Papers by Marie Arleth Skov
Texte zur Kinst, 2024
Vaginal Davis has brought Stockholm to its knees. This summer, the city experiences Davis’s extra... more Vaginal Davis has brought Stockholm to its knees. This summer, the city experiences Davis’s extravaganza spread across six different venues, a proliferation that matches the artist’s kaleidoscope of identities, glamorous ways of self-fashioning, and, not least, her multifaceted, radical artworks. The art historian Marie Arleth Skov cruised four of the venues – excluded are a festival and film screening scheduled for September – to connect Davis’s practice as, among other things, a sculptress, a paintress, and a filmmaker with her status as a punk icon in order to make up for some missing contextualization in this polyamorous lollapalooza of exhibitions.
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Texte zur Kunst, 2023
Women artists of different generations have worked tirelessly against the odds of precarious cond... more Women artists of different generations have worked tirelessly against the odds of precarious conditions and a lack of recognition. In the constant struggle against the power structures that are at least partly responsible for almost all delayed careers, many of these artists have developed a recalcitrance that is reflected in their work. In the case of Penny Goring, whose first solo exhibition in a German gallery is just closing at Molitor, this strength stems not least from obsessively working through personal pain. As Marie Arleth Skov points out, Goring succeeds in transforming trauma into poetic artworks that seem imbued by the power their maker has invested to create them.
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Texte zur Kunst, 2023
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DIY, Alternative Cultures & Society, 2023
Those old eco-feminists knitted. But we were using a machine! That was a big difference indeed" (... more Those old eco-feminists knitted. But we were using a machine! That was a big difference indeed" (2020, personal interview with the author). That statement was made by musician and knitwear designer Gudrun Gut of the punk girl band Mania D./Malaria! and it cuts out what this article is about: Women knitting and making music on their machines in the subculture of West Berlin in the late 1970s and early 1980s. New and easily accessible technology, such as the Atari console, enabled new Do-It-Yourself strategies. At the same time-within fashion and knitting in particular-there was a shift in feminist generations: Loud, technical, noisy music, and machine-made knitwear signified aggressive, modern, and self-assured women. In West Berlin specifically, punk women musicians and designers looked back in time, and sought to reconnect with the hedonistic avant-garde and the "new women," the divas, dadaists, and women modernists of Berlin in the 1910s-1930s.
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Punk & Post-Punk, 2020
In May 1979, a conflict arose in Amsterdam: the makers of the exhibition American Punk Art clashe... more In May 1979, a conflict arose in Amsterdam: the makers of the exhibition American Punk Art clashed with local artists, who disagreed with how the curators portrayed the punk movement in their promotion of the show. The conflict lays open many of the inherent (self-) contradictory aspects of punk art. It was not merely the ubiquitous ‘hard school vs. art school’ punk dispute, but that the Amsterdam punk group responsible for the letter and the Americans preparing the exhibition had different visions of what punk art was or should be in respect to content and agency. Drawing on interviews with the protagonists themselves and research in their private archives, this article compares those visions, considering topics like institutionalism vs. street art, avantgarde history vs. tabloid contemporality and political vs. apolitical stances. The article shows how the involved protagonists from New York and Amsterdam drew on different art historical back grounds, each rooted in the 1960s: Pop Art, especially Andy Warhol, played a significant role in New York, whereas the signature poetic-social art of CoBrA and the anarchistic activity of the Provos were influential in Amsterdam. The analysis reflects how punk manifested differently in different cultural spheres, but it also points to a common ground, which might be easier to see from today’s distance of more than forty years.
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Museumsjournal, 2020
Claudia Skoda: Strickdesignerin, Underground-Ikone, Berliner Bohemienne. Bewundert von Martin Kip... more Claudia Skoda: Strickdesignerin, Underground-Ikone, Berliner Bohemienne. Bewundert von Martin Kippenberger, Ulrike Ottinger und Gudrun Gut; ihre Mode trugen David Bowie, Donna Summer und Cher. In der Mode- und (Sub-)Kulturgeschichte Berlins spielt Claudia Skoda mit ihren avantgardistischen Modenschauen und ausgefallenen Strickentwürfen eine zentrale Rolle. Dennoch wurde ihr noch nie eine Einzelschau gewidmet. Bis jetzt!
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RIHA Journal, 2018
Punk was visual as much as it was musical. In recent years, art historical research of punk works... more Punk was visual as much as it was musical. In recent years, art historical research of punk works of art has increased. However, a thorough analysis of punk art's themes, motifs, and methods is still lacking. This article examines infantilism and dilettantism as two key notions within punk art, as illustrated by the collage L'ecole de l'art infantile (COUM Transmissions, 1974) and the super 8 film Das Leben des Sid Vicious (Die Tödliche Doris, 1981). Analysis shows how concepts of childishness, nonconformism and anti-authoritarianism are interconnected both with punk's DIY ethos and its self-identification as a youth movement. Furthermore, the article discusses punk art's circumvention of antithetical concepts, such as failure vs. success, innocence vs. guilt, reality vs. fantasy, skill vs. incompetence.
