where the chain of events are fully completed by the artist as an end in themselves. I want to believe that art can actually do something, can perpetuate itself and not burn out—and the only way I can is if it is enacted rather than performed. This is why these seeds of Realism can excite me—these works set into motion a whole chain of events I can carry out in my mind. To me, meaning lies in the means.

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THE AGES OF BEATRIX RUF

B U E N O S T I E M P O S Buenos Tiempos, Int. “Faggotry as it is today.” Chief curator: Alberto García del Castillo | Honorary curator: Marnie Slater | Board: Lars Laumann, Jurgen Ots | Design: Überknackig

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A HISTORY

by Buenos Tiempos, Int.

OF POWER

Photography: César Segarra Styling: Vincent Ferre, Alicia Padrón Models: Vincent Ferre, Marnie Slater

TRANSVESTISM

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Jana Euler, Nude Climbing Up The Stairs, oil on canvas, 2014 Courtesy of Jana Euler

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PERFORMANCE

DAVID B. JEAN-BAPTISTE DECAVÈLE & YONA FRIEDMAN GABRIELE BASILICO KATHARINA BOSSE CATHARINA VAN EETVELDE DOMINIQUE FIGARELLA JOCHEN GERNER KILLOFFER MANUELA MARQUES RAMUNTCHO MATTA GUILLAUME PINARD TERE RECARENS DAVID RENAUD ROLAND TOPOR SARAH TRITZ ALUN WILLIAMS HEIDI WOOD

a performance is a situation constructed by an artist a situation consists of time, space and presence a situation can be caused by various circumstances a performance is caused by an artist an imaginary composition of time, space and presence is not a performance a performance can be imagined as a composition of time, space and presence an artist can manipulate time, space and presence to construct a situation a performance is a composition of time, space and presence constructed by an artist TIME time is a necessary condition for a performance a performance can have any duration imaginable every situation has a duration a picture does not have a duration the duration of a situation can be coincidental the duration of a performance is decided by an artist SPACE space is a necessary condition for a performance every situation takes place in a space a picture is an imaginary space a performance can not take place in an imaginary space a performance can be depicted in an imaginary space the space in which a performance takes place is decided by an artist PRESENCE the presence of someone is a necessary condition for a performance every situation requires the presence of someone there is no one present in a picture a picture can depict the presence of someone someone present for a duration of time in a space is a situation an artist decides who is present in a performance LIFE a performance is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for a situation if there is a performance, then there is a situation a situation can exist without a performance life is a succession of situations life is not a performance

galerie anne barrault

CHRISTIAN FALSNAES - PERFORMANCE WORKS opening: September 17th, 2014. 6-10pm duration: Sep 18th- Nov 1st, 2014 / opening times: Tue-Sat 12-6 pm PSM Köpenicker Strasse 126, 10179 Berlin www.psm-gallery.com

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HICHAM BERRADA / FELIX KIESSLING CURATED BY ALYA SEBTI

WENTRUP www.wentrupgallery.com

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On My Mind And On The Ground The Ethical Failings of Zionism.

Myles Starr

This article was written and conceived before the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in the West Bank, and the revenge kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teen in Jerusalem several weeks later. These events have lead to a bloody war, including hundreds of rockets fired into Israel and a ground invasion of Gaza. While finishing this draft as the events unfolded, its original purpose and tone took on new meaning.

This document was intentionally written as a personal comment on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by a secular American Jew. My hope and intention is to open the eyes of many in my community that are blind to the realities of the conflict that are uncomfortable for them to face.

The issues I wish to illuminate concern racism, the abuse of human rights, and a departure from the secular democratic values that most of my audience claims to hold dear. In my ongoing discussions with secular Zionists I have been presented with such questions as: Why don’t the Arab countries take the Palestinians? Have you seen the anti-Semitism in France? How can you claim we don’t need a Jewish state—a place where the Jews can be safe?

Do you realize that Hamas does not want peace?

What I say to all of these questions is an unequivocal yes. Yes, anti-Semitism is real; yes, Hamas is morally deplorable; and yes, there are wide moral failings across the Arab/ Muslim world and beyond.

None of these concerns, nor history, nor Israel’s many positive attributes change the fact, which is increasingly difficult to ignore, that Palestinians have no place in the current Israeli society, nor do they have a state of their own. Until they are represented in a truly secular single state, or are given their own state, these recent tragic kidnappings and regression into war will become another memory in the history of this protracted conflict. Reality must be faced. Support for any Zionism or Israeli state that will not grant the Palestinians equal rights or their own state is wrong and cannot be reconciled with democratic convictions.

• In December 2013 I took advantage of my “birthright,” and left on a free trip to Israel sponsored by its government and private donors. My trip was spurred by two primary motives: a deep concern to witness firsthand what I perceived at a distance as injustice committed in my name as a Jew, by the Jewish State. Secondly, the insistence of Zionists—who I experienced as well-balanced, sane, and secular thinkers—that I didn’t understand the situation in Israel and must in fact see it with my own eyes. This is an account of what I saw, the people I met, and how these encounters affected the primary question raised by the trip: Is Israel an ethically defensible democratic state? Can Israel be a Jewish State and remain democratic or even aspire to be?

• Upon our arrival in Tel Aviv my tour group wase greeted by seven Israelis singing and dancing to Middle Eastern rhythms, “achim, achim, simha, simha,” (brothers, brothers, joy, joy). These

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Myles Starr The American Moral Highground, 2013 Concrete, Acrylic, Aluminum, Water 125 x 100 x 50 cm Myles Starr Gorra (from the series Ropas), 2012 Embroidered hat 20 x 15 x 25 cm

Israelis were of diverse origin; Morocco, India, France, Iran, England, and the former Soviet Union. The brotherhood amongst this group was genuine and strong despite their heterogeneous backgrounds.

To be Jewish in Israel is to be free, to have brothers and sisters, to have a mighty army who will risk their lives for you. It is to have a place to eat every Friday night and a sense of belonging. Most importantly, according to Israeli civil law, all Jews enjoy equal rights.

My group, composed of 40 Americans and 8 Israelis, spent our first night together on a kibbutz in the Golan Heights. That evening we formed a circle for introductions and a brief discussion. There was a comment made about “the Arabs,” clearly referring to them as other and separate from the Jews. Although I was trying to maintain a low profile the first night, this question sparked a suspicion that had been raised at the airport and continually fed throughout the trip—What is a Jew? How could they hate Arabs when the Israelis were doing an “Arab dance” to welcome us at the airport?

I responded with this comment, and this is the volley that followed: What about the Arab Jews?

There is no such thing as an Arab Jew. What is an Arab?

Someone who speaks Arabic.

I’m sure that the grandparents of X, Y, and Z persons in this room spoke Arabic.

My opponent in the debate didn’t seem to think that my line of reasoning qualified anyone as an Arab Jew. He subscribed to the Zionist philosophy that Jews are different from their neighbors. They are not Arabs, and never could be. This is untrue. If an Arab is someone who was born in an Arabic speaking country, with an Arab culture that they participate in, then there were many and still are some Arab Jews. From the falafel and hummus Israelis eat, to the style of their music, many cultural habits and motifs are sourced from Jewish Arabs, Christian Arabs, and Muslims Arabs. However, the construction of the Arab as “other” is widespread.

During a hike in the Galilee, I was walking with an Israeli soldier of Libyan heritage.

