Performances documented on video, 1: 2 minutes 45 seconds & 2: 6 minutes
A DVD compilation of all the “Avant-Garde Dating” trailers with German subtitles, 40 minutes was put together 2009
2007 (27.9: 2 ½ minutes & 1.10: 6 minutes) Original concept Tanya Ury’s, developed and performed by Laurel Jay Carpenter and Tanya Ury during the ”Avant-Garde Dating” week for Art Forum, 27.9. – 3.10.2008, The New Life Shop Art Gallery, Choriner Strasse 85, Berlin (D)
2007 (30.11. – 11.1.2008) Included in the exhibition “In Pursuit: Art on Dating” at the ISE Cultural Foundation Gallery, New York (USA) is a computer representation with all video trailers from the week’s residency in the New Life Shop Art Gallery, Berlin (D) www.isefoundation.org
Avant-Garde Dating was a Wooloo concept by the artists/curators Sixten Kai Nielsen & Martin Rosengaard www.AvantgardeDating.c…
An article by Simon Hoegsberg on Tanya Ury’s and Laurel Jay Carpenter’s partnership during the “Avant-Garde Dating“ week (27.9. – 3.10.2007) has been presented in the Danish magazine “Samvirke”, March edition 2008. There is an English translation on Hoegsberg’s website: www.simonhoegsberg.com
www.simonhoegsberg.com — article as PDF
Information
Performance Artists: | Laurel Jay Carpenter
Tanya Ury |
Camera & edit of trailers: | Menachem Roth |
Camera 2: | Martin Rosengaard |
Text information: | Tanya Ury |
Subtitles translation: | Tanya Ury
Amin Farzanefar |
Avid edit of DVD trailer compilation: | Rainer Nelissen |
Avant-Garde-Dating – a collection of works:
- The Danaids
- Zucchini
- Game & Match
- Climacter
- Broken Glass 1 & 2
- Avant-Garde Dating – Introductory Talk
Performers Carpenter and Ury raise their glasses in a toast; the glasses, containing red and white wine respectively, meet, clink and resonate, ringing slowly before being struck again with a force that smashes them.
Tanya Ury
more
Various associations are suggested in the performance context: the smashing of glass underfoot at a Jewish wedding, the breakdown of a relationship, where partners hurl tableware at each other.
The two unrehearsed, performed and documented actions (29th September and 1st October) evolved into a type of duelling match in which partners prepared themselves for a bout, slowly putting on long-sleeved evening gloves, Carpenter: red, Ury: blue, and protective eyewear.
The 19th century challenge to a duel, a glove slap in the face is emulated by Ury in Broken Glass 2. In both documented performances each move around each other as in a ritualised dance, steeling themselves for a sword-fight. In Broken Glass 1, both wine glasses when smashed together break, and the wines, red and white, mingle in the air briefly before falling to the ground with all the glass splinters.
Both Carpenter and Ury have created works that recall alchemical traditions: Carpenter has employed the colour red and a suggested bloodline in her performances Red Crest, Red Woman and Maiden, Mother, Crone; Ury has employed gold in the art works Golden Showers and Blue Danaé 1 & 2. These elements are alluded to in the mingling of the wine, red and white (gold), when the wine glasses are broken — the transformation of blood into gold, thus demonstrating the transformative aspect of the performance partnership between Laurel Jay Carpenter and Tanya Ury.
With Broken Glass 2, Ury, who so to speak wins the contest — her wine glass remains unbroken — unconsidered, imbibes the contents before throwing it down, thereby risking injury to her internal organs from the glass splinters; conversely Carpenter later discovers small skin grazes on her breasts and arms — for the duel she wore short sleeves and a dress with décolleté.
***
When Ury first suggested a performance of clinking and smashing wine glasses, it struck a chord with Carpenter: in her performance Fête (1995) she and partner Christine Marguerite had smashed a full china service, over a 3 hour period. laureljay.com/portfoli…
But Tanya Ury’s prime motive with this concept was quite another, that of a dubious toast on the 3rd of October, “Tag der deutschen Einheit” commemorating German Unification in 1990, when Berlin again became the country’s capital. In fact Ury wore a dirndl (the female German national dress — bought in South Germany from where her father originated) especially for the occasion, to welcome Carpenter (from the USA) to Germany.
Ury travelled to Germany in 1989 for 6 months on an ERASMUS grant to make a video at the Institute for Theatre, Film and Television Studies in Cologne, a town which was also the home town of many of her formerly persecuted Jewish family members. Later, in 1993, Ury finally moved to live in Cologne to observe the political and social developments of re-unified Germany, for better or worse.
***
The wall dividing Berlin from the rest of divided Germany fell on 9th November 1989, a date recalling “Kristallnacht” 1938, which is why it was an inappropriate choice for Unification Day. Crystal Night or the Night of Broken Glass is remembered in Germany as Reichskristallnacht, The National Night of Crystal Glass — shop windows were then made of high quality crystal glass. The pogrom in which windows and the contents of Jewish-owned shops nationwide and in Austria were destroyed and their proprietors beaten up or murdered, foresaw what was to come with the Final solution and genocide of Shoah.
