This is not a review. And it will probably remain incomprehensible if you don’t at least read what the Wooster Group show is about. So you might want to start off with a positive review and/or a negative one.
(And, possibly, move to an insight into how they prepared it. And an insightful interview about the group. And an interview with Kate Valk.)

I had been waiting to see this for a long time. This is the group I always talk about during workshops and I have never seen act live. This particular show, well, could be an experimentum crucis of my (wavering) faith in theater as a live form of live art. I leave you with my transcribed raw notes from the show, and below, a couple of ideas.

Theater as reproduction
- of what?
of our reality
=> cinema (is our reality)

other way: reality reproduces art
body is our basic reality

body as choreography

BUT it’s first and foremost a SHOW

spaces of absence

The dance of the impotent body

to perform = to enact

puppets

retro

conventionality of movement

performance as video art or rather as
echo of image
=> afterimage

–

The action lies between the acts

–

Playing on the players like on instruments
The players accompany a great
video
Is that bad?

“They killed theater” (audience member, calmly)
(So many deaths of theater before)
Good Heavens,
if that be so,
if this is the thing,
I humbly thank you.

Musical work – when works.

Women have more problems with show formula- because of
more emotional roles?

2nd part much better – uses the new convention.
(but also ends up more conventional)
Hamlet – actor – manipulates the actors – logical gesture.
Strong
–
search for an
aesthetic experience
(e.g. songs)
showSHOWshowSPECTACLE

5 technicians operating video/sound/lights
–
Brilliant technical solutions – eg. moving screen in loop CCTV.

Warping time/space

But then it becomes simply multimedia entertainment.

+ + +

A man crosses the stage, says Peter Brook, and you have theater.
Pathos. That’s what you get when a man crosses the stage. Anthropocentrism. The idea that it’s all about us, really. The sin of vanity in all its splendor.

Who are we, really (on stage)?
How do we conduct our paths (on stage)?
What can we see if we introduce breaks into the surface of our behavior (on stage)?

The body becomes heavy.
It becomes an accessory. An object more than a tool. An instrument that cannot be played in a clean way is more of itself. It is less melody, and more instrument.
This body that struggles to fit into the image that will always outsmart it.

Their “on/off” stage presence (in the middle of a scene: “Let’s skip this dialogue”) is not shocking, it is part of the language of contemporary performance. It is part of our thinking, feeling of the frame/work of art as ambiguously present, intermittently present. Nice: it’s when it turns us on, not the other way around. Hence the decadent flirt, hence the false opening, hence the play outside of a play outside of a play.

______________________________

What do you want out of this? Out of this experience? What do you want out of a play?

Try this: Say: This is silly. Say: Theater is the essence of the misconception that it is all about the human. It is the place of the old-fashioned, stubborn faith in 1) the communion of the believers, and 2) the hierarchy of presentation. It is a stage which seems so enchanted with the universal human condition, it forgets the subtle yet profound changes of the aesthetic, the sensible, the eye of the beholder. It is a place whose very existence in this time is so out of joint, it is funny.

What if we accepted this as part of the game? What if we played this game, using this as a platform to inquire into what conditions we are in, as the humans that have no choice but to, at one point or another, remain anthropocentric? What if we surrendered ourselves to the collision of times, this our present time of, say, having to read this text one line at a time, and the time of too many lines behind, and the time of too many lines besides, after, above? What sort of figures are we once we let go of our need for the unique now? Entirely?

Sensation> This our too too solid flesh is extremely flexible. And it goes along with the lines of tension, it follows the cracks and bounces off whatever is left as the aftermath.
Abstract? No, this is not abstract. It means: somehow, miraculously, we deal with change, since we live through it. And yet, we do not melt, we do not resolve ourselves into a dew. If we manage to tune in – we dance. Every step, stumble, vibration becomes a choreography of ourselves.

Sensation> We are not enough. The body fights to correspond to the twitches of the images, yet it lags behind. The eyes go back to the screen. We have no way of knowing how correct we are, yet the need of knowledge unveils our total, complete inadequacy. We are but thinking puppets, we are but repeating Plato, we are but warming up the stage for the image that comes behind. Whatever surrounds us is more powerful, and yet -

Sensation> The eye of the beholder might make a difference. The beholder as object, the beholder as a weaker alter ego. The beholder as the one who submits to the role of a prop, and whose tragedy, a subject realizing he is an object, becomes the juiciest work, the perfect crack in the façade of the perfect spectacle.

