DARK FAIR at the Swiss Institute, New York

Presented by the Milwaukee International
Opening, March 28, 6 PM

This experimental miniature art fair will take place without the use of natural or electric light, creating a starkly unique atmosphere for experiencing contemporary art. An international selection of galleries and artists will be displaying work custom to these conditions, using candle light, work that glows in the dark, light sculpture, film and video and unplugged performances. Visitors will be able to get lost in the work and each other in new ways in this cavernous underworld of exchange, featuring shadowy bar booths, chill-out zones, flashlights and headlamps.

Dark Fair participants include:

Air de Paris, Paris
Angstrom Gallery, Dallas/Los Angeles
B’LING, New York
Galerie Guido W. Baudach, Berlin
Marianne Boesky, New York
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
CANADA, New York
China Art Objects, Los Angeles
Club Nutz/General Store, Milwaukee
Zach Feuer, New York
James Fuentes, New York
Golden Age, Chicago
Green Gallery, Milwaukee
Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco/New York
INOVA, Milwaukee
KS Art, New York
Karma International, Zurich
Leo Koenig inc, New York
Maureen Paley, London
Galerie Micky Schubert, Berlin
Other Gallery, Winnipeg
Art Since the Summer of 69, Stavanger/Berlin
PictureBox, Brooklyn
Espacio Provisional, Havana/Miami
The Suburban, Oak Park
White Columns, New York
Willy Wonka Inc, Oslo
Hiromi Yoshii, Tokyo

Nils Bech in Concert

Dear Cockettes

An exhibition for and about the legendary acid queens The Cockettes

“Their productions were transvestite-glitter-fairie-theatre masques. Transsexual dressing is a gay contribution to the realization that we’re not a hundred percent masculine or feminin, but a mixture of hormones – and not being afraid of that natural self wich the hormones dictate. The Cockettes brought out into to the street what was in the closet, in terms of theatric dress and imaginative theatre.”
Allen Ginsberg

Dear Cockettes tar utgangspunkt i den legendariske performance gruppen The Cockettes’ virksomhet i San Fransisco på 60- og 70-tallet. Med sitt flamboyante og psykedeliske uttrykk samt uforutsigbarhet og energi, vakte de stor oppsikt i USAs teater- og kunstmiljøer. Deres rike visuelle materiale, utprøving av grenser, bohemske livsstil og blanding av sjangere som kunst, teater, musikk, cabaret, performance og drag – har vært til inspirasjon for kunstnere og musikere som Mike Kelley, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, John Waters, Alice Cooper, Antony and the Johnsons, Marc Jacobs og Sonic Youth.

Som et viktig element i utstillingen vises beat dokumentaren “Pickup’s Tricks” (1971) av Gregory Pickup. Med gruppens grunnlegger Hibiscus i hovedrollen følges The Cockettes i en ekstrem dekadent feiring av livet – mens filmen “Song from an Angel” (1988) av David Weissman er et vakkert portrett av Rodney Price steppende i rullestol knappe to uker før han dør av Aids. En skjebne han deler med med mange av de andre medlemmene av The Cockettes. House of Egypt fra London vil fremføre en performance som blander drag, spoken-word, lip-synching og voguing i en mørk mystisk saga om et mindre kjent Egypt. Deres tour-de-force ender i en fotografisk skulptur av Benjamin A. Huseby – delvis ruin, delvis elevert pyramide. Nils Bech vil fremføre Jimmy Somerville’s Coming, med falsett og lyriske bevegelser kommenterer han kjønnsrollemønstre og viderefører det The Cockettes introduserte som “gender fuck”.

“I am coming! I am coming! Here I am! Neither a woman, nor a man.”
Jimmy Somerville

Stephan Dillemuth og Nils Norman har jobbet sammen siden tidlig 90-tallet og filmen “I´m Short Your House” er resultat av deres research i forskjellige former for “lebensreform” rørelser og bohemia, pågående økonomisering av byer og kunstnerens rolle i dagens internasjonale kunstmarked.

I tillegg til at utstillingen viser unikt Cockettes-materiale som originale plakater, teaterprogram, magasin- og avisartikler og fotografier samlet av kuratorene og presentert i form av et “Wunderkammer”, vises et filmprogram med filmer av og om The Cockettes. Utstillingen ser på viktigheten av deres arbeid samt deres innflytelse på kommende generasjoner kunstnere og artister. Samtidig tar utstillingen sikte på å gi innspill til debatt og meningsproduksjon omkring seksualitet og den etablerte forståelsen av kjønn og legning.

RUMI MISSABU
JACK SMITH
STEVEN ARNOLD
NILS NORMAN
STEPHAN DILLEMUTH
BILL BOWERS
DAVID WEISSMAN
FAYETTE HAUSER
JOSHUA FREIWALD
GREGORY PICKUP
HOUSE OF EGYPT
BENJAMIN A. HUSEBY
NILS BECH
TOMATA DU PLENTY
MICHAEL KALMEN

Images from the performances by Geir Haraldseth:




Performance by House of Egypt / Mobile by Benjamin A Huseby

Iron Curtain Innocence

“IRON CURTAIN INNOCENCE”
Anders Nordby & Eirik Saether
–
An iron curtain, or eisener Vorhang, was an obligatory precaution in all German theaters to prevent the possibility of fire from spreading from the stage to the rest of the theater. Such fires were rather common because the decor often was very flammable. In case of fire, a metal wall would separate the stage from the theater, secluding the flames to be extinguished by firefighters. Douglas Reed used this metaphor in his book Disgrace Abounding (Jonathan Cape, 1939, page 129): “The bitter strife [in Yugoslavia between Serb unionists and Croat federalists] had only been hidden by the iron safety-curtain of the King’s dictatorship.”

