Holy Fools

Unlike Bruce Nauman’s 'Clown Torture,' as part of his retrospective, Disappearing Acts on view at MoMA and MoMA PS1, which contains multiple scenes that play on loop simultaneously, and which provided a framework for this piece, Viñao’s clowns each have individual, intimate stories to tell, each story building on itself to create a miniature saga—the screens are mounted back-to-back, each with its own pair of headphones, and the second chapter of each scene lies directly behind the first: a small change in staging or movement reiterates a faraway point, which builds a mesmerizing riddle. The show is like a labyrinth of Sphinxes singing their riddles, exploring the edges of expression. The intimacy is implicating: the viewer is participating in this self-inflicted torture, unable to tear our eyes away.

The fact that these are clowns lends an opportunity for silliness that is not lost on Viñao, or her performers. Silliness can quickly devolve into maddening absurdity, and the show vacillates between these two impulses with subtle expertise. The final video—the only clown who is given a third saga, and who’s opening monologue, repeated on loop in a church, is like a lyric poem by a Southern belle version of Lolita—is such a simple performance steeped in metaphor it feels like an encapsulation of not only the show, but of art itself: the clown steps endlessly through a door that rests in a frame, as you would find in a hardware store, one that essentially goes nowhere. She goes through a range of intense emotions, the overall effect being that going through this door leading nowhere is incredibly difficult, a struggle that goes on, essentially, forever.

I met Ondine Viñao, the author of this delightfully demented saga, on a cold, windy day at a coffee shop on the Lower East Side. She was perky and lithe, and we commiserated about the recent antarctic temperatures in New York before retiring to the basement to discuss her piece, what it took to bring it together and the clever timing to coincide with the Bruce Nauman retrospective.

Above: 'Joel Osteen (Jessie Pierrot) part 2' and 'Joel Osteen (Jessie Pierrot) part 1' film stills.

Tell me about your work.

I’m a multimedia artist, but I primarily work with video and video installation, and Holy Fools is definitely the biggest project I’ve ever made, both in terms of the actual size and duration, but also in terms of how long it took me to plan this, to shoot it, to edit it, to get it to its final stage in the gallery. So, it’s the most work I’ve ever put into something. It’s also the first time I’ve ever worked with a real budget, which I think is very important for specifically video artists, because, at least in the way that I work, I have a lot more crossover with cinema or film than I do with video art, and you have to take a lot of those things into consideration in terms of production when trying to make something that functions within the film world. I had never had access to that before this project. So, I do kind of consider this the first project that I’ve made that’s really what I wanted to make, because I didn’t have those kinds of limitations to work around like I had with all the projects I had done prior.

Were you doing film before?

I’ve always considered myself an artist, but since I was 18—since I started in college—I’ve always worked with video, but I had never had access to certain types of collaborators or equipment that I had dreamt of having access to in order to make the scale of project that I wanted it to be. It’s not that having money, or having the right equipment, or the nicest camera, or the most elaborate lighting makes a project 'good,' but I do think it makes it very hard to express exactly what you want to express, as a video artist, when you don’t have access to all the tools that you want, unlike if you are a painter or sculptor—there are less variables that you have to consider.

I was just thinking that—a paintbrush and paint are no big deal, but all these things you’re talking about, like light, sound, actors…

Transportation for the actors, costume, makeup, property insurance, location—it adds up. But I felt that I could be as ambitious, or as creative as I wanted to be.

How did you manage to secure this windfall?

Banging my head against the wall for six months! I tried every avenue I could think of, and this isn’t really something you’re taught in art school: how to go about getting money besides going on to nyfa.org and applying for grants—most of those grants have a lot of specifications, location or age or the actual subject matter of the work, or they’re very small grants, which would be helpful for someone who works in another medium a lot more than it would help me. So, I ended up getting help from three different individuals—three patrons, essentially.

But I’ve diverted from the original question, which is to tell you about the project—the project is a reinterpretation of Bruce Nauman’s 1987 piece, ‘Clown Torture.' I had never seen the full piece when I got the idea for my own. It started as a little bit of a joke between a curator friend and I—we would share clips from YouTube of ‘Clown Torture,’ and we would also share tweets from a Twitter account called Clown Torture, which just tweeted lines from the never-ending riddle that a clown in ‘Clown Torture’ recites on loop, and in passing, as a joke, this friend said that I should make my own version. I jumped on it very quickly. This led to us going to the Art Institute in Chicago to the archives, which is where ‘Clown Torture’ is held—it wasn’t on view anywhere then like it is now at MoMA.