After World War 2, West Germany was divided into 4 zones, American, British, French and Russian. Berlin was similarly divided into 4 sectors.
Although the intent was for the occupying powers to govern Germany together inside the 1947 borders, the advent of Cold War tension caused the French, British and American zones to be formed into the Federal Republic of Germany (and West Berlin) in 1949, excluding the Soviet zone which then formed the German Democratic Republic (including East Berlin) the same year. From 1948 onwards, West Germany developed into a western capitalist country with a social market economy (“Soziale Marktwirtschaft” in German) and a democratic parliamentary government. Prolonged economic growth starting in the 1950s fuelled a 30-year “economic miracle” (“Wirtschaftswunder”). Across the inner-German border, East Germany established an authoritarian government with a Soviet-style planned economy. While East Germany became rich, at least by the standards for countries in the Eastern bloc, many of its citizens still looked to the significantly wealthier West for political freedoms and economic prosperity. The flight of growing numbers of East Germans to non-communist countries via West Berlin led to Germany erecting the inner German border (of which the Berlin Wall was a part) to prevent any further exodus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
With re-unification, Germany experienced a slump in economic growth although it was still one of the world’s wealthiest countries. A minority in the former east expressed dissatisfaction with the tardiness of an expected return to wealth and turned to extremism. In the 2004 state election in Saxony (south Germany), the NPD (Nationale Partei Deutschlands: The National Democratic Party of Germany) that represents Right Wing extremist ideals in Germany, won 9.2% of the overall vote. Accusations of neo-Nazism arise from the party’s opposition to the increasing number of non-whites, Jews and Muslims living in Germany. Nazis demonstrate regularly but have also become an active threat again in Germany over the years.
The performance Broken Glass (in the “Avant-Garde Dating” exhibition context) celebrates the unification of two entities: a pair communicating in strife and/or Germany halved and re-united, recalling the catastrophes of the past where possible dangers of the future are also considered.
From Times Online, August 20, 2007 Neo-Nazi rampage triggers alarm in Berlin, Roger Boyes in Berlin: Locals in a small east German township stood by as a drunken mob of about 50 youths howling neo-Nazi slogans hunted down eight terrified Indian tourists. The attack in Mügeln, near Leipzig, was the latest in a series of violent assaults on foreigners in eastern Germany that is beginning to alarm the Government in Berlin. The inhabitants of Mügeln were celebrating their traditional Old Town street festival on Saturday night when a horde of German youths started to pick a fight with the visiting Indians. After pushing and shoving them the youths chased them out of a beer tent and pursued them down the narrow streets of the town centre. The young Indian men took refuge in a pizzeria and tried to barricade the doors with tables. By the time that the police arrived – about 70 officers – the Germans had smashed their way into the pizzeria. The eight Indians were treated in hospital but have now been released. The town authorities are still in denial about the reasons for the clash even though witnesses say that the mob was shouting slogans such as “Long live the national resistance!” and “Get out of Germany!”. “I really don’t know if there is a far-right background to this incident,” Gotthard Deuss, the Mayor, said yesterday. “There are no known right-wing extremists here. This is a town with barely 5,000 inhabitants and everybody knows everybody.” The regional police chief, Bernd Merbitz, went a little farther, saying: “We are investigating all possible motives, including the possibility that this was an act aimed at foreigners.” Saturday was a red-letter day for neo-Nazis across Germany – it was when they mark the anniversary of the death in 1987 of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy as leader of the Nazi party. Mr Deuss had apparently been warned before the celebrations that far-right sympathisers could try to disrupt the festivities…” www.timesonline.co.uk/…
Tanya Ury
Broken Glass 1., 27th September, 2 minutes 45 seconds
Broken Glass 2., 1st October, 6 minutes
Presentation
2007 (27.9: 2 ½ minutes & 1.10: 6 minutes) Live performances. Original concept Tanya Ury’s, developed and performed by Laurel Jay Carpenter and Tanya Ury during the ”Avant-Garde Dating” week for Art Forum, 27.9. – 3.10.2007, The New Life Shop Art Gallery, Choriner Strasse 85, Berlin (D)
2009 (25. – 26.3) March 25th, 6 p.m. SSC 026: video and power point presentation (short version): Avant Garde Dating and Avant-Garde Dating the video, guest lecturer, Department of Critical Studies (German), Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, University of British Columbia, Okanagan (CAN)
web.ubc.ca/okanagan
www.bclocalnews.com/en…
press as PDF
Information
Concept: Tanya Ury, developed and performed together with
Laurel Jay Carpenter
Camera & edit: 1 Menachem Roth
Camera 2: Martin Rosengaard