It is a leaf, falling, more red than remembered and shaped by these stories of celebrities and failed politicians, spiraling slowly this turning, an axis tilted and gravity pulls these bodies into elliptical paths, at least we used to think so, back when science still claimed to be progress. now we are forced to reconsider as, how are bodies in motion aware of one another and why does light redshift or bend, this gravitational pull of celestial bodies can now be measured by circulation numbers and box-office draw. he brought his own red carpet with him, miles and miles of it, and precise measurements were taken for the dressmaker, what we used to think of as glamour has been replaced by fame and both have become cheap and tawdry. not that any of this is a new idea, he says, waving his cigarette around for effect and dropping ash on the floor, we drink a blush wine, a sweet rosé and he tells us about the man he met in Cancún, don’t tell your grandmother she has no idea. I’m left trying to piece together a unifying theory of the universe from satin scraps and red lipstick, unable to explain how the flow of energy and momentum can affect the curvature of spacetime.
(…)
This is true and the opposite is also true, a moment frozen, a hero also frozen, and the screen splits, jaggedness and a ragged edge, a jade girl now jaded. the only solution is to leave it behind, unwilling to believe the lesson that while it is possible love will prevail, it may require brain damage, but if it is true that the fractured body has no agency, is it also true that a body with no agency is fractured? a breakthrough of sorts, through the rain and a break in the rain, no pain, he says pornography is two people in a romantic relationship on film, thinking pink, waiting for red.

[this interlude is for having sex]

I am not the fan of complicated words that other writers are, fire and water, bricks, an ocean view, as I dreamed strange dreams of my sister, time travel, an aqueduct, a mansion out of time. she says it’s because Mercury is in retrograde, these feelings of inferiority too complex to sort, water hitting the window pane, wind breaking through the treetops, I don’t know how this process works, or if the process works, or even if working is the point. still it rains.

Image by Maxime Ballesteros
Text by Loretta Clodfelter

I read a book with a character almost exactly like you and confused her with you originally, and later especially. I glossed little differences— the way you crack ice with your heel isn’t how she would have waited for my arm, shivered. I was confused: I woke with one of you and dreamed the other, and I’m still not sure who I reached for. I hid the book when you came over. It had a pink cover and dark silhouette half turned toward me or some browser, like you had a bad thought in your head to shake out.
Only now you’re gone I try to peal you separate, remember you real. Like, it would have been you, not her who could steal half my drink without my seeing, you talking the whole while, your wide eyes open. And it would have been her who told me about the kids back then, how cruel they were, and she would have shouted and hollered me down when I stormed out on Sunday, and you would have been who I found when I ducked into the nearest bar, looking for someone alone, and she would have warned me about you.

Extrait 3 L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot
envoyé par toutlecine. – Les dernières bandes annonces en ligne.

words © John Cotter
image © Henri-Georges Clouzot

- I’m glad you’re not perfect.
- Your compliments aren’t really compliments.
- Sorry.
- Did you think I was?
- Sometimes you seem to be.
- I don’t think you know me very well.
- I don’t?
- I don’t think anyone does.
- Do you know me?

(click here for sound)

above: Etienne Chambaud
Stock Figures, Figures de Réserve, Figure di riserva (studio view)
Color photograph, tracing paper and tape
70 x 95 cm, 2010
Courtesy Labor, Mexico City

THE SIRENS’ STAGE / LE STADE DES SIRENES / LO STATO DELLE SIRENE
An exhibition in three parts by Etienne Chambaud in collaboration with critic Vincent Normand.

The David Roberts Art Foundation in London, Kadist Art Foundation in Paris and Nomas Foundation in Rome are pleased to present The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene, a fragmented exhibition by Etienne Chambaud in the framework of Vincent Normand’s project Permanent Exhibition, Temporary Collections. The three translations of the exhibition, interpreted in a different language almost simultaneously at each foundation, are based on mechanisms of writing and transcription. Translation should be considered both the medium and the shared language of the whole project.

The project takes its title from the mythological sirens’ song, which invents itself in the ear of its addressee. Here The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene is conceived as a group of “written objects”: absent but described, motionless but translated, unique but repeated, mute but transcribed.

