Ree Morton (Drawing Center)and Laura Owens(Gavin Brown)

Exhibitions of both artists happening now. Refreshing. Light. Perfectly unperfect and perfectly unfinished. The beauty of the sketch. The beauty of the love shown without Grand appearances or shimmering finery.

“There are two things that have no limit, femininity and the means of taking advantage of it.” –La Femme Nikita

If one is not born a woman, but must learn…then let the learning begin!
MISSION: TO LOCATE, INVESTIGATE AND EXPLOITATE THE POWERS OF FEMININITY.

The Exterior: Hostess with the Mostess
Fashion is the most refined and powerful of all female costuming. Fashion protects and elevates its’ wearers through the projection of wealth, culture and up-to-date cosmopolitan in-the-know-how. Fashion is a way to gain attention when feeling invisible, beauty when feeling ugly, interest when feeling dull and perfection when inside is a cacophony of flaw. In the country, in the city, on the street, in the bedroom, fashion is helpful armor and should be accordingly employed.
Film is a useful tool for observing the constructed self-possession of women. The elements of performance and costume can be readily seen when the context of viewer and viewed is clearly defined and everyone acknowledges the farce.
Performance of other kinds, particularly live music, is another arena to allowably observe women in expertly crafted feminine exterior. Though through these facades something seeable pulsates underneath, forcing one to reckon with…
The Interior: Taming of the Shrew
Why do women need to be so thorough in artfully protecting what lies inside? Is the interior world of a woman so fragile, so bloated with potentially paralyzing emotion that it needs such careful guarding? Vulnerability, desire, innocence, prejudice, ignorance, naivety, distrust, trust, envy, misunderstanding, despair, hope, helplessness, anger, weakness, sadness, etc all lie below the surface waiting for the rank opportunity to compromise rational agendas. A loss of control is something to fear, yet if this potentially harmful beast is harnessed then perhaps it can be directed in strange and beautiful ways.
The Ex/Intermingling: ‘till Death Do We Part
The areas where interior and exterior are separate entities and where and why and how they overlap and entangle are crucial to locate because they, I hypothesize, are where the magical secret of femininity lies; an elixir of vulnerability and power. By investigating women I admire of grand age I hope to gain insight into how through experiences of pain and pleasure they have with years of self-taught, original artistry continued to command and hone their feminine powers.
The talons of my investigation will be as far reaching or caressingly near as my intuition demands. I will see films, read books, visit theater and dance, go to concerts, conduct interviews, attend lectures, and watch YouTube. An abbreviated list of recent areas of research: Agnes Varda; Beaches of Agnes, Jeanne Moreau; La Notte, my grandmother, Collette, Anais Nin, La Roux, Madonna, Karen O, La Femme Nikita, Judith Thurman; Cleopatra’s Nose, Ulrike Ottinger; Ticket to Nowhere, Bimbos, Bitches and Ballbreakers; Guerilla Girls, Daises; Vera Chytilova, He, She, We; Robert A Johnson, Twyla Tharpe, Le Bonheur, 8 Women, September Issue, Vogue, …to be continuing.

coming soon! Ulrike Ottinger

Ticket of No Return.

So, I had an idea for my thesis today. I went to the gym to take a spinning class and a petite old woman, with her grey hair in a bun on the very top of her head, looking Louise Bourgious-esque, started rockin' out on her bike. Her moves were good! They reminded me of thick-hipped black woman dancing to throbbing, pumping beats, but in her case there was more bony shoulder thrusting and hands-in-the-air action. She definitely had her own eccentric style with it's own jabs and quirks, considering her petite and time-experienced frame. But she peaked my interest....I wanted to know..what? her life story? Her secrets for survival? Her methods of serenity? How has she survived and lived not to tell about it, but to clap her hands to the beat on a bike in a spinning class in Manhattan?

Yes, this fits right into reality TV and all that voyeuristic curiosity...but I feel there is depth to my interest. Self-interest to be sure, as I am an aging Rock Star, but the gap between generations is enormous in our society and I think any step towards a thinning of that age gap is worthwhile and could be enlightening.

I am interested in the facade. In the female facade and its' decoration and embellishment and the obvious superficial power that comes with physical beauty. But I am as well interested in the silent stealth that exists under that beautiful and fragile frame....like the old woman groovin' on the bike today. I wanted to interview her....but can I come up with questions that penetrate as deep as I want to go? That say more than words?

Agnes Varda: THE BEACHES OF AGNES

This movie was of interest to me because she, Agnes, is a she, because she is Belgian (my favorite filmmaker is Chantal Ackerman - also Belgian), because she is part of the New Wave Movement, aka: Exclusive Male French Film Club, was born a Gemini (just like ME!), has a haircut like my 7th grade science teacher (unfortunately kids called her penis names)…. and other purely objective reasons.

Then I saw it:
It moved in that New Wavey way, burps and bleeps, jerky. Not a smooth ride and it keeps you on your toes, especially with the added distraction of subtitle reading. It climbs to stimulation overload because she throws heavily loaded sand bags of her past 80 years at you with the speed and agility of launched spit wads.

The film is a visual scrapbook. She has the lightness of a child and the world-weary wisdom of age and the combination of the two is profound. This is what we all strive for; to keep the playful and creative spirit intact without shying away from the treachery of life. She displays genuine sadness for all her many friends dying, she pokes fun at herself, she offers some painful personal sips and she doesn’t sum it all up with a happy ending but instead reveals herself though the best and worst of it all as a true life-liver/lover.