Oh, and don’t pay attention to the ending. Don’t pay attention to the illusion that the slave has become the master, that the technology is, after all, a tool, that we can use the past, control the present, cope with the future, that things are what we want them to be. Don’t fall in the trap of theater, which numbs us into believing it’s okay, images end, we are here, devising our entries and winning our exits.
There is a stage behind that one, and on it, well, take a peak.

Money for nothing
Most artists do not deal with anything. The “art geniuses” deal with “artistic issues” which are of interest only to the art critiques and a hand full of artists, and by that narrow the language of art – the language of shapes and colors, the most universal language possible – down to a collection of petty conflicts and dilemmas with tedious solutions that are of no importance to anyone, at any scale. Few are the artists who deal with issues and problems concerning the whole of humanity and the essence of existence, probably just as few are the people who really care about others of their kind.

Perhaps the beautiful thing about the art of the Middle Ages, for example which was mostly religious, is that it really served a purpose. There is no doubt (I think) that they are primitive, and there is no doubt that utilizing different solutions and revelations from the course of art along the ages might assist in conveying messages in a more articulate, advanced, attractive, credible, authentic and diverse manner. However, I feel that in the great efforts of escaping the conditionings and fixations of the archaic and institutionalized art and of creating new “art languages” every alternate day, perhaps unconsciously art has gradually become a tool in its own hands and nothing more.

Kahnweiler, what?
For example, problems in the field of analytic cubism interested only Picasso, Braque and a hand full more of copycat cubistic artists and the enthusiastic art critiques and interpreters who found some new “artistic issue” to mess with as a child would have with a new toy. But actually all that toy does is distracting the mind from the simple truth, that there is no real essence in analytic cubism. It is merely an anal fetishism of that hand full of artists who were to busy in being artists and not as much so in being humans. Brass tacks, who cares about the fairly-artistic and vital-scientific “problem” of expressing three-dimensional forms upon a two-dimensional canvas?

And even if and when I bother in great exertion to discover the hidden abstract (excuse me for saying) facial features behind the title: “Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler”, then what? Who cares to discover that at all? What am I supposed to do with this discovery? Who gives a shit about him, anyway? Hence, the cubistic portrait of the chap was not meant for anything expect for being a tool in the hands of Picasso, with which to disintegrate the “real” nature into another “real” nature which he defined. That’s all. No one else cares about that.
Malfunctioning horsiness
Does a blacksmith manufacture cubistic horseshoes which do not fit any horse only for the sake of forcefully inventing and then solving some problematic issue in the field of perceiving the interaction between the three-dimensionality of the horse and the multi-dimensionality of horsiness? No, he does not. Similarly, you can imagine a situation where you stand in front of someone, engaged in a conversation, and that someone does not seize to blather pointlessly, only because he is so busy in utilizing language for the sake of finding new ways for utilizing that same language.

There is nothing wrong in the endeavor for enriching the language, whatever it is, when that language has a purpose of conveying a message. This is its only purpose.

Accessing art
I think that many people are recoiled by art. They fear from it because in the course of generations – initially fueled by the insecurity of the Renaissance artists and later on by their followers – it transformed from a simple creative practice into a sophisticated trade of philosophical contemplation in the hands of some arrogant intellectual elite, and therefore seized to serve the people. The fear of the artists from being “of the people” as blacksmiths and not “elitist” as philosophers caused art to lose its integrity and to turn into an empty and useless tool.

What makes art accessible to the common people has got nothing to do with whether or not it is created from common day to day materials. The problem is that not only that the different forms of modern art are the opposite of user-friendly, but on top of that the manufacturer does not even bother to supply minimal instructions for the buyer. If you studied art and you are ably clairvoyant and good in seeing through pillars and walls, then you’ll understand it and if not then ‘ts’yo’problem.
You may stand there in that gallery and gaze at your will like a drowsy cat, while you take caution not to admit your ignorance if you are an intellectual, and admit it with a jaw-breaking yawn if you are truly wise.

Every doing, every product in this world serves all, this is why it was manufactured to begin with. Art is an exception to that rule; it is the only field which serves only itself and its products are consumed only by the fashion clerks of contemporary art.