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OwnReality, 2015
This paper seeks to analyze and determine the relationship between fiction and reality in the wor... more This paper seeks to analyze and determine the relationship between fiction and reality in the work of the artists group Die Tödliche Doris which consisted of changing members working under the label of the fictional character "Doris" in West Berlin in the 1980s. The work of the group is characterized by a conceptual, often ironic approach which eludes a straightforward representation. The artists choose the format of dry documentary while at the same time acting demonstratively weirdly, and simultaneously challenging and deceiving their audiences. The name-giving illusory figure "Doris" is a de-constructed and absent phenomenon. The concepts and methods of Die Tödliche Doris—carried out in diverse media, ranging from installation, photography, performance, and mail art to painting—often echo those of earlier art movements: the subversive corporeality of Viennese Actionism, the rawness of Art Brut, anarchic Fluxus moments, or absurd Dada word games. This paper investigates the group’s conception of and attitude towards veracity, using the super-8-films Das Leben des Sid Vicious (The Life of Sid Vicious), 1981 and Berliner Küchenmusik (Berlin Kitchen Music), 1982 as cases. Both films juxtapose reality and fiction: Das Leben des Sid Vicious is an obvious scam documentary of the life and death of the (in)famous bassist of the Sex Pistols who is played by a 2-year old boy wearing a swastika T-shirt. The film mixes theatrical eccentricity and a bad-taste horror movie style with a surprisingly touching vulnerability. In Berliner Küchenmusik the deadpan closeness to the day-to-day realism of a woman tidying her kitchen is broken by irritating, surreal and bizarre elements escalating in tune with the song Schuldstruktur (Structure of Guilt) in the background. The paper furthermore takes into consideration the social and cultural situation around 1980, with the island West Berlin at the heart of the cold war conflict and its violent potential and at the same time weirdly cut off from reality, providing a gloomy yet unreal backdrop for the contemporary subculture.
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Overgaden. Institute of Contemporary Art, 2013
In the works of Jesper Dyrehauge the horizontal line is the point of crystallization for a recurr... more In the works of Jesper Dyrehauge the horizontal line is the point of crystallization for a recurring theme in art: the relationship between chaos and order.
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Book Chapters by Marie Arleth Skov
A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries Since 1975, 2022
The early days of the punk movement were characterized by defiance and by negation: a loud, a res... more The early days of the punk movement were characterized by defiance and by negation: a loud, a resounding "NO" to the future. Instead, there was a focus on the now and a surge of freedom, enabled (not solely, but essentially) by not having to plan towards any future—"after us, the deluge." Drawing on as yet unpublished materials, interviews with many of the protagonists themselves, and research in their private archives, this essay analyzes how the punk surge unfolded in Copenhagen, with a focus on the visual art of the so-called Unge Vilde (Young wild ones). Among the key questions is punk's relationship with the concept of Avant-garde. Despite the many links between punk and earlier Avant-garde movements—Dada, Neo-Dada, and in Denmark quite specifically: Cobra, Eks-Skolen—could a "NO FUTURE" movement ever strive to "lead the way"?
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Radical Dreams: Surrealism, Counterculture, Resistance, 2022
“The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing... more “The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd,” André Breton famously wrote in the 1930 “Second Manifesto of Surrealism.” Around five decades later, in the 1976 song “Anarchy in the UK,” the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten roared, “I wanna destroy the passerby.” Through exaggeration and shock value, both Breton and Rotten pointed to a brutality already present in society. Breton continued, “Anyone who, at least once in his life, has not dreamed of thus putting an end to the petty system of debasement and cretinization in effect has a well-defined place in that crowd with his belly at barrel-level.” Lashing out, running amok, and fantasizing about violence ultimately became images of resistance against an unjust and all-encompassing system.
