letthedreamlifecommence: Family Unit

For the last several weeks, I have been working on curating a show at Elektrohaus here in Hamburg. I called it Family Unit. It was a group show featuring artists from Hamburg (Francisco and Markus Schork, Michael Schieben), Berlin (Glas Institute), NYC (Wyatt Nash) and myself.

It also featured performances from Macaco Mau and Glas Institute, both groups live in Berlin. Brian (Macaco Mau) is from Copenhagen originally, and is part of the group that runs the Sudhaus (Alte Kindl Brauerei) where we often throw parties. Glas Institute consists of Markus, Maura, Jan and Lu who are all friends of mine that live in Berlin. You will see pictures of them on older blog posts.

RSS, a group from here in Hamburg, DJed along with Phoung Dan and Brandon.

All in all it was a very special night and I am very happy that it turned out better than I could have imagined. Thanks to Berndt and everyone who participated and to everyone who came.

I really want to thank Julia for being such a tremendous help. I couldn't have done it without you.

OK, here are a bunch of images from the installation of my piece (which is called Power Structure/Confusion), the individual installations, and the party itself.

The last images are of another piece I did, much smaller (like 70 x 40 cm), that will be in the show Product of Exchange in Berlin next week. Its pre is pretty indicative of the scale and type of drawings I am doing at the moment.

For my piece, I drew 3 individual drawings at A4 size (29 x 20 cm) and made them fit together like a puzzle from any direction, then applied to them to the wall like wallpaper. It was a really hard thing to do and like I said, without Julia no way I could have done this. I covered a 8.5 m x 3 m wall and the DJ booth and the bar. To me it was an encompassing piece because I like to draw, I like to DJ and I like to party. I think that it was quite successful in the end.

It was really really hard to get a good overall shot of the piece because of the way the room is built. This is as close as I could get to a full shot. Maybe when I go back there tomorrow, I can get a better one, but I doubt it.

This is a still from Michael Scheiben's piece The Internet. It was so much fun fucking around with that piece. He made a program that mirrors the people so that they see themselves projected in the art space. He then made some tools that the people at the exhibition could use to play with the people, like fake glasses, a red dot, a toothbrush and allowed the exhibition visitors to make their own by supplying paper and a marker.

Wyatt Nash's piece. Essentially this made out of styrofoam and coated with some sort of rubber like substance and finished to have the texture of wood. Since I've know Wyatt his work has been about housing and southern white trash imagery. I love him and I love his work. It was really awesome that it worked out that he was here when I had this show. Nice to have him around.

This is the Glas Institute installation pre performance. During the exhibition, Glas Institute performed inside the installation, then when they were about done, they dropped the curtain revealing Jan holding up the mattress. He then cut the supports and did a flip onto the mattress. I thought I made a video of the performance ending, but instead I didn't hit record until after it was over when I thought I was hitting stop. Fuck.

Francisco and Markus Shork's piece. Its hard to see it in this image, but this is a 'dot matrix' drawing of 2 faces made from the two of them finger painting the image. It takes on an ornamental like form from certain angles and certain focus levels, then as you move around it the image reveals itself. Very Beautiful.

This is the drawing for Product of Exchange and some details of the drawing to show you the line work. I will actually be putting in 3 pieces, but this is only one I have pictures of at the moment.