We heard the Muslim call to prayer and she said, “I hate that.” I asked why, and she said, “It scares me.” The dominant culture this soldier had been exposed to led her to believe that Islam and Arabs mean danger and she should fear them. It is not untrue that the primary danger facing Israelis have been Muslim Arabs. However, what was unsettling about this exchange was firstly that the soldier was an Arab herself, and saw herself as so different from the people she feared. Secondly, there is no place in the Jewish state where a Muslim Arab is equal to a Jew, putting them in conflict with the Jews indefinitely. Her fear was present and real, but what was critically absent was any responsibility for the tension between the state she so vehemently supported, and these people who were oppressed by it.

You barely have to scratch the surface to find Arab culture everywhere in Israel; unfortunately, you barely have to scratch the surface to find hatred of the Arabs as well. Zionist reasoning that bolsters the aforementioned bigotry and misinformation states: “When one is a Jew, one is a Jew before all else.” Although it has been used to “build Israel,” it is a perilous position to stand behind.

Supporters of this idea often bring up the example of Jews in Germany who were a completely integrated part of secular German society, who were identified by Nazis as not

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German but Jewish, and were then disenfranchised and killed. They decry that if the German Jews couldn’t be German, then a Jew can never be anything but a Jew and a second-class citizen in any state other than the Jewish state of Israel.

Ironically, this promotes the anti-democratic idea that a state is founded to protect the interests of one group—in the case of Israel, Jews, among a diverse population. Zionism should not be confused with an attempt at secular democracy, where the state is founded to protect all citizens. The problem with any state based on maintaining an ethnic or religious majority is that preferential treatment of one group and discrimination against others is part of the state’s charter, as it is in Israel. Non-Jewish Israelis and Palestinians are second-class. Their descendants do not indefinitely retain the right of return, among many other inequities between Jewish Israelis, non-Jewish Israelis, and Palestinians.

• Despite the demographic impossibility of a democratic Jewish state that includes the West Bank and Gaza, a virulent strain of religious fundamentalism is perpetuating this dream and the crimes that accompany it.

After my official Birthright trip was over out of curiosity and a lack of funds I decided to stay with a relative I knew nothing about.

My cousin Victor who was wearing a yarmulke picked me up. I decided to tread lightly and I politely asked him how he became religious and came to Israel. It was Friday night when Victor and his family’s traditions broke from mine; they do not use electricity on the sabbath, they go to shul and keep kosher. At Shabbat dinner there was a young man welcomed into my family’s home that we did not know.

This man was born in the former USSR and raised in the United States and Israel. He had earned a Ph.D. in a realm of theoretical physics far beyond my comprehension. This was not a dumb man. Soon the issue of the conflict came up at the dinner table. We discussed politics intelligently and civilly for about 15 minutes. In my attempts to extrapolate his moral leanings I arrived at a familiar place.

His final moral authority was God. He believed this land was ours, God had given it to us, and this divine gift justified our behavior in occupying the land and making it a Jewish home. No alternative morality, no critical thinking, no algorithm, or emotional appeal was going to change his opinion. This felt eerily similar to statements about religious law coming from two villainized neighbors of Israel: Iran and Saudi Arabia. The idea of intelligent people using God and his commandments as the basis for political, moral, and ethical behavior is abominable to someone who values logic and democracy. Although Jews’ “right to Israel through divine commandment” is not the official state doctrine, it is part of the founding myth for many contemporary Zionists. Its disastrous implications are already evident in the pseudo ethno-religious state of Israel. Perhaps the most disturbing part of my trip was when my cousin, who believes that God promises much more than current day Israel to the Jews (an area reaching present day Iraq), did not rule out an eventual expansion of Israel’s territory into this land.

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•

The Palestinians’ claims of oppression under the Jewish state are real and easy to find. As we passed by walls and security zones on the bus to Ramallah, I spoke with a man in his late sixties. He was intelligent, educated, and friendly. He soon told me how his family could not enter Israel. They had no state where they were truly represented. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) controlled the borders and security in the West Bank, yet this man had no political representation that controlled the IDF. His land was genuinely occupied and he was fed up. His did not strike me as someone with an extreme viewpoint. However, the powerlessness of being a stateless person as well as the police state that exists in the West Bank strike me as extreme and unacceptable conditions to live with.

In Bethlehem I went to an art space. As I was about to leave, I asked a woman with fair skin and gorgeous eyes something banal to start a conversation. Small talk isn’t my strong suit and the questions and her story quickly gained depth. I asked if Israelis visit the institution. She said, “Israelis can’t enter the West Bank, unless they are going to a settlement.” Then she proceeded to tell me that she is actually Israeli. She is an Israeli Arab and she illegally crosses into Bethlehem each day to run this institution. She was educated in a separate but equal school for Arabs and according to her, she cannot be promoted in her chosen field in Israel given her identity.

Assuming a majority of people in Israel proper want a state based on ethnicity or religion, I cannot and will not support them. But these people’s insistence on occupying and colonizing other people’s land is a disgrace. It leads to a nation that is oppressed, desperate, and dangerous, as the Palestinian people have shown themselves to be when incessantly abused and backed into a corner.

• Even after the ethical shortcomings of Zionism are exposed, there is an attitude among many Israelis that the Arabs cannot be trusted, are virulently anti-Semitic, and “not ready” for democracy. To investigate this idea I took two buses and a taxi and ended up at the Northern Border crossing with Jordan at Beit She’ann. When I crossed the border, I was expecting a conservative Muslim country. In the past, I considered the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Lebanon as the homes of moderate Islam, not Jordan. I expected a country where everyone would be Muslim, and women would be modestly dressed. In fact, I crossed the border with a Catholic priest on his way to a monastery.

After going through customs, I found a cab. My driver was a nice guy. I was a little uneasy at first, but we talked about his life, family, girls, coffee, and of course, the conflict. He didn’t seem overtly anti-Semitic. He was angry that Jordanians couldn’t enter Israel to work freely, because, as he acknowledged, too many stayed illegally to make money. This did not qualify as the extreme Jordanian anti-Semitism I had been told to fear. We traveled through the Jordan Valley and quickly reached a barren land. As we drove into Amman, the churches, women dressed in modern fashions, and the availability of liquor surprised me.

I then went to meet Maharaja, a 25-year-old Jordanian who I had messaged on Couchsurfing, who offered to show me around Amman even though she couldn’t host me. Maharaja and I became quick friends. She is the type of person I like, someone who never runs out of things to talk about and is rational but excited about life. Maharaja has an interesting story: her father is Jordanian and her mother was Kuwaiti, she grew up in Egypt and has lived in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Lebanon. She is a journalist and writer and had arrived in Jordan

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ten months prior, because it was impossible to work in Egypt as a foreigner after the revolution.

Maharaja has an unclear identity in a place where identity is everything; she was born in Jordan to a half-Christian, half-Muslim family, she is not religious and speaks Egyptian Arabic. Everywhere we went, people asked her where she was from due to her accent. Everyone did the same in Egypt because she didn’t look Egyptian.

I was a bit afraid before I met Maharaja because I figured she could deduce from my alias on Facebook that I am Jewish. We talked and walked around Amman for two hours before I told her I was Jewish and she said, “I know,” and took no issue with the fact. Maharaja and I talked about many things such as food, travel, politics, sex, Israel, Palestine, and Jews. In the end, Maharaja and I became very close.