Johnny Rotten’s echo of André Breton is one of many links between surrealism and punk. Though Dada is mentioned more often—thanks to punk impresario Malcolm McLaren’s self-labeling, Jamie Reid’s collages for the Sex Pistols, and Greil Marcus’s analyses in Lipstick Traces (“It was an old dream come true—as if the Sex Pistols . . . had happily rediscovered a formula contrived in 1919, in Berlin, by one Walter Mehring”) —the links to surrealism are just as significant. There are substantial thematic ties and strategies adapted from surrealism by CoBrA, the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, King Mob, and punk, and several key figures moved between these interconnected movements. One discernible example is the paraphernalia sold at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s shop SEX in London’s West End, which sold fetish, S&M, and bondage gear, along with T-shirts with slogans from France’s May ’68 and the situationists, such as “Be Reasonable, Demand the Impossible” and “Prenez vos désirs pour la réalité” (Take your desires for reality). The Sex Pistols’ name itself not only borders on the ridiculously Freudian but also invokes surrealist imagery in the clarity of its symbols and its playful juxtaposition of disparate contexts. The artists, poets, and musicians involved in the punk movement exhibited an interest in (self-)abuse, sickness, and agony, and an instinct for corporeality and performativity. All of this relates to aspects of surrealism. […]
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Modern Women Artists in the Nordic Countries, 1900–1960, 2021
The essay takes it starting point from the question, how women Surrealists depict sexuality. Imag... more The essay takes it starting point from the question, how women Surrealists depict sexuality. Images of female erotic fantasies have been far less analyzed than the erotic fantasies of their male Surrealist colleagues. The essay puts forward the thesis that women Surrealists use flora and fauna symbols in juxtaposition with their own bodies to enable both freedom of imagination and sexual empowerment. Hybridity and metamorphosis are methods to self-define, within the realm of dreams. The essay analyzes selected paintings by the Scandinavian Surrealists Rita Kernn-Larsen and Elsa Thoresen and compare them to their international contemporaries. The cases of Kernn-Larsen and Thoresen both show how sexual fantasy is linked to female subjectivity, and how women artists found each their individual visualization of eroticism. Furthermore, the view that Surrealist women's use of nature symbols is primarily connected to a fertile, reproductive "Mother Earth" ideal is countered. Rather, women artists consciously invoke the complete range of roles and clichés surrounding the woman-nature link; they take these allegories and recreate them into their own versions, including images of savageness and shadiness, the "immoral" side of nature.
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Claudia Skoda. Dressed to Thrill., 2020
*One PDF with both the German and the English version of the text.* During the late 1970s and ear... more *One PDF with both the German and the English version of the text.* During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Claudia Skoda was an important figure in the subcultural milieu of West Berlin. On the one hand, she was (and is) quite singular: no one else did what she did. On the other hand, she was a connective force: Skoda constituted the juncture of a network of allied artists, musicians, fashion designers, and filmmakers. Skoda herself alternated between and expanded the various disciplines. Her creativity was manifested in particular in her delight in play: she conveyed her themes not with deadly seriousness, but instead in ways that were diverting and sexy. Despite this (or because of it), she made an impression. Knitwear had never been so entertaining.
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Conference Presentations by Marie Arleth Skov
Punk Scholars Network Annual Conference, 2023
“Dada was a bomb. Can you imagine someone, half a century after the explosion of a bomb, intent o... more “Dada was a bomb. Can you imagine someone, half a century after the explosion of a bomb, intent on collecting the shards, pasting them together and displaying them?” Said Max Ernst in an interview with Patrick Waldberg in 1970. Well, yes. Punk was a bomb too, and here I am, half a century later, doing what historians do (in my case, art historian): pasting together the shards. Soon to be 50 years after punk’s first explosions, the fires which they caused, are still burning. Writing the cultural history of the late 20th century without punk would be absurd, not the other way around. However, just like with Dada, the character of the punk movement demands we work with attention and authenticity. After all, Dada in the museum has been the subject of conflicts too, like the much-debated exhibition Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage at MoMA in 1968, which was accompanied by rallies by radical groups, such as Up Against the Wall Motherfucker!, who protested the reduction of a political movement into a purely aesthetical one. Similarly, how might we show punk culture, without taming it, without fetichizing it? How might we avoid, as Arthur C. Danto once put it, to define artworks in museums as “treasures that have passed the test of time” (Unnatural Wonders, 2005), when punk design, fashion, and art never did aim to be neither treasures, nor for eternity? These questions, I will discuss in my paper, using Dada and punk archives and exhibitions as my examples.
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1. Berliner Punk Symposium, 2023
"They own the land, the buildings, the money, the media and the sex. But maybe not the language."... more "They own the land, the buildings, the money, the media and the sex. But maybe not the language." (Douglas Rushkoff in Painful But Fabulous, p. 20). In punk’s interrogation of the power structures of UK society, language emerged as a formidable tool. Punks spread their (anti-) messages with a high sense of humor, absurdity, and mission awareness: the weapons of the underdog. Genesis P-Orridge of COUM Transmissions for example engaged in a kind of reoccupation of the English language, using thee for the, E for I, butter for but, etcetera. These détournements became part of the "Coumalphabet" which was used in all statements made by the group. Much like the Dadaists at the beginning of the century, punks used nonsense and fragmentation to command attention, forcing you to read twice: The incomprehensibility and the inconvenience were desired effects. Language became a means of resistance against the dominating omnipresence of conservative mass media. The street scape was used for posters, messages, disruptions. Furthermore, as Jon Savage notes, "Punk's idea was to play the media's accelerated jumble of signals back at them, like one of William Burroughs' tape-recorder experiments in Electronic Revolution" (England's Dreaming, p. 231). In this paper, I will analyze these different strategies of subversion, focusing on European punk in the late 1970s.
