While searching for Gilbert & George’s performance “Singing Sculpture”, due to a project S. and me have in mind, I came across an animation series of legendary performance art pieces made by Graham Samuels, commissioned by Arty, a contemporary art program on SVT2 (Swedish national TV). Some are available in youtube, but to watch all of them one can go to Graham’s website (animation/videos). Also worth it is the “Scenes From The Factory”, a series of animated interviews with Andy Warhol and folks around The Factory in the mid-sixties, based on real audio footage.
“Legendary Performance, part 2” – Gilbert & George – “Singing Sculpture”, 1969
Thursday night, last week, I went to the opening of “Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms”, a major exhibition of Warhol’s rarely screened video and audio recordings and archive material at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. As I was a bit late, I missed the poetry and lyrics of Lou Reed that was there as special guest. The entrance hall was over crowded like usually in Amsterdam. Since the dress code was “If everybody is not a beauty, then nobody is” (Warhol), the crowd was a tender melange of common people, arty people and party people, all ages, all sizes, all colours. Everybody was quite relaxed, wondering around, sipping the wine, champagne or orange juice, talking to each other, enjoying being photographed by the press or just letting their bodies go to the charming sounds of Velvet Underground. After a glass of wine we decided to go around for a first impression on the exhibition. Not that one could see much of the work, due the amount of people everywhere, but an opening is never about the work anyway. The space is carefully designed to express Warhol’s world in content and context, but about the exhibition I’ll post later because I still have to go there to actually SEE it with more room for walking, sitting, watching and thinking. For those in the neighbourhood there’s also an exhibition of photographs by Lou Reed at the galerie Serieuze Zaken Studios, Bilderdijkstraat 66, Amsterdam, until the 15th on November. Yes, the guy is also a photographer!
