Untitled(Watermelons)

apex art, NY

Proposal Title: Untitled(Watermelons)

Submission:

“ Because of its restless, unfixed boundaries, its multiplicities, and the state of “permanent transition” within which it is practiced and communicated, contemporary art tends to be much more resistant to global totalization. ” Okwui Enwezor

"All love affairs happen in foreign cities. “ Jalal Toufic

On the extreme South West of fortress Europe there is a city where watermelons fall instead of bombs. The city is known also for its windy, cosmopolitan nature that welcomes the visitors. The Atlantic Ocean connects it with the Cape Verd Islands in West Africa, with Rio de Janeiro, Brasil and with NYC, through infinite migrations. Unlike in the early 20th century, when the passangers used to travel by boat, the metamorphosis now occurs in the air, the most transitional of all zones.

In this largerly mixed city once existed an art space called Societé Anonyme(after Duchamp's organization of course) , where artists from different continents and time zones gathered to discuss and show their work. The scope of the space was wide-angle, transnational, postcolonial... global. It functioned as a kind of a platform that enabled future collaborations on different scales worldwide.

During the WW2 the city represented a refuge for the artists, intelectuals and homosexuals running from nazi Germany before departing to NYC. There is a photographer- sharp, unfocused and feminine, who reminds me of this city, totally unaware of its chaotic nature.

Watermelons are the connecting element between the artworks in this exhibition, while the general framework is provided by the artists' connection to the unknown metropola, rather invisible on the artworld's map. The red fruit with black seeds and green skin is linked to the free-floating desire in Tsai Ming-Liang's The Wayward Cloud; it takes the form of something far more flamboyant in DJ/Rupture's weekly radio show Mudd Up! that will be transmitted live in the gallery; and becomes unpredictable when the photographer Masha Tsvar gets a carte blanche to produce a new work.

The exhibition's title Untitled(Watermelons) refers to a tendency in contemporary art to mask the title of an artwork in order to keep its aura untouched and can be understood in this case as an attempt at or a follower of the institutional critique, this time placed in a tropical environment. What we disguise here is the meaning of watermelons for the artworld in general and the audience in particular. While the time for a new upheaval, following the sequence of liberation movements of the 20th century, has arrived not only for the Arab world(to fight its autocratic regimes) , but on global level.

Projects(Franchise)

In the midst of a black market, a town in town, a buissness spot with unlimited traffic, where micro economy based on exchange of all kind of goods except artworks, is performed daily by immigrants from India, Pakistan, China and Guiné Bissau. Thieves? Merchants? Speculators?
In the centre of Lisbon a small narrow street, where the red letters on ringbells are exclusively in chinese. Some of the apartments, however difficult to say which, host illegal chinese restaurants that differ little from common homes in order to hide their activity. The owners/cooks don't speak neither portuguese nor english and the clients choose from untranslated menus.
Located on the frontier with moorish and red light district, the zone is also known for delicious indian sweets of many colours.
To link this all and to check how global Lisbon art scene is, I propose a project called 'Franchise', set in an apartment rented on purpose on the same small street and showcasing ten international and local artists, with some projects specially commissioned for this show.
Irwin group opens a passport office. Sisley Xhafa does an exclusive performance on the notion of 'clandestino'. Sancho Silva stages a new project contaminating public space. While Dj/ Rupture streams radioshow live. Mio Stoj shares a video shot in a club 'Robert Johnson'. Emily Jouvet pays a spicy hommage to photography from a Paris' rooftop. And Piglet&Butcherboy take on Tate Modern...
Note: an immigrant will be contracted to staff during the show.

Gold Teeth Thief

new bass and beats plus live guests(musicians, Djs, poets) and an ear for the global south. Cumbia. Dubstep. Gangsta synthetics. Sound-art. Maghrebi. International exclusives.

Two nights left. Two nights before going to New York where the breakbeat producer dj/rupture runs the weekly radio show Mudd Up! inbetween his frequent tours around the globe.
While I'm writing this article in my Lisbon apartment, I can hear the boat calling the passengers aboard, a trumpet-like sound, that probably hasn't changed for one century, arriving through my varandah as I live relatively close to the docks.
Rupture has a background in jazz, free and improvised music, and after living in UK and US spent some post 9/11 years in Barcelona where he was diggin' in maghrebi sounds, to return later back to brooklyn with fresh mix of transnational tunes.
Jace Clayton, that's his ID name, is also in front of the Soot records, 'a strike against geography' , established in 1999 and showcasing the artists such as Maga Bo from Rio who records street sounds world wide for documentaries and does collaborations with some of the greatest african musicians; a pirate percussionist Filastine, arab flavoured and politically loaded; or cumbia chefe Sonido Martinez, to add latino rhytms to the plates.
In 2001 he formed together with Matt Shadetek a label called Dutty Artz, a tropical multimedia storm... a monsoon.
His articles on music appear in Frieze magazine(surrounded by contemporary art), NY Times and recently in Abu Dhabi's leading newspaper. They're not simple journalist revues, but rather complex essays on sound, economy and power relations.
For shorter, though no less articulate opinions check the entries at his blogue Mudd Up! , which is dirt, lit and sound according to him. Where the watermelons fall instead of bombs, to be more precise...
The radio show that Rupture continously presents for over a year now at NY independent volunteer-run radio station WMFU broadcasted live and available also as a podcast is exactly what it says- a great mixture of unexpected bass beats(to include freshly squeezed bassline and grime), new heat coming from London(dubstep, strings and beats), live guests from his record labels, music bloggers and internationally acclaimed producers, and an ear for global south( 'too happy' socca rhytms, cumbia, etc. from America Latina to West Africa). Not to forget the gangsta rap from the East to the West coast, occasional sound-art pieces to frieze your mind and touch the neuralgic points, maghrebi classics, recent pop and hip-hop by local tongues, and 'international exclusives' like the virtuose Kora player (an african instrument of thousand and one strings) from Mali Toumani Diabaté or 'crying' Rebekah del Rio, straight from Mulholland Drive.
The shifts between the tracks are almost imperceptible, the use of headphones or the latest amplificador highly recommended, it can multiply the pleasure of listening, as all those noisy unadapting beats migrate in a perfect flow. A sonic experience to be repeated, played over and over again.
Hold me close for now I let you go/ llorando por tu amor/ you make me hot I make you hot/ yo te quiero mas mucho mas que ayer/ can't you see I'm all loose and strings I can't get no/ e no fim da noite pode pagar um café e vamos dançar o 'tchaka-tchaka' até o dia amanhecer/ we should shine a light on light on night on.
During the 2nd World War, Lisbon was known to be a refuge, an exile for artists, intelectuals and others running from Nazi Germany, before departing for New York. Traversing the Atlantic by boat which took one month.
The flux of people between the two cities is still very present, however now the transformation happens in the air, high above the ocean, in most transitional of all zones that, according to 'satanic' Salman Rushdie(yet another NY resident), apt in verses, was made possible by the 20th century and in turn made that century possible.
Two nights left. One night and a night.
A celestial spirit, a living sun
was what I saw...