The boundaries of art
The picture expresses pictoriality, the theme of the painting is the method of paintings itself and the theme of the sculpture is sculpting… could it be that the message is “message” and that a dog is made out of a “dog”? does medicine exist for the sake of its own self, or rather for the sake of curing the ill? Is the purpose of a scientific research to amuse the mind of some physics geniuses or rather to discover for the benefit of humanity and a better future?

You cannot explain a term using the term itself. You cannot exceed the boundaries of painting by painting, not to mention exceeding the boundaries of reality by inventing an illusionary alternate reality. Painting about painting is parallel to talking about talking or languaging about language upon langiging the linguabenge – art is not a method for attaining the ultimate truth or changing reality. This is reality.

Hand in hand
Tell me a story, interest me, take me with you on a fascinating journey and teach me some lesson. Waken inspiration within me, make me think, feel and grow up as a human being. Make me look at art, eye to eye and learn from it about myself, because art without a purposeful message is like a good-looking stupid girl – nice to look at but no dialogue. In this case I’d rather drink my coffee by myself – Starbucks offers a pretty good Cappucino and not to bad of a chocolate croissant.

Created by Ilan Lichtnayer On 02/05/09 At 12:25 PM

Tragedy has a way of playing ironic games that we only begin to understand once it’s too late.

About a year ago, I wrote about a project called Face2Face, by two artists who go by the pseudonyms JR and Marco. The simple idea was: bring people to see how similar they are, and how funny. Show the two sides their faces. A charming, courageous project that meant to show the urgency of seeing the other.

That was one year ago.

A few days ago, on December 25th, I visited Bethlehem, the capital of the Palestinian Autonomy.
When entering the city, I discovered street art I had written about.
And the site was sad.

It is true, the works survived on the walls for quite a while. But especially in the case of some of the portraits, the damage was more than just a random act of destruction.

It made me feel like that particular project failed.
Possibly, someone still got influenced by it. But the statement it was making now was much stronger, and seemed to correspond better to the tension. And to increase it.
Among the many question that arose, one came back often: isn’t this ridiculous, to think you can just put some funny faces on both sides of the wall, and people will feel closer to each other? You know, We Are The World… Here is what the artists were saying in 2007:

In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear.
We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.

All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic.

We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Today, “Face to face” is necessary.
Within a few years, we will come back for “Hand in hand”.

Hand in hand? Today it’s tempting to ask, so what does each hand hold?
What is left for the artist? This cute idea of the artist being a social engineer can look ridiculous in the face of the violent tragedy we’re witnessing. The Greek tragedy appears in all its seemingly unsolvable power.

But what made this particular artistic project end up like this?
1. It felt like it was a declaration: we don’t think you’re funny.
2. Maybe it said: your language is not ours. You have no clue about us (but implying: and we – about you).
3. But let us go back to the face. The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said that

the face says to me: you shall not kill.

Is that why the work was torn? In a way… I would be tempted to say that Levinas gives a reason a little further in that interview:

Accordingly, my duty to respond to the other [because of being confronted with his face] suspends my natural right to self-survival, le droit vitale.

Ergo, a work showing the faces of others can somehow take away my power to consider myself ahead of the other, leaving me at their mercy. They are facing me. In front of me. (Laughing at me?)(Mocking my way of life? My seriousness and attachment to my culture? My people’s suffering, maybe?) By looking at me, constantly, they demand recognition that goes beyond any recognition they can give me.

Yes, this seems like a dead-lock. And a sad time, also for art.

One desperate attempt at a positive note.
Not all ancient Greek tragedies ended badly. For instance, The Eumenides, the third part of Aeschilus’ trilogy Oresteia, ends well. It is Athena who comes and convinces the goddesses of vengeance – the Furies – to accept a judgement democratically made by a jury. Athena renames the Furies (Erinyes) the Kindly Ones – Eumenides. (And everyone lives happily ever after.)
Can we paint ourselves into being Athenas? We’ll keep on trying. But we could certainly use some of those sound democratic judgements to defend.

Selected fragments of Levinas on the face:
The face resists possession, resists my powers.
The face opens the primordial discourse whose first word is obligation.
The Other faces me and puts me in question and obliges me.
The face is exposed, menaced, as if inviting us to an act of violence. At the same time, the face is what forbids us to kill.
The manifestation of the face is already discourse.