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Lissabon EAM 2022 , 2022
Punk as a movement was more than music and clothes and more than cliché teenage rebellion against... more Punk as a movement was more than music and clothes and more than cliché teenage rebellion against boring parents. Whereas the very early punk manifestations were often characterized by a purer form of tabula rasa mentally, the movement turned activist in a heartbeat. Central to punk culture is this dichotomy between negation and creation, destruction and DIY. Punk was hybrid: The old dream of the avant-garde—to merge life and art—became reality in punks' everyday extravagant costumes and parties that were like surreal theater shows. And punk was an international phenomenon: Though the first sparks flew with proto-punk outbursts in Detroit, and New York 1975 and London 1976 set it ablaze, the fire soon spread globally. The punk movement manifested itself differently, but consistently in cultural spheres all over the world, including Northern Europe.
We might view punk as a 1970s/1980s iteration of the (neo-) avantgardes. Strategies such as self-publishing, proclamations, and détournement were employed in punks' own ways. On the other hand, there was a hostility within the punk movement towards the pretentiousness of the avantgarde term. Punks thus rather placed themselves as the rearguards, not the avantgardes, a statement which was in actually made by Danish punks in 1981, when they called themselves "bagtropperne". A NO FUTURE movement was not looking to "lead the way". Instead, the punk movement broke through the post-war narrative of progress and simultaneously refused to become the next new ism. For an analysis of the state of modernism in the fin de siècle of the 20th century, punk is intrinsic. Taking its starting point in the "bagtropperne" anecdote and the Copenhagen punk scene, this paper delves into the question of punk as avantgarde (or: rearguard), and into the post-historic art-to end-all-art which artists associated with the punk movement made at the time.
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CAA conference, 2023
In 1970s-1980s punk rock, punk art, and punk fashion sex was a vehicle for autonomy—a counter-con... more In 1970s-1980s punk rock, punk art, and punk fashion sex was a vehicle for autonomy—a counter-concept both to the traditional hetero-normative family structure and to the hippie delusion of an alternative 'free love' which had often turned out not to be so free after all. Instead, concepts of submission and sadism, power plays and pornography, took center stage, shocking the bourgeoisie in what was, ultimately, a libertarian artistic spirit. This paper argues that punk feminism thus placed itself in an avant-gardist feminist tradition of seeking emancipation through the exploration of 'amorality,' reaching back in time to Valentine de Saint Point’s "Manifesto of Futurist Woman" (1912) and to the discussions by feminist scholars like Simone de Beauvoir (Must We Burn Sade? 1953), Susan Sonntag (The Pornographic Imagination, 1967) and Angela Carter (The Sadeian Woman, 1978). Women in punk often played with 'forbidden' topics—sexual violence, sex for sale—exploring their own dirrrrty dreams, while at the same time unequivocally pinpointing the misogynistic tendencies both of their subcultural peers and society at large, while repeatedly clashing with second-wave anti-pornography feminists too. This paper analyzes examples of a punk ‘femme fatale’ or ‘black sheep’ feminism—such as Vivienne Westwood’s fashion (the torn clothing, the boob T-shirts), lyrics by the Slits and X-Ray Spex (“Oh Bondage,” 1977), and artworks and performances by Linder Sterling (the lingerie masks, the strap-on dildo) and Cosey Fanni Tutti (Sexual Transgression, 1976; Magazine Actions, 1983-1980)—and relates these within an art historical as well as philosophical background.
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Punk Scholars Network Conference, 2022
The backdrop of punk’s rise in the late 1970s was a divided and estranged culture—a culture that ... more The backdrop of punk’s rise in the late 1970s was a divided and estranged culture—a culture that was, in the eyes of young people in the US, UK, and Europe, heading nowhere: No Future. In counter-reaction to this situation, a wave of destruction and creation, of do-it-yourself activism and burn-down-the-house-hedonism washed over what was formerly known as the Western Civilization. Finding outlets in aggression and provocation, but also finding alternatives in outsider communities, punk musicians, punk filmmakers, and punk artists tried out different strategies of resistance to the late capitalist, conservative, and restrictive society they were facing. This paper focusses on European artists of the late 1970s to early 1980s that were associated with the punk movement and analyzes how, in their art, they found ways of either escaping or fighting the system. The examples oscillate between pain and pleasure, between abuse and appropriation, between negation and affirmation, between fatalism and activism. We see social involvement, sloganeering, and street art on the one side, and sarcastic distancing and antithetic gesturing on the other. As a movement, punk incorporated both these modes from early on. Drawing on interviews with punk art protagonists from Copenhagen, West Berlin, and Amsterdam as well as analysis of their work, the paper displays and considers diverse punk art works, from body art (Nina Sten-Knudsen), photography (Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson) and collage (Hugo Kaagman and Diana Ozon), to Super 8 films (Die Tödliche Doris) and spectacular art/music festivals (Die Große Untergangsshow, Engl. The Great Downfall Show). The paper features punk’s inner conflicts—art school vs. hard school—while at the same time highlighting what was shared. Finally, the question is asked, if these strategies still bear relevance today, for young people who call themselves “the last generation,” thus incorporating a contemporary and urgent version of no future.
