Fluxlist: 2010-01-31

Saturday, February 06, 2010

Friday, February 05, 2010

CHIROT: ART ET VIE BRUTE--RAW LIFE AND ART --Adventures of My Works and Me in Our Travels

L'ART ET LA VIE BRUTE--RAW ART & LIFE

R
WAR
W

CHIROT: ART ET VIE BRUT--RAW LIFE AND ART --Adventures of My Works and Me in Our Travels--

President Obama rebrands Bush's Invasion of Afghanistan--neglected by Bush for the "Wrong War" in Iraq-- as the "Right War"
The Right War--unites The Unholy Trinity--The War on Poverty, the War on Drugs and the War on Terror--all never ending, all impossible Wars--and al three of them joined in the flight from a child soldier guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan to a young kid junkie on the street corners in Milwaukee--
War--Poverty-Drugs-Terrorism (FEAR)--as the USA relentlessly annihilates one of the poorest people and places in the world--it is "building" a new world of super high octane heroin addicted kids living a life if not all of them "in" poverty,certainly "of poverty"--of existence--in a land where the Drums of War relentlessly beat the messages of Fear, Retribution and the Divine Mi$$ion of U$ America--

(Note: these sudden outbursts, detours down memory lane-- were triggered by a discussion on the Spidertangle list as to which places housed collections of Visual Poetry—so I was trying to envision sending my works to a collector or collection—in terms of what has happened to me and my works up until just the last couple years----and immediately these and other stories sprang to mind from out of the camouflaged hiding places of memory hidden in plain site/sight/cite—since they are off the cuff remarks, don’t mind the off beat unruly writing with al its broken rules of punctuation, capitalizations, grammar, etc--)

CHIROT: ART ET VIE BRUT--RAW LIFE AND ART --Adventures of My Works and Me in Our Travels--

"God's Lonely Man"--from the Diaries of Travis Bickle--(played by Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver)
--which were based on the Diaries of Arthur Bremer, which were buried in a Lakefront Park in Milwaukee, where Bremer lived off and on while he first tracked, stalked and planned to assassinate President Nixon--and, finding him too closely guarded, switched his sights to the person of Governor George Wallace, also (1972) running for President--finally shooting Wallace, who was paralyzed the rest of his life,while Bremer was until two years ago in a prison outside of Milwaukee--

This discussion made me wonder where a lot of my works are! Over the years i usually sent one copy if i had one extra to my mother for safe keeping as i never knew where i might be for stretches of time. Speaking of stretches of time one summer when my oldest son was in prison I sent him tons of things, almost everyday, for entertainment purposes and in case he wanted "mementos of my father." He decorated his cell with the single pages and was soon a high demand for them so he got permission from me to make copies for the other inmates to start papering their walls with. Soon a whole row of cells was sprouting all sorts of daily madness from here. I wish there were some fotos! My son tried to take some but wasn't allowed, for the sake of the privacy of inmates or something like that--Kind of ironic in a way, when you think your mug shot can be had any time off the net! But then i remember at the probation/parole offices i went to, with its bullet proof windows at the sign in desk and metal detectors at the entrance to the POs' section--there was a sign saying: "Be considerate of others. Remove all headgear and hats on entry."
When i think of it--my PO had a good 18 months worth of my work in his office!
Fortunately for me, he had a sister who was an artist, so he promoted art as a good thing to do for "living the straight life."
The first time he was coming over for a home visit--i didn't yet know him very well-- i was worried what he might make of al the Mail Art/Visual Poetry show posters, my own works and such on the walls, let alone al the junk i use for "materials." There was also a huge life size blowup of the poster to the film Taxi Driver a friend made for me, with in large letters "I'm God's Lonely Man . . .” on it. It was too huge to take down so i tried shoving some junk in front of it. But to no avail. Travis (Robert de Niro) just wouldn't disappear!
When Officer X came in, though, the first thing he said was "Taxi Driver!!! My favorite film! And who did al this stuff--you? It's great!"
It just goes to show, never underestimate anyone's range of tastes!

--i have tons of such stories--one exhibition of my works was "commissioned" so to speak-- commandeered wd be more like it--by one of the honchos for the Safe Haven outfit, a big operation which used to own where i still live, though now a different owner—Safe Haven run a series of "recovery/transitional living" homes for al kinds of people in over a dozen places in Chicago, three in Indianapolis—and, as note, formerly here--

The Honcho bore an amazing resemblance to Duke Ellington, down to the large brimmed white hat, crisp white suit, and big tie--he was crazy about my ruBEings and spray paint pieces-and wanted to find ways to exhibit them.
There was a huge first annual Banquet in Chicago coming up, with over 500 people attending, a presentation via video from a Chicago Representative to Congress, a great jazz band and tons of food and dancing—and Duke Ellington very generously invited me to bring some works down and have them displayed during this August Event.
So--at the entrance on cork boards and laid out on those long tables used in kids school lunch rooms—were a whole bunch of works and little folding books i made for the occasion
the idea was “to look at what addicts can do when they get off dope!! Hoo--ray! Get yr mind together get yr mind off dope and on to art!! woo-woo-woo! That kind of thing—
(“This is a revolution of the mind—get yourself together—get off dope—this is a revolution of the mind” runs through my head remembering all this, from the great ending to James Brown’s fantastic, extremely eerie version of the song “King Heroin.”
Duke Ellington gave a short talk about me and that was it--on to the jazz and the main thing the huge Chicago style (they kept reminding us this was all "Chicago style"--to rub it in that Milwaukee is not remotely in the same class as the "Windbag"--er Windy City-) plates heaped with al kinds of heavy duty beef and chicken dishes--
actually, my work let myself and a friend in for free--so we got a free meal and heard some good jazz thanks to the "works straight from the streets"--as the Man called the pieces on display--
you never know what doors will open for you in this racket, eh! And “straight from the streets,” at that, too!--

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Globe Life & Buster (visual poems)

Fluxus portrait from Franticham

Nam June Paiks Fractal Turtleship in Seoul

An installation using 348 objects including television monitors, phonographs, radios, polaroid cameras, electric toasters, fish, stuffed turtles as well as broken automobile and piano parts.
Nam June Paik did this work as homage to the Korean admiral Yi Sun-Sin who used a ship in the form of a turtle in successful combats against the Japanese naval forces in the 15th century.