She is an Arab who wants secular democracy, and doesn’t believe in an Israel or Palestine based on race, religion, or ethnicity. This was a departure from what I had heard over and over from staunch Zionists, which is that the Arabs want us dead, they want to wipe us off the map. This attitude no doubt exists in many places in the Middle East, but if we don’t acknowledge voices such as Maharaja’s and treat her with respect the consequences will be grave. We must foster the democratic secular youth in the Arab world that wants reconciliation and justice. Most importantly, we must support these initiatives if we ever want our olive branch to be taken seriously. If we don’t, we will continue to have an antagonistic and morally indefensible Israel.

After my foray into Jordan, I crossed back into Israel at the Allenby/King Hussein bridge. I made it to Jerusalem to stay with lovely family friends who I had never met before.

They were religious Jews who were brought up in the U.S. Some of the sons from the family had served in the IDF and were certainly Zionists, but they didn’t express the same fear of Arabs that I had encountered among more fundamentalist Zionists who warned me not to go to Jordan or even East Jerusalem. In the end, our dinner table conversation wound its way to politics again. It seemed as if the greatest fear in this family was the same as mine: ultrareligious Jews who want to lead Israel and the philosophy of the Jewish people to a fundamentalist, backwards, and unacceptable state. My hope is that Zionists of this type can be convinced that a Jewish homeland can exist in a secular state. Bringing Israel into the league of nations that are truly democratic and ethically defensible is a matter of breaking down the structures that systematically deprive rights to people in order to maintain a Jewish majority.

There are many hard facts to accept about Israel and the Jews: Israel is located in a hostile region; the tragedy of the Holocaust almost destroyed the Jews and Israel was their refuge and became their homeland; Jews have a right to assemble and defend themselves. All of this leads to the idea of a Jewish state that sounds good and feels good if you’re a Jew, but it is wrong. Israel is an ethno-religious state. It is as wrong as any other state that gives and denies privileges to people based on ethnicity or religious identity. People who share my values— values I consider to be part of my Jewish identity—could never support the state of Israel as a Jewish state because it is not a true democracy or ethically defensible.

Ironically, secular Zionists decry that Israel must be preserved as the glue that binds Jews together and protects them from assimilation. Israel and its politics, not the gentile world, may be the greatest threat to the continued existence of the Jews. If Zionism becomes inextricable from Judaism, people like myself who value ethics over identity and logic over divine commandment will have an increasingly difficult time keeping the flame of their 5000year-old people alive.

Myles Starr Riff (detail), 2014 Concrete and fish tank rocks 60 x 60 x 45 cm

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Peter Friedl

The Diaries 10 October 2014 – 1 February 2015

06 Feb / 26 Apr

2015 33 rue Poincaré 57590 Delme +33 (0)3 87 01 43 42 La synagogue de Delme Centre for Contemporary Art is grateful for support cac.delme@wanadoo.fr from the French Ministry of Culture www.cac-synagoguedelme.org and Communication, the Lorraine contemporary art authority (DRAC), the regional and departmental governments of Lorraine and Moselle, and the municipality of Delme.

La synagogue de Delme Centre for Contemporary Art is a member of DCA–Association pour le Développement des Centres d’Art.

Kadist Art Foundation 19bis/21 Rue des Trois Frères 75018 - Paris. France kadist.org

Group show curated by Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga

2009–2014: Marcelle Alix is 5 years old!

Marcelle Alix

galerie

4 rue Jouye-Rouve 75020 Paris France marcellealix.com

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Linda Nochlin, Julia Trotta an interview & a poem

I have been working on a documentary on my grandmother, the art historian Linda Nochlin, for a couple years now.

While I’m still negotiating the structure and tone of the film (Will there be a defined narrative arch? A score? Voiceover? Recreations?*), I remember a piece of advice my grandmother gave me years ago while I was still a student, which I have put to good use: Always start with a title. So I chose my title on the first day of shooting. Linda was in her living room in the Upper West Side discussing her bold and active participation in the women’s movement. She said that although she is generally a fearful person, when she really believes in something she forgets to be afraid. So that’s my title: Forget to be Afraid: A portrait of Linda Nochlin. The title has guided me through the ups and downs of the project and has surprisingly brought a great deal of security while shooting.

Hopefully it will continue to be of use in the editing process.

One day, while sorting through my grandmother’s overflowing books, archives, and files, we came across a hand-typed poem on fading yellow legal paper from the late ‘50’s or early ‘60’s (she couldn’t remember precisely) with quite a provocative title. “The Sex-Life of the Mollusk, or Pornography is where you Make it.” We read it together and howled with delight. I photographed the original, emailed the digital version to myself, and even read it aloud at a dear friend’s birthday dinner a couple days later at an “all you can eat mussels” night at a local Brooklyn restaurant. Needless to say, it was a big hit.

I doubt I will be able to explore Linda’s poetry practice too deeply in the film.

Perhaps a brief mention here and there. For the most part, the film focuses on her career as an art historian and life as a feminist scholar. By default, and given our relationship as grandmother and granddaughter, it also addresses aging, love and family—but carefully—in a way that is subtle yet unsentimental. Linda has a deep aversion to sentimentality, a position which I seem to have adopted.

As there are limits to what can be covered in the documentary, I’m happy to have the chance to share with you here a bit of Linda’s poetry and an intergenerational dialogue between the two of us where we discuss sestinas, seashells, sex, and slant rhymes.

N O C H L I N &

* There will be no recreations in the film.

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August 23, 2014, Paris Interview between Linda Nochlin and Julia Trotta for Petunia:

The Sex-Life of the Mollusk, or Pornography is where you Make it (Probably late fifties or early sixties) Linda Nochlin

“The beginnings of copulation in the mollusks, for example, give way to very strange gropings before the act is adapted.”

Jean Piaget Beneath the surface of the sea Lurk shoals of shelled perversity; Who would believe that bivalves share In sins to which the flesh is heir?

Or that the inoffensive squid Indulges his calcareous id?

The mollusk lusts in bed of slime, Where, sheltered by unblushing brine, His moist, tentacular embrace Hovering on satisfaction, waits Til strangely groped by mollusk mate, His partner oozes to her fate.

Oh, who would dream of deviation In such restricted circumstance?

Does pause before mere penetration Refresh subaqueous romance?

Oyster orgies, clams in drag, Fellation for consenting crabs; How must the modest mussel feel When buggered by an invert eel?

L I N D A & J U L I A 58

Imagination boggles at The mollusk as a pornocrat.

(Or is this needless agitation Brought on by simple mistranslation?)

In any case, we cannot claim That man alone makes sex a game.

No limits to lubricity Are set to sex beneath the sea; Nor, if you really think it through, Are mollusks better off than you.

All pleasures that are good per se Are better yet some kinkier way: Oysters Rockefeller, moules in wine, Clams in chowder—all divine!

Although, if one likes seafood well One won’t disdain it on the shell.

J: This tickles me to no end! I can’t believe the author of this brilliant, naughty poem is my grandma!

L: (Laughs) Well, somebody had to write it!

J: What were the circumstances that led you to write this poem?

L: I read that footnote in Piaget. I read all of Piaget at one time because I was really interested in phenomenology and all the things he wrote about the development of certain types of intelligence in children. And I’m not sure what this was a footnote to. I’ve sort of lost track. Some sort of Piaget expert might know. But I thought it was so weird, you know? I never thought of seafood as having any sex life actually, and there he says “strange gropings.” What kind of strange gropings could a clam have, you know? So I began to let my imagination wander. It was very easy to write actually, it all came so naturally.

J: You let the juices flow.

L: Well yeah, I let the idea extend itself and just free associate. And it’s rhyming and that always helps. I like to work in fairly strict forms.