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ISSS Surrealisms Exeter, 2019
Much has been written about how male surrealist artists depicted the female body, about the muse,... more Much has been written about how male surrealist artists depicted the female body, about the muse, about amour fou and taboo, about Anima and Animus, Eros and Thanatos, mannequins and Marquise de Sade. In Surrealism, the feminine is spun both in admiration and misogyny, recognition and objectification, and the feminine is, as Alyce Mahon puts it, "the path and the space for revolt" (Surrealism and the Politics of Eros, 2005); a contrast to patriotism and rationalism. In their focus on the female body, male surrealist artists ambiguously celebrated the sexual power and the "sorcery" of the feminine. Such an understanding is not contradicted, yet nonetheless expressed differently in the way surrealist women depicted the female body and female sexuality: here, "nature" is often engaged as a concept, through flora and fauna symbols. Through diverse biological metamorphoses of the female body, qualities of the unsubdued, the feral, are visualized. In short-analysis of both prominent and lesser-known artworks by surrealist women, this paper presents examples: In Meret Oppenheim's Fur Gloves (1936) and Leonor Fini's Sphinx (1954), we see juxtapositions of females and felines, whereas seashells, roots, leaves, and arboreal creatures play a key role in Elsa Thoresen's The Face of the Beach (1939) and Rita Kernn-Larsen's The Women’s Uprising (1940), the latter considered as pornographic by art critics at the time. In contrast to the artificiality of dolls, dummies, or porcelain busts, these works emphasize organic and animalistic materials and forms, and thus consciously and confidently link female sexuality with nature's domain.
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"Art after Operation Spanner: Visual cultures, sex and sadomasochism since 1987" at AAH - Association of Art Historians Conference, 2016
On 19 February 1992, the UK Channel Four television program Dispatches aired an episode called Be... more On 19 February 1992, the UK Channel Four television program Dispatches aired an episode called Beyond Belief. In this episode, explicit material showing practices of ritualized sex, humiliation, and violence was presented as evidence of ongoing Satanic Ritual Abuse in the UK. The voice in the video footage was of tattoo artist Mr. Sebastian, who had been tried in the Spanner case. Although it quickly became apparent that the footage was actually a 10-years-old video art piece called First Transmission by the artists group Thee Temple ov Psycick Youth (TOPY), with whom Mr. Sebastian was associated, the broadcast led to panicky media and public reactions. The footage had even been shown on Channel Four before – explicitly with the purpose to demonstrate the misleading potential of video editing. The pre-coverage accusations, and the connection to Mr. Sebastian, however, led the police to raid the house of TOPY-founder Genesis P-Orridge and seize his work archive. As a result, P-Orridge and his family moved to the US. The incident shows the widespread impact of the Spanner case and points to the cultural climate which enabled it. This paper analyzes the First Transmission/Dispatches case from an art historical and media theoretical perspective, with a focus on questions of reality vs. fiction and representation vs. misrepresentation, both within the original art piece as well as the circumstances and effects of the Dispatches broadcast. Secondly, the paper outlines the impact of the case on the later artistic practice of Genesis P-Orridge, especially his body art.
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Papers by Marie Arleth Skov
Book Chapters by Marie Arleth Skov
Johnny Rotten’s echo of André Breton is one of many links between surrealism and punk. Though Dada is mentioned more often—thanks to punk impresario Malcolm McLaren’s self-labeling, Jamie Reid’s collages for the Sex Pistols, and Greil Marcus’s analyses in Lipstick Traces (“It was an old dream come true—as if the Sex Pistols . . . had happily rediscovered a formula contrived in 1919, in Berlin, by one Walter Mehring”) —the links to surrealism are just as significant. There are substantial thematic ties and strategies adapted from surrealism by CoBrA, the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, King Mob, and punk, and several key figures moved between these interconnected movements. One discernible example is the paraphernalia sold at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s shop SEX in London’s West End, which sold fetish, S&M, and bondage gear, along with T-shirts with slogans from France’s May ’68 and the situationists, such as “Be Reasonable, Demand the Impossible” and “Prenez vos désirs pour la réalité” (Take your desires for reality). The Sex Pistols’ name itself not only borders on the ridiculously Freudian but also invokes surrealist imagery in the clarity of its symbols and its playful juxtaposition of disparate contexts. The artists, poets, and musicians involved in the punk movement exhibited an interest in (self-)abuse, sickness, and agony, and an instinct for corporeality and performativity. All of this relates to aspects of surrealism. […]
Conference Presentations by Marie Arleth Skov
We might view punk as a 1970s/1980s iteration of the (neo-) avantgardes. Strategies such as self-publishing, proclamations, and détournement were employed in punks' own ways. On the other hand, there was a hostility within the punk movement towards the pretentiousness of the avantgarde term. Punks thus rather placed themselves as the rearguards, not the avantgardes, a statement which was in actually made by Danish punks in 1981, when they called themselves "bagtropperne". A NO FUTURE movement was not looking to "lead the way". Instead, the punk movement broke through the post-war narrative of progress and simultaneously refused to become the next new ism. For an analysis of the state of modernism in the fin de siècle of the 20th century, punk is intrinsic. Taking its starting point in the "bagtropperne" anecdote and the Copenhagen punk scene, this paper delves into the question of punk as avantgarde (or: rearguard), and into the post-historic art-to end-all-art which artists associated with the punk movement made at the time.