Above: 'Door (Jessie Pierrot)' and 'The Tyger (Rachel Auguste)' film stills.

So, it’s kind of a coincidence that MoMA is showing it now.

It is a coincidence, but my show being timed with the opening isn’t a coincidence—that was important to me, to have Holy Fools up at the same time as Disappearing Acts, the Nauman retrospective, because I wanted to, one, give viewers the opportunity to compare and contrast the works; two, I thought it would be potentially good press for my show; and three, I didn’t want to look too derivative or as though his retrospective had inspired my idea, which might have been how it seemed had I gone with a gallery or a show date which would have been long after the retrospective ended.

At the Art Institute of Chicago, I looked at all of the DVDs, all of the interactions that they had access to with Nauman and his makeup artists, the reviews that had come out the first time ‘Clown Torture’ premiered, original installation layouts, negatives—basically everything that’s out there that’s not on the internet was there.

Something really resonated with me about the idea of self-inflicted torture, which is the premise of ‘Clown Torture’—it felt, in a way, like an analogy to the art-making process—very masochistic and tedious. I also felt, at that time, in my practice, I’d been over-complicating a lot of projects I was working on—none of them were going in the right direction and I felt like this provided me with a simple formula I could follow, but contextualize to fit my own narrative. Even though ‘Clown Torture’ is abrasive and chaotic, when you look all the individual pieces, it’s actually pretty simple. It felt like a nice guidebook to use in order to make something different, something that references the original, but doesn't regurgitate what Nauman already did.

I chose to make the main focus of my project childhood trauma. Thinking about this idea of self-inflicted torture, I wanted to go a little bit deeper and make it personal for my performers—I wanted it to be, in a way, real torture that the viewer was watching and in a way participating in. So, I gave my performers a writing exercise where I asked them to share painful or traumatic childhood memories with me, and those writing entries served as my jumping-off point for scene building. So, the actions they do in their scenes are abstracted versions of the stories that they shared with me. Some of them quite literally reflect that and others seem potentially unrelated, but it was personal for the performers. There were multiple reasons I chose to do this, but one of the most significant reasons was to experiment with this as a form of exposure therapy: to see if, by having them repeat this in a real-time loop—so, unlike Nauman’s, it’s not a 30-second segment that’s played on loop, I have them perform a real-time repetition for up to 32 minutes—the idea is that it potentially releases some of the pain they have associated with this memory, with this story.

I liked the use of things from history—classicism, the William Blake poem—I was immediately in love with that. It was cool how you pulled from all these different sources. How did you end up landing on William Blake?

Well, I will preface this by saying that I made a promise to my performers that I would never share the sources for these scenes, but I do think I can divulge some things without referencing what they shared with me explicitly. With something like ‘The Tyger’ by William Blake, at least in a lot of prep schools, that poem is something that you’re forced to memorize and recite for the class, recite for your peers, the teacher, and then thinking about the meaning of the poem, the tiger and the sheep, the predator and the prey—I just think that relates to the whole basis of the project—the childhood trauma, a child being forced into a situation of prey, and whatever happened to them, whoever did it being the predator, whether that is a relative, or a friend, or a chance encounter that, for whatever reason, scarred them.

You said that you wanted to experiment with the idea of exposure therapy—do you feel like it worked? Did they react?

Well, it’s hard for me to really speak for the other three performers’ experience.

Oh—did you perform in it?

One of them, yes. Mine is the one with ‘The Magic Flute’ music, the lip-syncing and then the watching tv, which is a scene from Bergman’s The Magic Flute. But I think just the act of writing about something that you might have suppressed, or something that bothers you, provides you with a kind of release, and then knowing that whatever you’re performing is directly related to that, and then still choosing to participate, can also provide you with a certain amount of strength or power over something that happened to you when you were in a position of no power, when you were a child, when you had no autonomy, no independence and you’re just stuck in whatever situation you were in. I think there’s something about that that aids in a certain reclaiming of what was lost.