J: What form is this?

L: It’s not a form, but it has a rhyme.

J: I think the rhyming makes it even more perverse in a way.

L: It does. I mean, there are some slant rhymes too, not perfect rhymes, which make it more interesting.

J: Yeah, it has a feeling like it’s almost for children.

L: Exactly.

J: But it’s not (laughs).

L: Duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh — duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh, duhduh! Let’s see what some of the rhymes are: sea/perversity, share/air, squid/id.

They’re really couplets. And then slime/brine, embrace/waits, mate/fate, and then it lets go a little: deviation/circumstance, penetration/romance, drag/crabs (that’s a very slant rhyme), feel/eel, at/pornocrat.

J: You’re not too strict with it.

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L: Yeah, it’s pretty much couplets but with some...

J: Deviation.

L: (Laughs) Yeah, and I really enjoyed writing it. How could you not? It was such fun! I enjoy writing all of my pornographic poems.

J: Like the one for Noble/Webster?

L: Yeah, the Noble/Webster poem. And the faerie tale one for Nathalie Frank.

J: So, all of your pornographic poems start from some sort of directive then?

L: Yes, well sort of. This one came from the Piaget footnote but the others were all requests. I was writing the introduction for Noble/Webster and I thought I would add in the poem because it really has to do with their work.

J: Right, it was called “Polymorphic Perversity.”

L: And they’re always not serious.

J: I guess that’s part of what’s interesting about having found this poem is the crossover or overlap, or the relationship between your poetry and your practice as an art historian. I know that you write a lot of poetry. Maybe not everyone knows that because your poems are rarely published. And most of the poetry that you write, besides those hilarious pornographic ones are pretty dark and personal. So what role does poetry play in your life? Maybe you can talk about a poem or two that have been meaningful for you.

L: Okay, well I just enjoy the act of writing and I’m also sort of slightly weary getting into writing mode because it does touch on the irrational and I like to feel very much in control of my life and my feelings and when I start writing poetry. I’m not saying I go all mad, but it does begin to touch on things, as you say, that are dark or difficult. And of course it’s hard to write, you know? It’s not easy. So once I start to write it’s like when I start a crossword puzzle, I just absolutely don’t want to leave it until I have it DONE! I’ve done a lot of sonnets.

I like sonnets. I wrote my first sonnet when I was twelve and I was down in Florida with my grandparents in Miami Beach. I pulled out a collection of world verse or something and the only kind of sonnet there was was a Spenserian one, not a Shakespearian one, so I do often write Spenserian poems. And then I wrote you a sestina on your sixteenth birthday.

J: Well, we’re lucky because as your family we receive poems on our birthdays and Thanksgiving.

L I N D A

L: Yeah, but not a sestina! Who got a sestina?!? That is a very formal structure.

And then, a lot of them have to do with very deep parts of my personal life.

&

J: Right, which is surprising because you are pretty private.

J U L I A

L: I am because not many people read these poems.

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J: Well when I read them I was surprised.

L: That is sort of where I face the darker parts of my private life.

J: (Reading the title of a poem on the computer) “Christmas Eve in Hell?”

L: Yeah, that’s a very dark one about the death of a friend. Oh, and here is “Ashes in the Closet.” I was at Bellagio when I wrote this. I had a fellowship there. That was one of the times that I really wrote a lot of poetry.

J: When you write the more personal poems, do you think one day people will read them?

L: Well, I would hope that some other poets might read them.

J: So you want to publish them?

L: I’m not sure I want to publish them. I might, I might. I mean a lot of art historians publish poetry these days so I wouldn’t feel that funny about it. And that one (“Ashes in My Closet”) is not a big giveaway. Some of my more erotic ones...

J: What are some of the erotic ones?

L: Well... he he he (laughs playfully)! Better not....

J: Any others?

L: Oh, I wrote a whole cycle of poems on Aby Warburg. I think those are interesting.

J: This one’s funny too (pointing to a poem on the computer).

L: Hahaha! I wrote it for October. They had an issue on Obsolescence (reading aloud):

It’s Obsolescent: Ode to my Body (Inspired by being asked to contribute to The 100 Anniversary Issue of October on Obsolescence) th

It’s not sixteen It’s big and mean It’s none too clean It’s sort of obscene; That’s my body, baby— It’s OB SO LES CENT! It ain’t adolescent It’s post pre-pubescent Not iridescent

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Not luminescent Still concupiscent And not quite putrescent— That’s my body, baby— It’s OB SO LES CENT! What’s soft and baggy?

What’s bent and saggy?

What’s crooked and raggy?

What’s definitely Absolutely Positively Haggy?

That’s my body, baby— It’s OB SO LES CENT !

J: (Laughs) That’s hilarious. It’s great! What was their reaction?

L: I can’t remember! Maybe they didn’t even print it. I think it’s wonderful.

J: I also wanted to ask you, not just about your own work, but going back to where we started with: “The Sex Life of the Mollusk,” and sex as a subject. Can you give any examples of art or literature that has turned you on, either sexually or intellectually? Or both?

L: Ooof, I’m trying to think. Well I like Anne Carson. I’m not sure that’s what she does, but I think that is partly what she does. I love her work. And who else do I like? Keats. Absolutely! “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” That has always turned me on (she starts to recite the poem to herself). But it’s just a great poem, one of my favorites, and certainly erotic. To me. Oh wait! Here’s a poem I wrote called “Orgasmic Organ,” (reading aloud):

Orgasmic Organ Organ Music

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What is more orgasmic than An organ? Swelling pipes Chromatic leaps. Mounting Swells. Even the names Ring out with hot and cold Desire: Bourdon, quintaton And Open Diapason; Cor de Chamois, the horn Of love; which is not to say That the flute a cheminée Isn’t sexy in its way.

Adorable Dulciane Leads the choir Followed hotly by Viole, Viole celeste and Flute harmonique And, most sensual of all Flute d’Accouplement Rends the hall With luscious call.

Nazard octave and flute de bois Chalumeau a Cheminée; Oh Voix céleste Petite Bombarde Lift my yearning ears To God. By god Of course, I mean To say, JSB Whose Grosse Fugue I mainline on my morning walk But here in church The real sound Of all those rutting pipes resounds: Voix humaine— Push those couplers Once again.

For what is a fugue but Love in motion, tentative voice That meets its mate, entwining All the voices reach at last Their blissful climax with a blast.

J: (Laughs) That one is fantastic!

L: That one is about the organ as an organ. As a sexual thing.

J: JSB of course is Bach, who really does turn you on!

L: (Sighs) Oooh, yes! I would say of all music, I find Bach the most sexy, the most moving. Mmm... absolutely! As far as art... sexy? I don’t find art so sexy, oddly enough. Films maybe. But I always shut my eyes during the sexy parts.

J: (Laughs) Why? L: I find it embarrassing.

J: Because it’s fake? Or because it’s supposed to manipulate you?

L: Oh, because I don’t want to see all the squishings and squashings. Blech, I find it disgusting. I find it totally unerotic. I mean there are movies I do find erotic and can’t think of what they are, but they’re nothing one would think of as erotic. Oh, well anything with Laurence Olivier!