Johnny Rotten’s echo of André Breton is one of many links between surrealism and punk. Though Dada is mentioned more often—thanks to punk impresario Malcolm McLaren’s self-labeling, Jamie Reid’s collages for the Sex Pistols, and Greil Marcus’s analyses in Lipstick Traces (“It was an old dream come true—as if the Sex Pistols . . . had happily rediscovered a formula contrived in 1919, in Berlin, by one Walter Mehring”) —the links to surrealism are just as significant. There are substantial thematic ties and strategies adapted from surrealism by CoBrA, the Lettrist International and the Situationist International, King Mob, and punk, and several key figures moved between these interconnected movements. One discernible example is the paraphernalia sold at Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s shop SEX in London’s West End, which sold fetish, S&M, and bondage gear, along with T-shirts with slogans from France’s May ’68 and the situationists, such as “Be Reasonable, Demand the Impossible” and “Prenez vos désirs pour la réalité” (Take your desires for reality). The Sex Pistols’ name itself not only borders on the ridiculously Freudian but also invokes surrealist imagery in the clarity of its symbols and its playful juxtaposition of disparate contexts. The artists, poets, and musicians involved in the punk movement exhibited an interest in (self-)abuse, sickness, and agony, and an instinct for corporeality and performativity. All of this relates to aspects of surrealism. […]
We might view punk as a 1970s/1980s iteration of the (neo-) avantgardes. Strategies such as self-publishing, proclamations, and détournement were employed in punks' own ways. On the other hand, there was a hostility within the punk movement towards the pretentiousness of the avantgarde term. Punks thus rather placed themselves as the rearguards, not the avantgardes, a statement which was in actually made by Danish punks in 1981, when they called themselves "bagtropperne". A NO FUTURE movement was not looking to "lead the way". Instead, the punk movement broke through the post-war narrative of progress and simultaneously refused to become the next new ism. For an analysis of the state of modernism in the fin de siècle of the 20th century, punk is intrinsic. Taking its starting point in the "bagtropperne" anecdote and the Copenhagen punk scene, this paper delves into the question of punk as avantgarde (or: rearguard), and into the post-historic art-to end-all-art which artists associated with the punk movement made at the time.
In the exhibition Chrysalis: The Butterfly’s Dream we see several artworks, where this idea of metamorphosis as transgression shines through. The tour focusses on works by Monster Chetwynd, Anna Zemánková, Frida Orupabo, Leigh Bowery, Pierre Molinier, and Genesis & Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge to explore the transgressive qualities of floral, sexual, and bodily transformation—and the potentially seditious pain and joy that comes with it.
Marie Arleth Skov is a Danish art historian, curator, and author based in Berlin.
https://centre.ch/en/events/chrysalis-guided-tour-with-special-guest-marie-arleth-skov-metamorphosis-as-transgression/
Gemeinsam mit Dr. Anna-Lena Werner, Kuratorin des Forschungsprojektes „Einladung – Archiv als Ereignis“, und Dr. Marie Arleth Skov von der Kunstbibliothek, tauchen wir in die Ephemera der Kunstwelt des 20. Jahrhunderts ein – den Avantgarden, von der Wiener Sezession bis zu Fluxus und Konzeptkunst.
The symposium discussed artistic strategies of subversion in art and activism connected to the Berlin Wall. From Fluxus actions in the 1960s to graffiti-writing and underground super 8 films in the 1980s to contemporary interventions.
Marie Arleth Skov, a Danish art historian based in Berlin, and Berlin curator and cultulogist Lutz Henke tracked the aesthetic and activist approaches by artists up against/on/and with/ the wall —that is, the wall both as asymbol and as a material fact.
Over the decades, artists have employed absurdity and fantasy, ironic “beautification” and destruction in their artistic reactions to the Berlin Wall in particular and the concept of border barriers in general. At times, the interventions carried out from the (safe) West Berlin side comprised a double-attack on the deadly prison wall built by the SED-Regimeand at the same time on the hypocrisy of the capitalist West’s self-satisfied sanctimoniousness, as well as a dark fascination with the “thing” in-itself. After the Peaceful Revolution in 1989, the former border fortifications and its remains continued to inspire and provokeartists, by then with a new set of implications and questions concerning remembrance and actuality.
