Carpenter & Ury 2007
Performance documented on video, English, 1 hour
Trailer: 4 minutes 50 seconds
A DVD compilation of all the “Avant-Garde Dating” trailers with German subtitles, 40 minutes was put together 2009
2007 (3.10) The Danaids is a collaborative work by Carpenter and Ury, conceived and performed during the ”Avant-Garde Dating” week, 27.9. – 3.10.2007, for Art Forum, The New Life Shop Art Gallery, Choriner Strasse 85, Berlin (D)
Avant-Garde Dating was a Wooloo concept by the artists/curators Sixten Kai Nielsen & Martin Rosengaard www.AvantgardeDating.c…
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
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
Avant-Garde-Dating – a collection of works:
- The Danaids
- Zucchini
- Game & Match
- Climacter
- Broken Glass 1 & 2
- Avant-Garde Dating – Introductory Talk
Laurel Jay Carpenter approached Tanya Ury with the idea of the Danaids; in Greek mythology they are the 50 daughters of King Danaus whom he called upon to collectively murder their husbands (also their cousins) on their enforced wedding night; their father provided the Danaids with:
“…ruby tipped poisoned pins to stick into their hearts. All of the Danaids did so (except one, who fell in love with her husband and eloped. She went to Elysium after her death. Punishment: The Danaids are forced to carry water in sieves from the Lethe to a bathtub which, when full (which it will never be) is to be used to cleanse their sins.” www.angelfire.com
Tanya Ury
more
Two women sit at adjacent sides of small square-shaped table. One of them starts to sew a very large circle very slowly with small, red, simple hand stitching onto a white cloth that covers the table. The cloth was in fact, a sheet that Danish photographer and journalist Simon Hoegsberg gave the performers to use on their last day of the week’s residency.
After a short while the second performing woman starts unpicking the work of the first, pulling her chair up closer, while the other pulls her chair away, to move on. When the first woman reaches the quarter-circle, the performers exchange the roles of sewer and unpicker. This continues until the circle is completed. Very few words are exchanged during the hour-long action.
The circle motif suggests cycles and phases of a clock, but also of the menstrual. Furthermore implied are the changes of generations, and “The Change” but also quite simply a sewing circle.
Wider allusions of the performance are to global sweatshops, where workers, mostly women, are treated as slaves and paid well below acceptable standards.
Walmart and Nike are two of the largest corporate sponsors of sweatshop labor, but claim that they have safeguards in place to avoid using the worst sweatshops. Disney has also employed sweatshops to produce much of their clothing and toys, but their use has not been as well publicized as the cases of Nike, Walmart, or Kathie Lee Gifford. In the book “Disney; the Mouse Betrayed”; a chapter shows dealings with China, Vietnam, Haiti, but especially targets Disney’s relationship with the military junta of Burma, of which it works hard to keep quiet given Burma’s huge unpopularity in the international community. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
In Carpenter’s and Ury’s email exchange over several months before their meeting in Berlin, the two artists discovered that they had common themes — images of them both creating art works were taped to the New Life Shop Art Gallery walls: Laurel at the machine sewing her impossibly long red dress (combining many donated red dresses sewn together) for the performances Red Woman and Red Crest1 — Tanya likewise machine-sewing small plastic bags containing her hair for Whos Boss: Hair Shirt. The Danaids also conjures up Ury’s video/performance Röslein Sprach… in which she sews the word “BOSS” into the palm of her left hand, bringing to mind the 150 persons who were engaged in forced labour to produce Nazi uniforms, from 1940 onwards until the end of the war, by the original Hugo Boss company.
Tanya Ury
1 Red Crest 2003 Horsebarn Hill, Storrs, CT, U.S.A. A woman appears at the top of the glorious, green crest. The sky is perfect blue. She is dressed in red. The woman descends the hill, each step revealing more of her dress, unfurling behind like a trailing artery. Look, the dress is impossibly long, stitched from a hundred others offered generously. The dress is heavy; it leaves a rut in the lush grass. The work is hard; the woman is tired and strained. Some think she needs help. Others do not. Some are worried she is suffering. Two approach the dress, help lift its weight, and join the woman on her walk. Many follow, mostly children, to see the dress up close and perhaps help carry it a way. With more help, more fanfare than expected, the woman reaches her destination, and disappears into the adjacent woods. Soon after, twilight falls. Red Crest is site-specific and cannot be performed again. The dress may instead travel and be presented in the form of Red Woman. www.i‑p-g.org
The Danaids, 3rd October, trailer 4 minutes 50 seconds
Presentation
2007 (3.10.) Live performance with Tanya Ury and Laurel Jay Carpenter, during the ”Avant-Garde Dating” week, 27.9. – 3.10.2007, for Art Forum, 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)
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 |