Tooth and Nail²⁰ (2007)



Tooth and Nail²⁰ is a 20-celled, five-channel 12-x80-foot video projection on the façade of the Hyde Park Art Center. The 3:58M video is comprised of hand grenades, burnt ash, nails and a safety pin, and an original soundtrack. It is part of the Consuming War exhibition, curated by Barbara Koenen that will feature the work of 14 Chicago artists who have been compelled to make art that reflects on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The exhibition will run from November 3, 2007 through January 15, 2008 and will reach beyond the galleries of the HPAC to include a range of installations and happenings examining how war consumes us and how our consumption has fed the war. Consuming War will include works by Lynda Barry, Wafaa Bilal, Adam Brooks, Burtonwood & Holmes, Fred Holland, Edra Soto, Harold Mendez, Ellen Rothenberg, Dolores Wilber, and Michael Hernandez de Luna.

Tooth and Nail²⁰ derives from the multi-media performance, Mountains Clouds Turbulence Coastlines, presented at the Athenaeum Theater, Performing Art Chicago’s PAC/Edge Festival in March/April 2005. Two men who are sometimes "headless," decapitated, or who have simply lost their heads, investigate the making of a hand grenade. A ten-year boy in video projection, considers the merits of a Scout Masters' ruminations on how to properly discipline a boy, the merits and problems of what he calls "Impertinent Punishment," and matters of the heart. The boy considers the study of energy and its transformations and how things change. References include Death in Gaza (HBO Documentary Film, 2004) by James Miller; Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002); When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro (Knopf, 2000); Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman, Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault (Gallimard (France) 1977); A Mighty Heart by Mariane Pearl (Virago Press, 2004); Who Killed Daniel Pearl? by Bernard-Henry Levy (Melville House, 2004); Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prison Photographs from Abu Ghraib (International Center Of Photography, NYC, 2004); Scout Leaders in Action by Walter G. MacPeek (Abingdon Press, 1969).

This research and multimedia work lead to Heads or Tails, a site specific installation at Preston Bradley Hall, the Chicago Cultural Center, in November 2005. Originally the circulation room for the Chicago Public Library, the hall’s walls and ceiling bear the names of great (primarily Western) writers on its decorated arches, alongside inscriptions in ten languages extolling the wisdom found in books. The process of contemplating the loss and failure of words was at the heart of this project. It included large format photographs that I made of polyurethane cast heads (by Matthew Owens), video projection, live music and two men searching for safety in the form of a safety pin on orange mason line strung across the installation space. Heads or Tails incorporated images and text from a found diary and log discovered in a used bookstore in Estonia.

Steven Thompson and Douglas Grew were invaluable collaborators and performers in developing this work as well as the ten-year old Alex Schorsch, who has since grown older.

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Desvios III:
RELATIONAL SPACES: THE NEW EXPANDED FIELD FOR ART AND THOUGHT

Torres Vedras, Portugal

DESVIOS / DETOURS III is the third edition of the international encounters hosted by Transforma in Torres Vedras since 2004 and curated by Gabriela Vaz-Pinheiro. They’re part of TRANSFORMA_B, Arts, Creativity and the City (www.transforma-b.blogspot.com)

http://desvios-transformaac.blogspot.com/2007/10/dolores-wilber-us-artist-and-performer.html

The current concern with extending the debate on site and identity has proved to be supported by something that could be called relational practices. Many artists investigate processes of interchange (based or not on commercial interchange) as an end to their artistic production, more than they invest solely in an object-oriented practice. Conversations and, in general, any kind of social currency are considered to be relevant artistic methodologies, as well as engaging others in the artistic experience. A debate on this territory, attempting, on the one hand, to unveil the pitfalls of excessive well-doing expectations put on socially engaging art practices and, on the other hand, the scope of the so called “relational aesthetics” and its importance for artists today are the subjects of this conference.
October 2007