Among the discussed examples are works by Joseph Beuys, Allan Kaprow, Rainer Fetting, Die Tödliche Doris, Notorische Reflexe, Gordon Matta Clark, Keith Haring, Stephan Elsner, Wermke/Leinkauf as well as p.t.t.red.
The artists’ workshop with curators and art scientists Marie Arleth Skov and Lutz Henke built on the topics of the symposium (18.10) and looked at artistic subversions of power structures and dissolution of boundaries in Europe today.
In addition, a variety of contemporary pieces and interventions employing the concept of artistic transgressions served as a starting point to discuss fundamental question such as: Which responsibility do artists have in a society? Can art challenge existing power-structures? Which moral and legal implications bare artistic transgressions? How can artistic strategies and their outcome be translated to a certain context (of the art world, the general public etc.)? Eventually; what is the importance and function of contemporary artistic practice?
The lecturers have been involved conceptually and practically in most of the presented projects, which allowed a hands-on-approach with a high degree of practical and theoretical reflection.
An interaction with the participants and engagement with their own projects was highly encouraged. The workshop could be considered an entertaining master-class in artistic practice defying contemporary boundaries and frontiers, thus building bridges.
The art by Claus Larsen – as much mechanical engineer as artist – is characterized by a raw, industrial aesthetic. His works are constructions of minimalistic precision, centered on form and function. Cable connections and mechanics are left in the open, to let the viewer get a sense of the functional context.
Two aspects define the work of Claus Larsen more than anything: Proportion and sound level. The acoustic and aesthetic timing of the works in regard to each other as well as to their surroundings is crucial to their impact. Due to the specifics of the REH Kunst space, this principle gains importance. Walking through a space-extending building, one might experience almost somewhat of an Alice-in-Wonderland effect: Reaching the far side of the room, you seem to have gotten bigger, or the surroundings ever smaller – the notion of proportions is thus enhanced. Furthermore, the wood paneling and the roundish shape of the building cause the space to have an extraordinary acoustic.
Most often, Claus Larsen starts the creative process with the imagination of a certain sound. To create this sound, he reckons different theoretical solutions to how that sound might be created, before then going on to actually building the matching machine. The sounds are made in the combination of a certain movement at a certain pace: the muted clanking of a chain dragged over the floor, or a mechanically constructed sequence of movements which triggers a rhythmical stomping, or the resonance of metal hammering against metal. In this way, Larsen’s constructions are like experiments: He is looking for the solution to a (self-imposed) problem. His artistic method follows the concept of scientific experimenting.
In his art, Claus Larsen deals with verifiable and concrete physics, the principle of cause and effect. Most often, his machines involve repeating, swinging, or rotating circuits. The continuous movement and the rhythmic repetition of sound can have an almost hypnotic effect on the beholder.
The machines of Claus Larsen have no practical use. They exist on their own, independent of any human demand. The power with which they move and the noise they produce can be intimidating, even unsettling. Some of these machines seem as though they have a life of their own, which can make them seem almost threatening. In the context of the art exhibition their impact is massive. Especially in the larger works, the power of the machines becomes tangible, and the power relationship between man and machine is questioned.
Claus Larsen (born 1977) studied at the Holbæk School of Art, the Frederiksberg Technical School and the Funen Academy of Fine Arts in Odense, and has worked in the studio of Jeppe Hein for several years. He has received several international grants and scholarships, among others from the Hans und Charlotte Krull Stiftung and the The Royal Danish Academy. His works have been exhibited in several solo and group shows, most recently in the museum FLUXUS+ and KOH-I-NOOR. Claus Larsen lives and works in Berlin.
The exhibition is curated by Valeska Hageney and Marie Arleth Skov.
The participating artists show different approaches and positions in regard to the motif of reutilization. Often the artists draw on their immediate surroundings and incorporate elements of their everyday reality, with the accessibility of materials making out a not unimportant aspect. Among the applied artistic strategies are the re-contextualization of used or thrown-away items as well as the aestheticizing reinterpretation of everyday objects.
For the exhibition, Surya Gied (b.1980) has created a room-specific floor installation (Fountain Wall, 2013) which is put together from reused surfaces, such as frames, aluminum grids, clamping plates,, and painted canvases. In her work, Gied assembles these found elements to a new construct, which she then glues and spray paints. The result is a geometric, dynamic montage which relates to the lines and planes of the exhibition space.
In her work Yet Untitled Mirrored Sculpture 1 (2013), Madeline Stillwell (b.1978) arranges cut photographs of found construction materials atop a surface of broken mirrors, raw clay, and ceramic forms which are abstractions of the images in the photographs. The dimensionality of the REH Kunst space is reflected in the mirror fragments of these trashy tableaux.