But that's also just one element of the project. The other element is about the viewer—it wasn’t just about what was happening on the screen, I was also interested in who is watching it, and I was thinking a lot about rubber-necking or Schadenfreude.

Remind me, Schadenfreude is when you enjoy someone else’s pain?

Yeah, Schadenfreude and rubber-necking are a little different—rubber-necking is when you know something terrible is happening but you’re unable to look away, like the phenomenon of seeing a car crash and wanting to watch.

Above: 'The Magice Flute (Ondine Pierrot)' and 'Woman (Rachel Auguste)' film stills.

I definitely experienced that with your show—I weirdly couldn’t tear myself away, and I had places to be.

I’m happy to hear that, because I’m kind of of the belief that everyone, to a certain extent, experiences this perverse, voyeuristic sensation, and that we all possess this gross curiosity, and are drawn to things that we know are bad, but wind up feeling guilty about wanting to watch. In regular life, you have people watching horror films, liking to watch the demise of celebrities, things like that.

Even just the news—the only things reported are bad things.

And then you almost want something even crazier to happen. I don’t think everybody is aware of this tendency in themselves—I think judgment can be passed very quickly on people who have a kind of fascination or interest or are intrigued by these things that are… inappropriate or impolite. So, I wanted to make the viewer aware of this in themselves, that they are a part of this project, that by watching this you are participating, that this performer is here for your entertainment, even though you know that whatever they’re doing is painful for them.

Well, it’s kind of the idea of the clown, in general.

A clown makes a fool of themselves so people can laugh.

Have you ever seen a really funny clown? Or have you only seen them in the context of horror?

I don’t think clowns are funny, but I haven’t always seen It either when I look at them—I’ve seen them as a child at birthday parties.

I went to an old school circus when I was a kid, and there was this really funny clown—and this was before I came across all the horror movies [about clowns]. So, I have a fondness for them in a way—when done well they can be pretty funny, especially when you’re a kid.

Of course, and I think that’s why I chose to have two different kinds of clowns—I don’t know if you remember the video, but there are two Auguste clowns, which look more like birthday party clowns, and their scenes were a little bit more lighthearted. There was Eileen Auguste, where she sang ‘Maybe,’ and she read the book upside down and scratched her ass and all those things, and then there’s Rachel Auguste who recites ‘The Tyger’ in a bunch of funny voices and gets dressed. Then there are two Pierrot clowns, which are more morose and melancholic—that was my clown and the scenes in the church, and the one with the door. I wanted to have a diversity of behavior in order to not really hit the viewer over the head with, 'Oh this is sad, this is bad,' and also to essentially represent the differences in how we all process and deal with trauma. Not everybody reacts in the expected melancholic way to bad things—some people make jokes. Think about comedians—they turn their trauma into comedy; they turn their pain into laughs.

'Holy Fools' will be on view through February 3.

Bruce Nauman's 'Disappearing Acts' is on view at MoMA through February 18, and at MoMA PS1 through February 25.

All images courtesy of Rubber Factory.

Art

A Night at MOCA

Esteemed guests such as contemporary artist Paul McCarthy, rockstar Kim Gordon, and director Ava DuVernay were in attendance, where the dinner kicked off with a captivating performance by the rhythmic beats of the Makoto Taiko Japanese drum ensemble. The museum was adorned with fantastical installations and mesmerizing projections, transporting attendees to underwater realms and lush garden landscapes. Notable among these were Schneider's enchanting Dendrite Bonsai and Tide Piepool sculptures, adding an extra layer of allure to the ambiance. While guests shared space MOCA's Board Chair, Maria Seferian, remarked on the importance of the night. "Max's presentation asks us to look beyond the maudlin and instead consider the miraculous. Returning to the artist-designed MOCA Gala is an idea about a relationship between artist and museum, not intended to privilege or position any one artist, but rather continuing a conversation rendered mute without each of them."

As guests mingled and finished their dinners, multi-Grammy nominee St. Vincent commanded the space with a beautiful performance. The atmosphere in the room bore witness to the profound significance of the arts and the invaluable contributions of MOCA within the local Los Angeles community and the global artistic community at large. "Artists serve as both mirrors of the present and portals to other futures," said Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. "With Max's radical transformation of our Gala and St. Vincent's incredible performance, the night allowed us all to come together around art and artists as some of the most powerful messengers of our time. It represented the heart and soul of what MOCA is about."

