katrina's superdome

Every time Palais de Tokyo has an exposition, they print a corresponding magazine “PALAIS/”. It’s chalked full of the influences and thoughts behind the artist(s) and the works (in french AND ENGLISH – there is a god after all :) ) This current issue PALAIS/ magazine 06 accompanies their group exposition SUPERDOME.

PdT: The Superdome is a mythical stadium: built in 1975 in New Orleans (Louisiana), it has hosted numerous Super Bowls (the American football championship’s final), a Rolling Stones concert, Pope John Paul II, the Republican Convention and refugees of Hurricane Katrina. Paradoxical, the Superdome builds a bridge between the greatest entertainment and the greatest anguish. Inspired by its additional and schizophrenic logic, mixing “I can get no satisfaction” AND “Our Father in heaven”, Marc-Olivier Wahler puts forward SUPERDOME: a new session composed of five solo exhibitions balancing between entertainment and desolation, decibels and prayers, high-tech and chaos, as the continuation of a program testing the notion of the elasticity of art which started at the Palais de Tokyo with Five Billion Years.

After reading about the artists and works, the back of the magazine suggests reading material, music, and films that correlate with this exhibit. It’s at this point that I realize I’m not alone.

LIVRES/BOOKS:

The age of Spiritual machines – Ray Kurzweil
Only Revolutions – Mark Z. Danielewski
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind – Julian Jaynes
Passport to the Cosmos: Human Transformation and Alien Encounters – John E. Mack

FILMS/MOVIES:

Blade Runner (you saw that one coming, didn’t you?)
Rollerball (I totally forgot this one!)
The Truman Show
Starwars

Musique/Music (aren’t you grateful for the translations?)

Tricky – Angels with Dirty Faces
Carlo Gesualdo – Tenebrae
YOG – Years of Nowhere
François Couperin – Leçons de Ténèbres

A close friend and fellow artist, Cori Crowley just curated a show in San Fransisco – HUM:

HUM responds to the fundamental condition of being human in a modern age – the fact that we are undeniably immersed in the kinetic drone produced by our industrial landscape. How is our experience shaped by an environment that is always humming, whether it be the buzz of a fluorescent light, the whirr of traffic, or the white noise that radiates from our computer screens? How is our relationship with technology evolving? To which industrial forces must we acquiesce and against which will we resist? For this exhibition artists responded to these questions through site-specific works.

The venue chosen for HUM, Project Artaud Theater, is critical in the realization of this exhibition not only because of its commanding architecture, but also because its history is thematically relevant. Built as a canning factory in 1925 and then converted to a performance art venue in the 1970s, Project Artaud Theater embodies an intersection of the industrial and the organic: while the movement of bodies has replaced that of metal and machinery, the industrial shell – a monumental structure – remains.

Bert Bergen often combines his visual work with performative elements. He is currently working on screen-printed wallpaper and enameled sculptures that depict the mythology of humanity’s relationship with nature. David Dampewolf’s manipulation of film alters both the audience’s visual and aural experience. Corey Fogel’s art practice revolves largely around his use of music through series of staged physical experiments that explore movement and narrative. Emily Malina takes a didactic approach to her artwork that often has an emphasis on sociology, gender roles and domesticity through intervention. Andrew Wilson is a video artist who combines humor with his critique of capitalism and the production of desire.

Curated by Cori Crowley and Rachael Cleveland

links:
http://www.odctheater.org/v5/pages/gallery.html
http://www.artaud.org/theater/

Write-up on Flavorpill.com
http://flavorpill.com/sanfrancisco/events/2008/7/16/hum

There will be an ODC Theater performance after the HUM opening. If you would like to stay for the show, you can pre-purchase tickets through the ODC website: www.odcdance.org
Details of the show can also be found at this website.