Christian Henkel (b.1976) also works with found construction materials, such as carved and painted wood, porcelain and old metal pieces, in his work I Am A Designer (2012). In spite of its functionless fantasy shape, this strange, playful assemblage of found elements evokes the notion of a purpose of use. In the merged reconstruction, innovation and tradition blend. Here, the reutilization has an element of craftsmanship to it, which takes the original purpose of the material into consideration.
In each their own way, Surya Gied, Christian Henkel and Madeleine Stillwell all work with aspects of fragmentation. Compared to this, one can find a sublimation of everyday objects and natural elements in the artworks by Lars Bjerre, Philipp Ricklefs and Moritz Hirsch.
Lars Bjerre (b. 1975) exhibits an installation of nine mundane plungers (Pümpel, Svupper, Plummer, 2013) which, perfectly neatly beaded and clad in drawing, fine-tuned color combinations, become objects of desire. Wrapped in thick yarn, the plungers are utterly useless. In a sort of appropriation of everyday life, they are instead staged as works of art.
The approach of Philipp Ricklefs (b. 1981) is similarly ironic. In his work, tater system (2010), the potatoes are no longer organic or edible – they are neodymium magnets, embedded in fibreglass-reinforced synthetics, coated with 2k-varnish. From an iconographic point of view, they are closer to a high-tech scientific experiment than a natural product.
The work Standby (2010) by Moritz Hirsch (b. 1978) is also comprised of materials commonly used for structural design; steel panels, phosphorescent paint, and packing materials. Here, these materials gain the qualities of a classical sculpture; sober elegance, silvery-shimmering surface and severity dominate the work.
A third category of reutilization is chosen by artist Marija Stanković (b. 1980) who grew up in Belgrade. In her paper work, Filling the Form (2011-2012) she has filled out old, found printed forms from the former Yugoslavia with color fields. As required, the forms are neatly completed – but instead of the inquired data, the boxes are filled in with pastel color and graphite. This way of re-contextualizing visualizes the question of the consequences of social and bureaucratic forms – through the artistic reutilization, the absurdity is displayed and the system is scrutinized.
The exhibition space itself – the GDR Raumerweiterungshalle (REH, literally, space-extending building) – is a construction originally made for another purpose and context, which is now being re-used as an art and project space. REH refers to a modular architectonic system whose individual elements can be telescopically extended to form a multi-functional space that remains transportable despite its solid roof, floor, and walls. The REH was a part of everyday life in East Germany and long helped shape its architectural landscape.
Kursets formål er at undersøge og diskutere disse møder mellem visuel kunst og musik. Hvilke (tvær-) faglige metoder står til rådighed i en analyse? Hvilket sprog og hvilke kategorier kan vi bruge i omtalen af grænseoverskridende værker? Findes der karakteristika, der går igen og kan overføres fra et medie til et andet? Hvordan finder de samme temaer eller tendenser forskellige udtryk i musik og billedsprog? I hvilket forhold står kunsten og musikken til hinanden, i hvilken grad og på hvilken måde forholder de sig synæstetisk? Hvilke former for ”møder” ser vi og hvordan er de forskellige? Hvad har ændret sig – såvel i kunstnernes egen som i publikums forståelse af udtryksformer – fra 1950erne til i dag?
Kurset er opdelt i kapitler bestående af eksempler (cases) på møder mellem visuel kunst og musik. De studerende vælger hver en case, der skal præsenteres med et 20-30 min. mundtligt oplæg til diskussion og en 5-7 siders skriftlig opgave. I forhold til hver case skal der i en analyse gøres rede for historisk baggrund, protagonister, opståen, æstetik, indhold, reception og anvendt metode.
Kapitlerne (med forslag til cases) er: Musikvideoer (Chris Cunningham/Aphex Twin: “Come to Daddy”, 1997, Wolfgang Tillmans/Pet Shop Boys “Home and Dry”, 2002, Takashi Murakami/Kanye West: “Good Morning”, 2007), Pladecovere & logi (Stanley Donwood/Radiohead, Raymond Pettibon/Black Flag, Peter Saville/New Order), Ikoner & inspiration (Andy Warhol og Velvet Underground, Salvador Dalís Alice Cooper Chromo-Hologram, 1973, Keith Harrings kostumer til Grace Jones, 1985-1986), Grænsebrydere & kunstnerbands (Yoko Ono, Die Tödliche Doris, Laurie Anderson, Chicks on Speed), Gesamtkunstwerker & koncepter (Matthew Barney “River of Fundament” 2006–2014, David Shrigley: “Worried Noodles”, 2007), Kollaborationer (Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Liam Gillick & Sarah Morris). Det sidste kapitel Bevægelser undersøger kulturelle strømninger, der oftest bliver betragtet enten fra en ren musikalsk eller en ren visuel side. Ligesom Jazz og Abstract Expressionism kan betragtes som knyttet til hinanden – kan vi så tale om ”blues” eller ”punk” kunst?