Artists serve as both mirrors of the present and portals to other futures.

After the dinner and performances, the festivities continued with the After-Party, where musicians Kilo Kish and Kitty Ca$h took over the DJ booth, keeping the night alive with their beats. A post-dinner snack of petite burgers and fries circulated, providing a delightful late-night treat for partygoers. Laughter filled the air as guests danced and enjoyed each other's company, marking the joyful conclusion of MOCA's annual Gala.

Explore the night below and make sure to visit MOCA the next time you’re in LA.

Art

The Devil’s Chestnut at Phil Callery

April 12, 2024

Louis Shannon and Philippe de Sablet met in New York more than a decade ago, through the underground music scene. Back then, Louis was running the now defunct but storied downtown art collective Luck You, with friends he grew up around in lower Manhattan and touring with various punk bands. Phil was attending underground concerts and eventually befriended Louis through mutual friends. The two mostly admired each other from afar, as collaboration was hindered by distance. Louis has been occupied with building his gallery Entrance from a guerilla basement space to a semi-institution on the Lower East Side. Phil, on the other hand, has been developing his own practice and operating Phil Callery, a relaxed hub for DIY shows in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles. In February, the long overdue collaboration finally arrived, thanks to Louis being in town for Felix. The Devil Chestnut, a group show organized by Louis and Phil at Phil Callery, opened on February 27th.

By Qingyuan Deng
Imagery courtesy of Entrance and Phil Callery

The group show is many things. Its minimal installation belies a sense of brevity that can also be found in the rather esoteric press release. Simultaneously, there is an aftermath to viewing the show that lurks nearby. A militant intention that cannot be easily resolved, if you will. Z. Susskind’s plexiglass installation Gloves (2024) which spells out ‘gloves’ in all capitalized letters embodies such militancy well. Through its black reflective surface, one sees the still industrial landscape of the neighborhood. Pop meets opacity here. Another Susskind work Time, the Old Cashier (2024) more casually plays with weight and lightness, gesturing toward unseen physical acts. Phil Davis’s C-Print photograph Ciara (2003) points to the uncomfortable gap between self-fashioning and the real, a gap that exponentially explodes in Carmel Ni’s Pilgrim shoe (2024). Elsewhere, paintings by JPW3 (Patrick Walsh), Sara Gernsbacher, and Kate Mosher Hall all enjoy varying degrees of raciness, bordering a frenzy in some cases and presenting more subdued qualities in others. Still, words cannot do justice to the feel-good line-up — rising stars and superstars who are friends of both galleries fleshing out fundamentals of their practices without a care.

Ravenne Swaner
Unfolding, 2020
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 in

Phil Davis
Ciara, 2003
C-Print
7 x 9 in

Congratulations on The Devil’s Chestnut to both of you! I heard the opening was a buzzy success, tell us more about how this exhibition came to be!

Louis— I was always a fan of Phil Callery, even though I had never actually been there. Phil and I were very close friends in New York. And I’d always dreamt about going to a Phil Callery opening and there’s no better way to go to an opening than putting on a show there. In terms of timing, Entrance was heading west for Felix, which is our first operation on the west coast. This little window of opportunity opened, and we decided to sneak a show in there at the same time.

Phil— Luckily, I held on to the space, as a sublet for friends’ studio space. It was very easy to jump back in.

Louis— The mission behind Entrance, in a way, ran parallel to what I recognized was happening at Phil Callery, even though our timing was a little different. Now Entrance has grown into a gallery with a rigorous program, the need to do fairs internationally, and the want to help artists grow. The same ethos of making room for experimentation and new voices and honoring an artist’s practice is still at the foundation of both of those galleries.

I heard that, leading up to the exhibition, you two took a weeklong road trip from New York to LA. What was the road trip like?

Louis— It was incredible, both functional and fun. In the art world, it's very hard to get any time off, so we decided to take a little bit of extra time across the country. We took Route 66 and visited artists and a lot of old-school American roadside attractions along the way. Many people visit land art when they’re traveling, but we wanted to visit the world’s biggest mailbox.

