After some delay, what says the public? It’s Joe’s time! So now, at long last, the smooth transition of a backwards flow towards normalcy softens the bite of an increasing viral death toll, trimming the long nails of Trumpism…for now. But in the meantime, what can art do for US? Either draw a line in […]
Tag Archives: Irena Haiduk
Hey you, yes you, in your BBQ/BEER/FREEDOM shirt, with your mask under your mouth, screaming at the world from my Twitter feed, I have created you to object to whatever is happening here at an unfinished exhibition. If everything turns out well (Hope is the Rarest Bird). Still if everything does turn out well, if […]
While waiting at the Dubai International Airport after three whirlwind days at the opening of Sharjah Biennial 14 (hereafter SB14), I found myself idly looking back over my Instagram posts from the exhibition. Even though I had taken hundreds of photographs, videos and audio recordings of my experience at the exhibition, I had only shared […]
In our current state of governmental chaos, I hark back to a surprisingly overlooked statement by President Trump’s White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. After completing his medical assessment of Trump, Jackson stated, and I paraphrase, that Trump was highly unusual in that each day he begins anew, unfettered by memory or attention to consequences […]
A large black and silver volume caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open. A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence — the book was screaming! Harry snapped it shut, but the shriek went on and on, one high, […]
The Trojans would have kept standing, fascinated By all on display, except that just then Achates, Who’d been sent on ahead, came back accompanied By the Sibyl, Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus, priestess Of Diana and Phoebus. Who addressed the prince: “This is no time to be standing staring here. It would be better now to […]
Spinal Discipline is the name of Irena Haiduk’s performance at documenta 14 in which thirteen members of the “Army of Beautiful Women” walk while balancing the surrogate Proust book Seductive Exacting Realism on their heads. This use of a book as a tool for correct posture and grace is accompanied by other seemingly superficial features […]
If you open the book, which you saw in yesterday’s post (and you can see here if you missed it) balancing on people’s head in Athens (in a photograph and as a performance), as part of a darkened installation in Kassel (along with its 12 sisters), and which I held in my hand in the […]
Homer’s Margites, which is deplorably lost, bore, says Aristotle, the same analogy to comedy, as his Odyssey and Iliad to tragedy. The gods had taught him neither to dig nor to plough, nor any other skill; he failed in every craft – Aristotle, Nic. Eth. vi. 7, 1141:
I think we’ll win ourselves a name among the Greeks as those who brought an end to warfare. – Lysistrata in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata Previously on Three Athenians in Kassel: After Alexis was kidnapped and nearly eaten and Nina was attacked and had her head shaved, our three Athenians went in search of answers. They visited […]