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kamel mennour 47, rue saint-andré des arts 6, rue du pont de lodi paris 75006 france tel +33 1 56 24 03 63 kamelmennour.com

K A T E

HICHAM BERRADA MOHAMED BOUROUISSA MARIE BOVO DANIEL BUREN PIER PAOLO CALZOLARI VALENTIN CARRON LATIFA ECHAKHCH DARIO ESCOBAR MICHEL FRANÇOIS ALBERTO GARCIA-ALIX PETRIT HALILAJ CAMILLE HENROT DAVID HOMINAL HUANG YONG PING ALFREDO JAAR

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Galerie 1900-2000, Paris • 303 Gallery, New York • Miguel Abreu, New York • Air de Paris, Paris • Algus Greenspon, New York • Christian Andersen, Copenhagen • Applicat-Prazan, Paris • Raquel Arnaud, São Paulo • Art: Concept, Paris • Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli • Athr Gallery, Jeddah • Balice Hertling, Paris • Catherine Bastide, Brussels • Baudach, Berlin • Bortolami, New York • Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin • Luciana Brito, São Paulo • Broadway 1602, New York • Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York • Bugada & Cargnel, Paris • Shane Campbell, Chicago • Campoli Presti, London, Paris • Canada, New York • Capitain Petzel, Berlin • carlier | gebauer, Berlin • Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles • Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin • C L E A R I N G, New York, Brussels • Sadie Coles HQ, London • Continua, San Gimignano, Beijing, Boissy-le-Châtel • Paula Cooper, New York • Vera Cortês Art Agency, Lisboa • Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux, Paris • Crèvecoeur, Paris • CRG, New York • Chantal Crousel, Paris • Croy Nielsen, Berlin • Ellen De Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam • Massimo De Carlo, Milano, London • Elizabeth Dee, New York • Dependance, Brussels • Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv • Eigen+Art, Berlin, Leipzig • Frank Elbaz, Paris • Essex Street, New York • Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo • Peter Freeman, Inc., Paris, New York • House of Gaga, México D.F. • Gagosian Gallery, Paris, Le Bourget, New York, London, Beverly Hills, Hong Kong, Roma • Gaudel de Stampa, Paris • gb agency, Paris • GDM, Paris • François Ghebaly, Los Angeles • Gladstone Gallery, New York, Brussels • Marian Goodman, Paris, New York • Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt • Greene Naftali, New York • Karsten Greve, Paris, Köln, St. Moritz • Hauser & Wirth, Zürich, London, New York • Max Hetzler, Berlin, Paris • Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles • Xavier Hufkens, Brussels • In Situ - Fabienne Leclerc, Paris • Taka Ishii, Tokyo • Johnen Galerie, Berlin • Jousse Entreprise, Paris • Annely Juda Fine Art, London • Kadel Willborn, Düsseldorf • Karma International, Zürich • kaufmann repetto, Milano • Anton Kern, New York • Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles • David Kordansky, Los Angeles • Tomio Koyama, Tokyo • Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin • Krinzinger, Wien • Kukje Gallery / Tina Kim Gallery, Seoul, New York • kurimanzutto, México D.F. •

Labor, México D.F. • Yvon Lambert, Paris • Le Minotaure, Paris • Simon Lee, London, Hong Kong • Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong • Lelong, Paris, New York • Lisson, London, New York, Milano • Loevenbruck, Paris • Florence Loewy, Paris • Luhring Augustine, New York • Mai 36 Galerie, Zürich • Marcelle Alix, Paris • Matthew Marks, New York, Los Angeles • Gabrielle Maubrie, Paris • Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf • McKee Gallery, New York • Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo • kamel mennour, Paris • Metro Pictures, New York • Meyer Riegger, Berlin • mfc-michèle didier, Brussels, Paris • Francesca Minini, Milano • Massimo Minini, Brescia • Victoria Miro, London • Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York • Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London • Monitor, Roma • mor.charpentier, Paris • Jan Mot, Brussels, México D.F. • mother’s tankstation, Dublin • MOTINTERNATIONAL, London, Brussels • Murray Guy, New York • Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Wien • Nagel Draxler, Berlin, Köln • Nahmad Contemporary / Helly Nahmad Gallery, New York • Nature Morte, New Dehli • Neu, Berlin • Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt • neugerriemschneider, Berlin • New Galerie, Paris • Franco Noero, Torino • Nathalie Obadia, Paris, Brussels • Office Baroque, Brussels • On Stellar Rays, New York • Guillermo de Osma, Madrid • Overduin & Co., Los Angeles • Pace, New York, London, Beijing • Parra & Romero, Madrid, Ibiza • Françoise Paviot, Paris • Peres Projects, Berlin • Galerie Perrotin, Paris, New York, Hong Kong • Plan B, Cluj, Berlin • Praz-Delavallade, Paris • Eva Presenhuber, Zürich • ProjecteSD, Barcelona • Proyectos Monclova, México D.F. • Almine Rech, Paris, Brussels • Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York • Michel Rein, Paris, Brussels • Rodeo, Istanbul • Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, Salzburg • Andrea Rosen, New York • Tucci Russo, Torre Pellice (Torino) •

Sophie Scheidecker, Paris • Esther Schipper, Berlin • Micky Schubert, Berlin • Gabriele Senn, Wien • Natalie Seroussi, Paris • Sfeir-Semler, Beirut, Hamburg • ShanghART, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore • Jessica Silverman, San Francisco • VI, VII, Oslo • Skarstedt, New York, London • Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv • Pietro Sparta, Chagny • Sprüth Magers, Berlin, London • Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp • Daniel Templon, Paris, Brussels • The Approach, London • The Third Line, Dubai • Galerie Thomas, München • Tilton, New York • Tornabuoni Arte, Paris, Firenze, Milano • UBU Gallery, New York • Valentin, Paris • Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, Paris • Van de Weghe, New York • Vedovi, Brussels • Anne de Villepoix, Paris • Vilma Gold, London • Jonathan Viner, London • Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou, Beijing • Waddington Custot, London • Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen • Wallspace, New York • Michael Werner, New York, London • White Cube, London, Hong Kong, São Paulo • Jocelyn Wolff, Paris • Xippas, Paris, Genève, Montevideo, Punta del Este • Thomas Zander, Köln • Zeno X, Antwerp • Galerie Zlotowski, Paris • David Zwirner, New York, London •

SECTEUR LAFAYETTE AVEC LE SOUTIEN DU GROUPE GALERIES LAFAYETTE

Laura Bartlett, London • Chert, Berlin • Thomas Duncan, Los Angeles • High Art, Paris • Antoine Levi, Paris • Parisa Kind, Frankfurt • RaebervonStenglin, Zürich • Real Fine Arts, New York • SpazioA, Pistoia • Triple V, Paris •

Index 15/07/2014 Informations — info@fiac.com www.fiac.com

23-26 octobre 2014 grand palais & hors les murs, paris

Partenaire officiel

VERY INTO YOU Tenzing Barshee

“Transition is always a relief. Destination means death to me. If I could figure out a way to remain forever in transition, in the disconnected and unfamiliar, I could remain in a state of perpetual freedom.”

— David Wojnarowicz “To all these little dick ass motherfuckers, running around here, who think they got a big dick.”

— Sweet Pussy Pauline This summer provided us with lots of talk of separation and emancipation. Not even nations or institutions or the closest friendships are immune to such potential ideas of dissociation.

This last report on abc makes an attempt to consider the xyz. The opposite end of our tools of language. The end of the line. Let's start in the middle.

You’re still reading the Chris Kraus article (“Discuss Rules Beforehand—DISCUSSED: Disjunctive Narrative Style, Butch/Femmeness, The German, Het Shit, Miss X, An Awkward Niche, Brigantine Pirate Girls, Rats without Working Maps, The Fistfucking Closet, Vanilla Sex, Untweezed Brows, Susan Sontag”) on the mid-90s correspondence between Kathy Acker and Ken Wark (“I’m very into you”). You wanted to stop reading and write to him, answer him.