We were also picking up artworks along the way for The Devil’s Chestnut. It was an adventurous treasure hunt. We visited some friends in Pittsburgh that run a project space called ROMANCE, and visited one of Phil's best friends, the artist Zach Armstrong in Dayton, Ohio. Every day, we would only decide a certain amount of driving time and what to have for dinner that night. We had burgers in Tulsa and barbecue in St. Louis. It’s good to get perspective away from the coasts and know that culture and art exists across the United States.

Jack Shannon <em>Spoon 14</em>, 2023 Oakwood 12 x 7 x 2 in — Jack Shannon *Spoon 14*, 2023 Oakwood 12 x 7 x 2 in

Kate Mosher Hall <em>Forever Long</em>, 2023 Acrylic on canvas on panel 16 x 20 in — Kate Mosher Hall *Forever Long*, 2023 Acrylic on canvas on panel 16 x 20 in

Carmel Ni <em>Pilgrim shoe</em>, 2024 Plastic, polyester and foil Dimensions variable — Carmel Ni *Pilgrim shoe*, 2024 Plastic, polyester and foil Dimensions variable

Ravenne Swaner <em>Gate</em>, 2021 Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in — Ravenne Swaner *Gate*, 2021 Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in

Jpw3 (Patrick Walsh) <em>Plot A</em>, 2024 Stainless steel wood paper ash twigs cardboard dust leaves 12 x 9 x 20 in — Jpw3 (Patrick Walsh) *Plot A*, 2024 Stainless steel wood paper ash twigs cardboard dust leaves 12 x 9 x 20 in

The Devil’s Chestnut felt like a homecoming journey that intimately revisits both galleries’ history. How does it feel to mount a very personal presentation exhibition, while two major art fairs were happening.

Phil— The installation process was intense for me, because I had to figure out how to accurately use this very intimate space, which almost became part of the exhibition. Things calmed down afterwards. Louis, while you were deep in the art fair, I was tucked away at the gallery, which functioned as a little rest stop away from the fair chaos.

Louis— The Devil’s Chestnut is a hometown group show that celebrates new voices and the history of the space. Phil Callery has always been an inviting space that mixes high and low. On the opening night, the biggest movers and shakers in the Los Angeles art scene and customers of the taco shop next door were at the gallery. The gallery originated in a very definitive moment in the Lincoln Heights, Chinatown area, where a lot of artists had their studios, and where a lot of people would visit after work. Night Gallery was founded right next door to that space, which has now grown exponentially to a real force in LA.

What are some of your observations about the neighborhood Phil Gallery is in and LA’s art scene?

Phil— Lincoln Heights is weirdly resistant to gentrification and has stayed how it was when I left. I like that a lot.

Louis— There's a lot of camaraderie between artists, which I really appreciate. Artists tend to go to each other’s shows and studios a lot more. Also, by nature of having so much more space, LA attracts artists who have a lot less fear about working at a larger scale.

You two met a decade ago in New York, while Louis was a member of the downtown collective Luck You and Phil was visiting underground concerts. Can you tell me a bit more about that post-Great-Recession moment of participating in the art scene in downtown Manhattan, where a lot of cheap real estate was readily available.

Louis— I just came out of high school when I joined Luck You and some members of our collective were still in high school. We were really focused on what people were making locally and we weren't thinking about the larger art world. We were just trying to put our friends’ projects on. We started in what is now the lower-level gallery of Entrance, back then it was really a clubhouse. We would also use abandoned spaces in the neighborhood to put on shows. I don't think we were necessarily aware of an economic downturn in the neighborhood, which was mostly food distribution and clothing shops. The collective did our best to respect the community that was immediately around us. We would work with our neighbors, invite them to shows, and respond to their noise complaints. Then, the art world seeped in, as we all sort of grew up out of the collective.

The collective wasn’t really interacting with anything outside of our local neighborhood community. Sometimes people would pluck us out and drop us into centers of the art world, because we had a story that can be told. The collective insists on art as a way of living rather than a job and I still live by that to this today.

Phil— Phil Callery started as my studio. I was just having friends over every night drinking beer and playing dice. One day, I decided to give my friends shows in that space. The gallery just came out of that need. At the same time, I was visiting New York frequently, as Night Gallery’s preparator installing their art fair booths. That's how I met Louis, it turns out I went to high school with his then roommate.