Any likeness is fictitious:

Art forgery dates back more than two-thousand years. Roman sculptors produced copies of Greek sculptures. Presumably the contemporary buyers knew that they were not genuine. During the classical period art was generally created for historical reference, religious inspiration, or simply aesthetic enjoyment. The identity of the artist was often of little importance to the buyer. Following the Renaissance, a redistribution of the world’s wealth created a fierce demand for art by a newly prosperous middle class. Near the end of the 14th century, Roman statues were unearthed in Italy, intensifying the populace’s interest in antiquities, and leading to sharp increases in the value of these objects. This upsurge soon extended to contemporary and recently deceased artists. Art had become a commercial commodity, and the monetary value of the artwork came to depend on the identity of the artist. To identify their works, painters began to mark them, these marks later evolved in to signatures. As the demand for certain artwork began to exceed the supply, fraudulent marks and signatures began to appear on the open market.

“For the artist, the wish to be a painter, body and soul, never meant loosing her head. Her work is conceptual and includes photography and installations. Even most recent art history shows how photography and painting compete. Does she want to return painting to reality? Or is this perhaps a theatrical act? The artist builds scenery extravagantly, looks for clothes which resemble the painted ones or she crafts them in an artistic application. These textiles are more than costumes; they can be seen as indicators. This fabric leaves it possible to pull the painting off the surface into reality, as it were, to turn on and back into itself. She stores her props carefully in a requisite pool.The photos which result from such stagings look like painting indeed, however, are not to be mistaken as such. One can regard it as a confusing game, an instructional show or comedy. It is all of these. In this manner, the artist can follow the relationship to reality in the presentations, and, above all, clarify medium and perspective in the process of picture making. If she urges photography to imitate painting today, she does so knowingly inspiring the paradoxical reverse. She puts herself in the position to probe the artistic process of production and reception and shifts our view from certain dependencies and mechanisms, whose validity and power is not lost in new media, and not limited to the field of art.”

I take part
you take part
he takes part
we take part
you all take part
they profit.

Please visit our webpage: http://www.indexof.no for more information or contact Anders Nordby / Ida Ekblad at info@indexof.no or +47 45 67 01 41 / +47 94 84 46 74.

The Corny Show

A project by Willy Wonka Inc. for Karma International, Zurich

• Nils Bech
• Lina Viste Grønli
• Ida Ekblad
• Lars Laumann
• Camilla Løw
• Anders Nordby

Opening Friday the 29th of June at 19.00
Nils Bech performs: For Stevie Nicks at 20.00

fake ass G’s
bitch niggas with no heart
i’m stayin’ real till i’m 6 feet deep
so when a nigga gone
bury me a G

(2 pac. fake niggaz)

Under the title The Corny Show a.k.a The Art is in The Heart, Willy Wonka Inc. brings together works from 6 young Norwegian artists affiliated with its project space. All works are created specifically for the exhibition. The artists included share an interest in cultural history. Their work excavate and archive from several figures, movements, and iconic objects in art and musical history, acknowledging the understanding that cultural history is freely available to everyone for artistic purposes. The show aims to research the peculiar expression “corny” and its significance and meaning within urban jargon.

The show was supported by Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA)

Jim Drain Screening & Nils Bech Performance

Screening of videoworks selected by Jim Drain and Nils Bech performing “Coming” by Jimmy Somerville – Willy Wonka Inc. March 2007.

Kristianiabohemen

Performance night – in conjunction with a workshop by Stephan Dillemuth and Statens Kunstakademi on the Christiania Bohemia – at Willy Wonka Inc. November 2006

Screening of Kenneth Anger`s “The man we want to hang”

With us against reality, or against us

With Us Against Reality, Or Against Us!

Willy Wonka Inc., Oslo.
26.08.05-25.09.05

Our first show was held in an old chocolate factory, hence the name Willy Wonka Inc. “With Us Against Reality, or Against Us!” was an exhibition bringing together 32 young American artists and artist groups, as well as artists from Sweden, Norway, Germany and Netherlands. The artists in the exhibition were dealing with issues of escapism and subcultures.

A catalogue was produced, with texts by Anders Eiebakke, Geir Haraldseth, Slava Mogutin, Hanne Mugaas & Cory Arcangel and Jonas Ohlsson, as well as an additional CD of music made by many of the participating artists.

Artists:

Olaf Breuning, Jonas Ohlsson, Erik van Lieshout, Bjarne Melgaard, Chris Johansson, Mike Kelley & Paul McCarthy, Jim Drain, Jocelyn Shipley, Dearraindrop, Paperrad, Slava Mogutin, Cory Arcangel, Brian Belott, Ryan McGinley, Michael Mahalchick, Terence Koh, Scott Hug, Michael Magnan, Amy Sarkisian, Scott Reeder, Tyson Reeder, Hanna Liden, Frankie Martin, Anna Sew Hoy, Oscar Nilsson, Takeshi Murata, Dash Snow, Francine Spiegel, Mike Paré and Matti Kallioinen.

• (A talk;) Cory Arcangel – Hanne Mugaas, published in the catalogue for the show. Read it here!