Maybe provoke him. You wanted to ask, “Who do you want to be, Wark or Acker? Acker or Wark?” You do admit, you only try and cement your recent encounter with meaning. Which is—in the end—not really necessary, you believe. You feel a bit stupid wanting to trigger or provoke his affection or approval or maybe somewhat meaningful/deep—blah—at the core of your friendship. You also enjoy confessing to it. You continue to read.

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“For two decades before meeting Ken Wark, Kathy Acker collaborated with the artist Alan Sondheim on ‘Blue Tape’, a fifty-three-minute black-and-white videotape that documented their brief attraction and courtship. They’d met in New York through the poet Bernadette Mayer, with whom Acker had struck up a casual friendship. (...) Alan and Kathy had dinner on her last evening in New York, and then spent the night together. Returning to San Francisco, Acker wrote a long text about their encounter: I know who Alan is; Alan is my father. He’d better be my perfect father, take care of me but not restrain me from doing anything I want.

Touch me softly with his hands and voice, like everything I do. If Alan isn’t my perfect father I’ll turn away from him unless he touches me again. I’ll attack him… I’ll make him shrivel into nothing I have to think about myself be alone without lovers so I can think about myself Alan helps me…”

You don’t want to draw a comparison between the friendship you have with him and the one between Kathy and Alan. Maybe because there isn’t any violence between you and him. “This might sound silly,” you say. “Please bear with me.” You wonder whether he uses Kraus’ text as a vehicle for criticism of your own writing. He hasn’t read any of your L.a. diary besides the parts you read in Zürich. He noticed you always refer to Los Angeles as L.a. Both of you find pleasure in this specificity: 1) It relates to Thom Andersen’s bitter idea that Hollywood usually belittles “The City of Angels” by abbreviating it. 2) You both like the capital “L” next to the minor “a”.

You’re also curious about the issue of Wark sharing details (after Acker kept digging for them) about other lovers and intimacies. Wark eventually ends up cataloguing them. You’ve built meaningful relationships with some people over the course of this endless summer. You value each for their supposed level of intimacy. These are different people you refer to as lovers or you describe your involvement with them as a loving relationship/an intense relationship of love/care. With some you’ve built more constant/enduring relationships—considering the idea of propinquity, time sealing emotional and physical bonds—and others being more instant but not necessarily of a lesser quality.

A recent interview with artist Mary Baumeister: “I stomped a huge spiral into a field of snow and I realized that I define myself too much through another person. I wanted to be happy by myself again, without the need for a You. That night I accomplished this. Then I was free. Since then I have lived very different kinds of relationships.”

“What was different?”

“I didn’t want to own what I love anymore. I have nurtured love within me, without expecting it to return to me. I was free from jealousy.”

“And you didn’t feel you had lost something?”

“Lost was my ability to suffer. Suffering has a very deep quality. You’re missing something, if you lose this.”

You do believe in the value of companionship. But you say something like, “I’m trying to figure out relationships which are more inclusive and not based on this normative idea of exclusivity as they are lived by many couples around us.” You would resent the idea of a collection of such bonds. You count on your relationships for what they are. Each an independent exploration of intimacy. Each an equal emotional investment. Equally consuming. Consumption being another layer of issues. What about presence and non-presence? What about positive qualities of fear? What about the network? There is a huge difference between collecting people and trying to collect meaningful relationships (without really claiming to know what they are actually made of). What about lust? Keep trusting it.

You’re not into owning emotional sovereignty. You’re interested in power and maybe also in power outside of the bedroom. And you enjoy the suggested liberty between Acker and Wark/Wark and Acker, a liberty which allows a deep emotional engagement—heavy feelings, feelings are always heavy—with the pretense of (absolute) autonomy. In the end it remains

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it to return to me. I was free from jealousy.”

“And you didn’t feel you had lost something?”

“Lost was my ability to suffer. Suffering has a very deep quality. You’re missing something, if you lose this.”

You do believe in the value of companionship. But you say something like, “I’m trying to figure out relationships which are more inclusive and not based on this normative idea of exclusivity as they are lived by many couples around us.” You would resent the idea of a collection of such bonds. You count on your relationships for what they are. Each an independent exploration of intimacy. Each an equal emotional investment. Equally consuming. Consumption being another layer of issues. What about presence and non-presence? What about positive qualities of fear? What about the network? There is a huge difference between collecting

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a fabrication because they’re written down and intended it for an addressee. You like the idea of rules as a safety net when involving yourself with others: sexually, emotionally, professionnally, etc. One way of establishing certain parameters within any kind of relationship (institutional, national or personal) is to constantly re-define and reflect this relationship.

“By turns languid and frantic, Acker and Wark’s correspondence unfolds as a kind of adult romance: a journey with words through distance towards connection and knowledge. In his second email to Acker, Wark asks: “Do we need to analyze our encounter with each other?

Or can we just assume it, and see what kind of dialogue it anchors to a start in time?” Time was among the many productive obstacles to their virtual connection.”

To continuously negotiate a relationship remains to be one of the methods to secure a level of trust. While you are present with someone, this might turn into a intensity of such love/care which causes you to be temporarily absent from others, whom you might have built a similarly deep connection with. There’s no talk of cutting any bonds by doing so. It’s also an argument of physicality versus virtuality. You don’t believe they’re intrinsically separate. There’s differrences, but bodies and feelings, as well as concrete ideas and intuitions are not only closely related to each other, but are in a constant act of familiarization with and through one another.

You don’t care about facebook but your phone is an extension of your body and you are an extension of your phone, while you’re typing, you are establishing plenty of meaningful connections. It’s like sailing through darkness. It’s fine to close your eyes. There isn’t really an idea of an anchor, and wind isn’t just for dead leaves. Just riding it? You stopped reading and started writing to him with this sentence: “They parted dubious friends.”

What can these feet level? What can these feet pound and flatten? What can these hands raise? By fracturing the map through movement through various spaces, the oppressive preinvented world and the sexualities are revealed. Imagine confronting this construction against all subjects in all spaces. This manipulation of space is exemplified by the explanation of our movement through space. It’s the cut map, which fractures boundaries and reveals both sexuality, through kissing and oppression, through scrawled graffiti, transcending spatial boundaries. Brush fires in the social landscape. Unearthing both a sense of movement and a landscape that cuts through the urban, rural, and even suburban. Perhaps this movement through space can create a brush fire in a landscape that has become so divided within the distinction of spaces—abc.

Epilogue: If your husband catches an Ebola virus, give him food and water and love and maybe prayers but keep your distance, wait patiently, hope for the best—and, if he dies, don’t clean out his bowels by hand. Better to step back, blow a kiss, and burn the hut.

Looking at a crushed USM foyer table, titled “Peres Stack, 2014” by Mike Bouchet, an L.a. artist living in Frankfurt am Main for almost a decade. On top of the defunctionalized table, the artist piled some books, another stack on top of the stack (calvary on calvary), amongst these books are titles like: THE ART MUSEUM, LIVING IN STYLE IN BERLIN, YACHT INTERIORS. Corresponding to “Peres Stack” (shown at abc) is this work by the same artist: “Elon Musk Jacuzzi, 2014” made of fiberglass, cardboard, latex paint, plywood and a shopping cart and “Full Moon”, mineral water bottles, exhibited in the artist’s local gallery. Talk about consumerism. Illustrated power structures between spaces: Like the push and pull situation between an art fair booth and a gallery space, lovers and family, an institutional exhibition and the cliché of such an abstract idea like the one of a nation. Recently, artist Jana Euler show-

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cased a conversation about power relations in her first institutional show at Kunsthalle Zürich.

