Review of 'This Progress' by Tino Seghal

The fine art of conversation

'This Progress' by Tino Sehgal was on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York from January 29th until March 10th, 2010. My friend and I enjoyed this pleasant, interactive art piece. It filled the entire Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda. As we walked up four floors, four strangers treated us to a delightful conversation about 'progress'.

On the second floor, a young child greeted us and asked for a definition of progress. After I scrambled to provide him with a simple answer: 'when things get better', he stumped me by asking for an example. My friend Emily could think on the spot faster and suggested evolution. While walking, our new friend asked us questions about what we meant.

On the third floor, a teenager who questioned the notion of progress itself appeared, and our younger child left. Our new conversationalist invited us to examine why 'things must get better'. He asked us to consider other forms of progress and to provide examples from our personal lives. He shared a few of his own, including his memorable frustration with the way new technology only sped up the amount of time we wasted.

Once on the fourth floor, he left and a charismatic woman replaced him as our walking companion. She was closer to our age, and advocated using anger to achieve our goals because it was 'more efficient and direct'. I enjoyed her analogy to the two sides of this argument. She asked me if I was "more like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X? You seem like you're more Martin Luther. You probably wouldn't hurt a fly." When I replied that I was more like Martin Luther King, she pointed out that he was dead.

On the fifth floor, soon after our young woman disappeared, we met a senior gentleman. As we strolled a bit slower up the rotunda, he asked us about the weather. Once at the top, he wished us both a nice day and hoped we enjoyed the conversation.

Sehgal's work began with a scripted introduction, and continued with the personal experiences of the people who engaged us in conversation. In interviews, Sehgal described his work as 'constructed situations' and abhorred any comparison to performance art. Instead, he insisted that he challenged the authority of the museum as a 'temple of objects' by substituting art objects with live people.

Perhaps more intriguing was Sehgal's refusal to document his work. Aside from the visitors, who were not allowed to take pictures, he insisted that the museum could not create exhibition catalogues. Moreover, the contract to purchase his work (which fell in the six figure category) was oral. If the purchases failed to meet his strict provisions the work became a 'fake'.

Although Sehgal did not intend his work to be humourous, I found it immensely amusing. I have never enjoyed myself so much in a museum. Nor have I ever had a conversation with a work of art that answered me back.

Caribana

ribbons in process 2009-2011

Poetry - Revised in red more than words

je t’aime
plus que les mots
je t’aime
plus que le soupire
more than breathing in or out


i loved you more than words
which scares me
because i love words so much


more than sighs
more than breaths held still
more than heartbeats


i loved you more
than the breath you take
now I sigh dejectedly
whenever I think of you

the gasps i give
now follow gossip
or disparaging remarks

the yawns i smiled at
have become quite tiring

i loved you more than
the steady beat of your heart
even when i lie my head against your chest
the rise and fall of your stomach
no longer give me the quiver of hairs along my neck


i love you
so much less now
it almost feels like
i never loved you at all

that sometimes i rather than 
forgetting to breathe
out
or in
I push out my breath
just as quickly
as I would
push you
away

je t'aime plus que  prefer les mots
whatever words i use
don't fail me even come close
to describing
just how i feel

Poetry - If I close my eyes

If I close my eyes

And hold my breath

I can pretend

That your hand is still holding my cheek

Or that your arm is there

Lying gently against my back

Or that your eyes are still looking into mine

But it’s only if

I close my eyes

I find that I lose track of time

Because I’m not asleep

But I am dreaming

Of how it was

And how quickly it is not

And I toy with the idea

Beneath closed eyelids

That I can still see all the things

I want

I can actually lose myself

Usually triggered by something

That reminds me of before

I can fall back to moments

When my eyes are also not open

I can feel the softness of your breath

As your lips touch mine

And how I smile

As you nibble at my lips

Or pull my face closer to yours

But then I have to open my eyes

And notice

That you’re gone

C.R.A.Z.Y. for Christmas

                Though not your typical holiday movie, I did find myself watching C.R.A.Z.Y. by Jean-Marc Valée for Christmas. The only festive link I can find is that the film’s star, Zachary, celebrates his birthday on Christmas day. The film’s title is an acronym for the names of five sons: Christian, Raymond, Antoine, Zachary and Ivan. It is also their father’s favourite Patsy Kline song.

C.R.A.Z.Y. is one of my favourite coming out/coming of age films. The subtlety with which Valée narrates desire and anguish is what makes it so watchable. Even if English subtitles would make the witty Quebecois dialogue easier to follow, you can still lose yourself completely in a visually arresting world of unspoken secrets and shame.

Zachary’s parents are devoutly Catholic, so he does not quite fit in with his heterosexual siblings. After another man emerges from a parked car with Zachary, his father sends him to be ‘cured’ by a psychiatrist. Shortly after this bizarre intervention, Zachary appears to fit his father’s expectations with a new girlfriend. Appearances, however, have a way of unravelling themselves.

At Christian’s wedding, a guest describes his view of Zachary in another parked car. Though Zachary had only been sharing a cigarette with his cousin’s boyfriend, his brother Raymond physically attacks the guest. This altercation acts as a catalyst for Zachary to come out to his father and escape on a journey to find himself.

When Raymond is committed to hospital for a drug overdose, Zachary senses the need to return home. Although he is initially met by one of the most crushing rejections for being gay, the death of his brother Raymond, and the lyrics to Crazy by Patsy Kline help his father reconsider the relationships he has with his four remaining sons. C.R.A.Z.Y. captures the love between a father and his son, and is enjoyable to watch, even on Christmas day.

Intoxicating Introduction

After reading the catalogue for the exhibition From Sea to Shining Sea, curated by A. A. Bronson, I felt inspired to create this space.

". . . Intoxication must first have heightened the sensibility of the whole machine before it can come to any art. And all kinds of special varieties of intoxication have the power to work in this way:  above all, that of sexual excitement, which is the first and oldest form of intoxication. And then, too, the intoxication that comes with any great desire, any great emotion: the intoxication of the festival, of a combat, bravado, victory or of any extreme movement: the intoxication of ferocity; the intoxication of destruction; intoxication under various sorts of meterological influence, that of spring, for example; or under the influence of narcotics; or finally the intoxication sheerly of the will, of an overcharged, inflated will. The essential thing in all intoxication is the feeling of heightened power and a fulness [sic]. With this feeling one addresses oneself to things, compels them to receive what one has to give, one overpowers them; and this procedure is called idealization. But let us, right here, get rid of a preposession: idealization does not as is generally thought, consist in leaving out, a subtraction of the insignifcant, the incidental. What is decisive, rather, is a tremendous exaggeration of the main features, before which those others disappear. In this condition, one enriches everything out of one's own abundance: whatever one sees or desires, one sees swelling, bursting, mighty, overladen with power. The individual in this condition changes things until they are mirrors of his own energy - reflections of his own perfection. And this compulsion to change things to perfection - is art." (emphasis added)

-Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idol 1888 (cited in From Sea to Shining Sea, A. A. Bronson, p.164)