The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene is made up of an installation of Figures, a group of named, empty plinths (The Reef), which acts as a space from which are emitted layers of speech and text. Actors will occasionally interact with this space, reading, memorising and rehearsing fragments of script and dialogue. Sometimes The Reef will remain silent. A group of framed Instruction Pieces hung on the wall will outline a series of gestures and acts. These will change over the course of the exhibition. A writer (The Copyist), present at all times, will transcribe the evolution of the exhibition day after day. The foundations’ collections will be included through a series of photographs of their storages, in which all crates will be named (Stock Figures). A written contract, drawn up by a lawyer, will outline the conditions for the exchange and the conservation of copies of sculptures exchanged between the three foundations’ collections (The Exchange (The Horse, the Cobblestone, Above the Weather)).

The exhibition is a collection of narrative fragments, playing with accumulations and disappearances, survivals and hauntings. From inscription to oral tradition, polyphony to cacophony, The Sirens’ Stage/Le Stade des Sirènes/Lo stato delle sirene explores its own remains and is constructed on its own echoes, misunderstandings, partial interpretations and incomplete memories. The exhibition is conceived as a series of fossils organising their own archeology.

Opening receptions, exhibition dates and more information:

David Roberts Art Foundation, London:
opening on 18.03.2010 from 7pm / 19.03.2010 – 24.04.2010
http://www.davidrobertsartfoundation.com

Kadist Art Foundation, Paris:
opening on 02.04.2010 / 03.04.2010 – 02.05.2010
http://www.kadist.org

Nomas Foundation, Rome:
opening on 15.04.2010 / 16.04.2010 – 14.05.2010
http://www.nomasfoundation.com

On Parables.
Many complain that the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: “Go over,” he does not mean that we should cross over to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labour were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something too that he cannot designate more precisely, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.

Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid yourself of all your daily cares.

Another said: I bet that is also a parable.

The first said: You have won.

The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.

The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

Photography by Darren Almond

Dancing on the Ceiling: Art & Zero Gravity, is a major group exhibition in which contemporary artists explore—and on occasion recreate—the condition of weightlessness on earth. The exhibition will present the work of multiple national and international artists, including three newly commissioned pieces for the exhibition. Distributed throughout the public spaces in the building the exhibition is itself un-tethered from the confines of the traditional gallery exhibition paradigm.

Arts Catalyst • Benjamin Bergmann • Denis Darzacq • Edith Dekyndt • Chris Doyle • William Forsythe • Julia Fullerton-Batten • Thom Kubli • Tomás Saraceno • Jane & Louise Wilson • Xu Zhen

Dancing on the Ceiling will bring together artworks that use the metaphor of floating or weightlessness as an expression of the relationship of the individual to social, political or personal contexts. In addition, several of the pieces relate to lightness as akin to an agility of mind, freed of entrenched perspectives.

Curated by Kathleen Forde, Curator of Time-Based Arts, the exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalog including essays by Italo Calvino as well as interviews with commissioned artists Chris Doyle and Thom Kubli.

The exhibition is also contextualized by a series of related performances, talks, films, and events; see the schedule for complete information.

Robert Longo, “Men in the Cities”, 1980s

NB: Don’t miss Aaron Schuster’s essay on levitation, love, and space sex in SB5!

In Between Out & Black Mirror was & will be a set of two exhibitions taking place in the basement of Theatre Arsenic in Lausanne (Switzerland), curated by Marco Costantini, the book is designed and conceived by Maxime Büchi & Florence Tétier.

IN BETWEEN OUT (past)
from October 28th to November 28th, 2009

with:

Jean-Luc Manz
Luc Mattenberger
Sébastien Mettraux
Annaïk Lou Pitteloud
Ana Roldan
Steve Van den Bosch

BLACK MIRROR (upcoming!)
from March 2nd to April 18th, 2010

OPENING ON MARCH 2ND at 6pm, followed by A CONCERT BY JEAN-LUC VERNA at 9pm !

with:

Emmanuelle Antille
Davide Balula
Jérémy Chevalier
Olivier Dollinger
Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard
Elise Gagnebin-de Bons
Enrik Plenge Jakobsen
Vincent Kohler
Elodie Lesourd
Théo Mercier
Olivier Millagou
Sandrine Pelletier
Germinal Roaux
Steven Shearer
Erik Smith
Jean-Luc Verna

BOOK SOON AVAILABLE HERE