On opposite walls she hung portraits of electric sockets and a picturesque landscape view on a generic alpine (Swiss) scenery. “Where does the energy come from?” asked us the connecting wall in vinyl letters.

The main problem of Diaspora is the general misconception that people belong to a certain territory. When in fact the natural mode for most people is to actually move the fuck around a lot. Well, at least historically. The idea of a nation is as abstract as flags on the moon. To claim territory is problematic in many ways. Emotionally it leads to jealousy. Artistically it may lead to such extreme situations like institutional censorship, as we know it happened when Harald Szeemann bowed down to power in 1969 and censored the work of Dorothy Iannone at Kunsthalle Bern. This is currently discussed by an exhibition at Migros Museum Zürich. On the other hand, claiming territory for a minority, as many tried publicly over the course of this summer by siding with either supposed victimized position of the players in the Middle East conflict(s), may lead to not only emotional but to actual social confusion. Claiming territory for the weak or marginalized seems to be an honorable thing to do. But what if those who are marginalized use the same strategies of exclusivity and marginalization of others? What if love always hurts?

Arguments against representation, like saying an image is not just a variable but also a situation, are helpful for trying to make sense over the course of such an endless summer of both large universal questions and benign, petty HR issues. It helps to listen to artists like Pierre Huyghe or Marie Angeletti talk about such ideas, saying that the image is always also a situation, each artist doing so in their own way but still in similar regards to both flat as well as spatially staged situations/images—moving and still. Accepting that the world isn't as smooth/flat as we’re told it is, as we’re trying to ride over and permeate through all of those rough edges and barricades (of life). Perforation through patterns. There remains the question of how to deal with oneself during such times of transition. Using crisis as an opportunity and a time for decision. Striking distance because perspective allows for retrospection.

For many of us, these situations/images may speak about the world’s credibility that solely stems from an idea of decor. Paintings not just as signs of culture and historicity but also as backdrops and spacemakers. Paintings as situations. The shallowness of petty-petit bourgeois domesticity. Something Rainer Crone (approximately) said in 1974 about the paintings of Almut Heise. Such decor might be exciting, although not in a spectacular but a wholesome way. Marc Camille Chaimowicz definitely puts this to the test in his exhibition “Forty and Forty (with Klara Liden and Manfred Pernice)” at the still out-of-the-oven new location of another local gallery, where he brings together refreshingly boring ceramic vases with an equal amount of chirping birds, psychotic inside the white cube, frantically shitting on the exhibited art works.

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2014 summer abc: Adam, Airen, Anina, Ann, Anne, Annina, Andrew, Ariane, Aude, Alexander, Alexia, Ben, Bernhard, Calla, Mr. Calamé, Chantal, Chris, Christina, Dan, Dan, Dana, Deanna, Dena, Domi, Dominic, Dorothée, Dorothy, Emil, Emily, Eva, Fäbu, Fab, Fillippo, Fiona, Flora, Gabrielle, Gallien, Gerry, Gina, Gödi, Hannah, Harry, Haydée, Heike, Hegi, Henrik, Hubi, Herr Ladner, Ilja, Ingo, Jana, Javier, Jérôme, Jim, Joe, Joy, Jörg, Juliette, Julian, Julier, Julie, John, Josh, Karl, Karolina, Keith, Klara, Latifa, Leidy, Lena, Lars Erik, Leo, Lila, Liz, Lucie, Luki, Maike, Mandla, Manfred, Marie, Marc, Margaret, Martha, Mathis, Martin, Martin, Matt, Matthew, Max, May, Mel, Mia, Michele, Michael, Miriam, MLK, Mo, Monika, Morgan, Naum,

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Natalia, Nath, Nail, Nik, Niko, Noë, Nora, Olga, Pabby, Paolo, Patrick, Pentti, Pipps, Quinn, Rémy, Renée, Reto, Rita, Robb, Rochelle, Roland, Rosi, Rubbee, Rufio, Sack, Sally, Sam, Scotty, Seba, Seob, Shirana, Silke, Skye, Stefan, Stefano, Spichtig, Syrop, Thilo, Tim, TinTin, Timischl, T. Kelly, Tristan, Tore, Urban, Urs, Vitto, Wung, Yael, Yann, Yngve, Young, Zoe, Zach.

This text was supposed to be published on the third day of a blogger residency initiated by eyeout (an app to find exhibitions and events in Berlin and Zürich) and abc art berlin contemporary (an art fair). As part of the residency the author received a hotel room in BerlinMitte for three consecutive nights. The assignment was to report with three blog posts from the art fair. There was no guidelines to what the actual produced content should be. There was no fee, travel or other expenses. The first two texts already caused arguments about relevance between the author and the initiators of the residency program. “Very Into You” was apparently too much for them to handle. In an email conversation the author argued: “Isn’t it important that a writer’s residency like this one, should be an open attempt to use an event like an art fair for ideas that reach a bit further than just a description and actually address questions and topics that could be considered important to both artists and anyone involved in the arts? And because of the realities and repercussions that are part of its nature, shouldn’t an art fair always aim to be the incentive for actual content?” “This might all be relevant to you,” one of the representatives answered. “But for us, your text is just too far away from the actual object.” abc berlin contemporary didn’t publish the text and eyeout reluctantly—after being accused of censorship—published the text a day late, after the art fair was already over.

Day 1: http://eyeout.com/blog/2014-09-19-abc-day-one Day 2: http://eyeout.com/blog/2014-09-20-better-never

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Captions: Deanna Havas, International Capitalism (very into you), jpg, 2014 Rochelle Feinstein, Love Vibe, oil on canvas, 1999-2014 Josh Mannis, The Technique is the Technology, ink on paper, 2014 Mitchell Syrop, I've Just Been Deinstitutionalized, torn wallpaper mural, 1993 Henke/Henkel, Science Fiction, vinyl letters, 2014 Kim Seob Boninsegni, Waves, inkjet print mounted on aluminum, 2011

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En 2014 dans un taxi, au moment de payer, AnnE demande au chauffeur une fracture.

Elle vit à Paris depuis une année et commence à apprendre le français. Depuis une année, elle pratique aussi chaque semaine la boxe française « savate » dans un club entre la place de la République et la Gare de l’Est. Y enseigne Ibrahim, champion du monde de boxe française et de Vovinam. Il fait les trajets de Sarcelles plusieurs fois par semaine, AnnE du centre ville, de la résidence d’artiste où elle vit. AnnE m’emmène au cours de boxe durant l’été. Nous travaillons ensemble depuis plusieurs mois. J’y emmène ensuite Anne. J’écris tous les jours à Anina, qui passe quelques mois aux Etats-Unis.