Now, many of the artists in The Devil’s Chestnut are superstars showing with powerhouse galleries in LA. Both Entrance and Phil Callery are spaces of experimentation and collaboration for emerging artists. So much labor is embedded into being an incubator, but often such labor is under-appreciated, as we live in a cultural moment of “bigger is better”. Tell us more about how you keep up with this spirit of experimentation with integrity and good faith.

Phil— For me, the goal was never to get to a place. I was just thinking about what I can do that’s interesting, fun, and stimulating. It’s hard for me to even take credit for any kind of integrity that may exist there. I’m just wired to just have a good time and keep doing interesting things.

Louis— Authenticity seeps out when you’re doing the next right thing. I love running Entrance, because I believe that the mission that I started with is scalable. A lot of the artists that I am working with had never shown before, and now have a career as artists and can make work for a living. I am always trying to make room for new voices. My favorite thing is when I meet older curators or gallerists, who have been in the industry for say 50 years and are still excited when they walk into a room and see something new. They're not jaded and have stayed curious. And I think that curiosity is scalable, in terms of elevating voices that matter. Phil and I got that curiosity from our days of touring in bands, where we witnessed so much craziness.

Phil— Entrance is like almost the sustainable progression of what Phil Callery could have been?

Louis— Right, how do you take a gallery to the next level without basically becoming like some stock exchange and selling out? I never worked at a big gallery and have retained that sensitivity to the community around me. So has Phil Callery. If you mentioned Pill Callery in LA, everyone always remembers good memories of shows they have seen or the time they spent there. You can't ask for much more than that in this world.

Sara Gernsbacher <em>Untitled</em>, 2024 Oil acrylic and graphite on canvas panel 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 in — Sara Gernsbacher *Untitled*, 2024 Oil acrylic and graphite on canvas panel 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 in

Mariko Makino <em>Blue</em>, 2023 Neon tubing, argon, garden wire, reclaimed oak 42 1/2 x 13 x 10 in — Mariko Makino *Blue*, 2023 Neon tubing, argon, garden wire, reclaimed oak 42 1/2 x 13 x 10 in

Zora Moniz <em>one is sacred one is business (gray, ghost orchid)</em>, 2023 Oil on canvas 24 x 18 in — Zora Moniz *one is sacred one is business (gray, ghost orchid)*, 2023 Oil on canvas 24 x 18 in

Z. Susskind <em>Time, the Old Cashier</em>, 2024 Copper, rope, steel 8 x 9 x 2 in — Z. Susskind *Time, the Old Cashier*, 2024 Copper, rope, steel 8 x 9 x 2 in

Ravenne Swaner <em>Spires</em>, 2024 Beeswax, paraffin and string Variable dimensions — Ravenne Swaner *Spires*, 2024 Beeswax, paraffin and string Variable dimensions

Art

'Door to Door' Offers a Slice of Life in Iran

April 05, 2024

In a new exhibition curated by yalla imshi, featuring works by architect and sculptor Christopher Al-Jumah, Mohammad Rezaei's photographs, "captured during reflective walks through Iranian streets," offer a glimpse into daily life distinct to that found on our own crowded streets. When Al-Jumah saw Rezaei's "Slice of Life" photography of Iran's urban and rural life, he was immediately taken by the symbols and iconography evident across doorways and houses, finding it "beautiful to see how the people had ornamented their lives." In response, Al-Jumah began crafting crude furniture piece from Persian silkwood (sourced from Bay Ridge and found on Craigslist), engraving symbols found in Rezaei's photographs onto the objects, thus bringing this exhibition to life.

Showing at 28 Elizabeth Street Floor 3, New York until April 16th, Door to Door "is a nod to the mundane that remains still in the dust painted, repainted, and repurposed with time."

By Sara Eldewak
Photographs by Mohammad Razaei, courtesy of the artist

The exhibition is accompanied by a book of Rezaei’s photography, and a series of essays and writings that respond to the photographs by writers Mnatalla Eldaas, Akram Shah, Abhi Janamanchi, Zari G, Saam Niami, and Safa Ghasemi.

Spaces breathe like silent narrators of their time. Where the everyday matter reaches a position of unity and glory to sit at the point of concentration and start a secret conversation.