Le premier cours : dans les vestiaires, je me change et entre dans la salle de boxe où je vois AnnE. Les gens me regardent d’un drôle d’air. Quelqu’un éclate de rire, car apparemment, et n’ayant pas l’habitude d’en mettre, j’ai pris le soutien-gorge de boxe pour l’uniforme final, alors qu’il faut ajouter un t-shirt par dessus. Je retourne au vestiaire et reviens avec un tshirt. Première leçon d’Ibrahim : il ne faut pas avoir peur de prendre des coups. Mais ensuite il faut en donner. La boxe a sur moi un effet étrange : elle me fait pleurer. Donc dans le vestiaire après le cours, montée de larmes. AnnE me rejoint et m’avoue que la boxe a eu sur elle le même effet. Le deuxième cours, toujours avec Ibrahim. Sur la place de la République a lieu des manifestations contre les bombardements de Gaza. L’atmosphère est tendue, la première manifestation a été interdite. Des centaines de CRS entourent la place, en uniforme de combat, cela dure depuis plusieurs jours. Ibrahim me raconte que des équipes de télévisions ont tenté d’interviewer les enfants dont il s’occupe à Sarcelles, car ils pensent qu’il y des tensions dans le quartier : il les a envoyé se faire voir. Il nous apprend ensuite à bander nos mains. Les doigts doivent être bien écartés lorsqu’on bande les phalanges. Puis à passer les gants. Le pied et le poing fort sont « en réserve ». On se défend avec son côté faible pour mieux frapper avec son côté fort. Le corps doit s’habituer à faire les choses à l’envers. Ce n’est pas facile. Apparemment j’ai une patte folle, comme l’appelle Ibrahim, ma jambe gauche veut sans cesse se mettre en avant alors qu’elle doit rester en réserve à l’arrière. Le corps s’y habitue néanmoins très vite, et au bout de deux heures d’entraînement, la patte folle reste à sa place. Montée de larmes. Je me bats avec AnnE. Elle bouge plus lentement et mesure sa force. Je m’agite un peu dans tous les sens, comme si je jouais à me battre, certainement à cause de la timidité provoquée par cette nouvelle situation. On ne sait pas comment se comporter, où se placer dans la salle, qui regarder et comment, comment utiliser l’équipement. Je mime l’acte, AnnE se bat vraiment. Cela viendra pour moi au troisième cours avec Anne: apprendre à frapper avec ses poings et ses pieds. Protéger J E A N N E 76

son visage et esquiver. Coup de pied dans les parties : j’en donne un à Ibrahim par inadvertance. Evidemment interdit par les règles. On se bat avec un adversaire de même poids. On peut utiliser les mains et les pieds. Il faut au moins un fouetté (coup de pied

latéral) durant un round, qui dure 1min30, puis 1 min de repos. 3 rounds pour un match. Les frappes au tibia sont interdites. L’assaut passe par des frappes au visage, frontales et latérales, au-dessus de la ceinture en évitant la poitrine pour les femmes. Nous allons boire un café après le cours. Ibrahim qui nous entraîne ne boit rien parce qu’il fait Ramadan. Il a perdu du poids, 5kg environ. Le régime normal recommence demain. Il n’est pas très sûr, cela dépend de la position de la lune. Les cours suivants, avec Anne, nous utilisons les sacs de frappes et des cordes à sauter. Nous nous entraînons aussi en frappant contre des piliers recouverts de matelas. Premier combat dans le ring avec des inconnues. On apprend à contrôler sa force et ses gestes. On transpire. On commence à réaliser sa propre force et celle de ses adversaires. La salle est silencieuse en général, on entend les coups et parfois de la musique. Combat avec Anne, j’ai peur de lui faire mal. J’arrête souvent mes coups à mi-chemin. Combat un contre un, l’arbitre contrôle l’application des règles. Le ring est délimité par des cordes. Je continue à suivre l’enseignement d’Ibrahim. Au bout de quelques semaines je commence à m’habituer et mon corps change, les muscles sont plus visibles. Je vais boire un verre avec Ibrahim. La boxe est un combat au corps à corps. La violence est physique et directe. On n’a pas l’habitude. On est seul avec soi et son adversaire qui nous renvoie notre image, les forces et les faiblesses doivent être gérées immédiatement, les émotions aussi doivent être affrontées de manière directe. On gagne un match dans sa tête.

Il faut réussir à convaincre son adversaire qu’on est le plus fort. Utiliser des ruses en fonction des adversaires, des tactiques de dissuasions. Ne rien montrer, même si on a mal. Feindre de ne pas être touché. Cela va le faire douter. Il faut soit dissuader un adversaire, soit renchérir. Ne pas être transparent, ne pas se laisser voir. Pour Ibrahim, la violence est plus facile à gérer sur un ring que dans la rue : il faut libérer sa violence sur le ring si on veut mettre l’autre KO. Ibrahim a commencé la boxe à 13 ans. On peut continuer toute sa vie, mais il faut faire attention aux coups portés à la tête. Un de ses amis n’a plus les idées très claires. Il a pris trop de coups. Certaines personnes viennent à la boxe uniquement pour se faire frapper. La discipline se transforme rapidement en habitude. Le corps s’habitue et très vite si on ne s’entraîne pas on se sent mal. D’ailleurs AnnE a été s’acheter un sac de frappe cet après-midi. Elle ne veut pas arrêter son entraînement et s’inquiète de ne pas supporter la pause estivale. Dans le métro, je sens monter une fois de plus une crise de claustrophobie.

J’adopte une de mes stratégies les plus efficace : ignorer son environnement pour faire descendre l’angoisse et que la crise n’éclate pas. Je regarde des photos sur mon téléphone pour oublier où je suis.

Jeanne Graff, Paris, été 2014 Séances de travail avec AnnE Imhof et Anne Dressen. Notes pour l’exposition « Tes Yeux »

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P ET UN I A 6

P ET UN I A est une revue féministe d’art contemporain et de culture/P ETU N IA is an art and entertainment feminist magazine Contributions dans l’ordre d’apparition/ Contributions in appearing order M A R I E A N G E L E T TI K ATE N E W B Y EM I L I E P I T O I S E T S U S A N A VA R G A S C ER VAN TES MARINA PINSKY B U E NO S T I E M P O S IN TER N ATIO N AL A D RI A N A L A R A JA NA E U L E R A N NA - S O P H I E B ER G ER M Y LE S S TA R R A LE X A N D R A Z U C KER MA N LI NDA N O C H L I N & JU LIA TR O TTA TE NZ I N G B A R S H EE JE A NN E G R A F F Remerciements/Special thanks: tous les auteurs/all the authors et/and Saâdane Afif et/and à ceux qui nous soutiennent financièrement/and to those who financially support us: Air de Paris Anne Barrault FIAC Fondation d’entreprise Ricard/Art contemporain Frac Champagne-Ardenne Frac des Pays de la Loire Galerie Wentrup Istituto Svizzero Kadist Art Foundation kamel mennour La Galerie Noisy-Le-Sec La Passerelle Galerie Loevenbruck Marcelle Alix Mehdi Chouakri PSM Gallery Synagogue de Delme truth and consequences

PETUNIA est une revue éditée par Orlando, association à but non-lucratif/PETUNIA is a magazine published by Orlando, non-profit organization 11 rue de Ruffi, 13003 Marseille, France Directrice de la publication/Publisher in chief DOROTHÉE DUPUIS Rédactrices en chef/Editors in chief VALÉRIE CHARTRAIN LILI REYNAUD DEWAR Chargée d’édition + iconographie/Copy editor + iconography J EANNE ALECHINSKY Relecture anglais/English copy editor SUZY HALAJ IAN Conception graphique/Graphic design RAMAYA TEGEGNE Questions? contactpetunia@gmail.com Distribution: Motto Distribution Imprimé 2 500 fois/Printed 2 500 times by Artes Graphicas Palermo (Espagne/Spain), octobre 2014 ISSN: 2112-566X www.petunia.eu