I should say that when I put stuff up by other artists it is because I am looking at their stuff and inspired by it. The inspiration isn’t always a literal thing that feeds into my work. Sometimes it is their uncompromising qualities, the fact that they take risks, I find something interesting about what images they are exploring or I just like what they represent.
What I love about Kent Monkan’s work is that he works across so many different media and genres to explore continuing questions about race, sex, camp, glamour, power and authenticity. He also has a wicked sense of humour.
About Kent Monkman
Kent Monkman is a Canadian artist if Cree ancestry who works with a variety of mediums, including painting, film/video, performance, and installation. He has solo exhibitions at numerous Canadian museums including the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art in Toronto, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Art Gallery of Hamilton. He has participiated in various international group exhibitions. He is represented by Galerie Florent Tsin in Berlin, Bruce Bailey Art Projects in Toronto, Pierre-Francois Ouelletee art contemporain in Montreal and TrepanierBaer Gallery in Calgary.
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Monkman draws on the facts of these events to create a screening gallery of his own, a turn-of-the-century movie theatre that intends to shock and entertain, just as Catlin did. The tipi-come-cinema lures its audience with a sophisticated appeal; inside a chandelier hangs amongst sweeping drapery in a soft glow of light and, on the floor, a stretched (simulated) buffalo hide plays two movies, Group of Seven Inches and Robin’s Hood.
Photo: John Goldstein
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The Monkmanian version of this scene, displayed on five screens in the shape of buffalo hides, shows Miss Chief Eagle Testickle dancing the role of the Berdashe. The choreography, created by Canadian Cree actor, choreographer and dancer Michael Greyeyes, is based on both the traditional powwow and contemporary dance. The music, written by Toronto composer Phil Strong, is a free syncopated version of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, a modern masterpiece also inspired by ancient tribal rituals.
Photo: Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Christine Guest
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These high heeled pumps were worn by Miss Chief in numerous films, videos and performances. They are also displayed as Miss Chief ’s personal effects inside Boudoir de Berdashe.
Photo: Brian Boyle
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Monkman created Séance in response to being censored from the First People’s Gallery at the ROM during the Shapeshifters (link) exhibition. In her conversations with the spirits of 19th century painters, Eugene Delacroix, Paul Kane, and George Catlin, Miss Chief’s costumes grow increasingly larger and more outlandish, as the responses of each successive artist draws more of her ire.
Right-click to download ’Dance to Miss Chief.mp3‘
Photo: Brian Boyle
My one woman show The Silicone Diaries is nominated for a Prix de le Critiques by the Association Québécoise des critiques de théâtre (AQCT). It is nominated in the Hors-Quebec category or “outside Quebec” for productions that originally come from other places. There are two other productions nominated in the same category. They are Yume No Shiro by Potudo-ru (originally from Tokyo, Japan), and Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech by Toshiki Okada (also originally from Japan). Both of the other productions were shown at the Festival Trans-Amerique. The Silicone Diaries appeared at Theatre La Chapelle (co-produced with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre) in December 2010.
This is very exciting and a great honour. The Montreal production of the play was very special to me. I hope to be able to come back and work in Quebec in the future.
Friday, October 21st, 10am
in The History of Solo Performance
Drama Centre, University of Toronto
(course director: Nikki Cesare)
—a discussion of the French body-artist Orlan, the Cypriot-Australian performance artist Stelarc whose work focuses on extending the capabilities of the human body and Canadian Nina Arsenault’s cosmetic and spiritual exploration of beauty, image and queerness
OPEN TO PhD AND MASTERS LEVEL STUDENTS
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Friday, November 4, 11:30am-1:00pm
Nina Arsenault: Daughter of the Air
Ryerson University Theatre
(organized by Cynthia Ashperger and Judith Rudakoff)
–panel discussion about me and my work by Cynthia Ashperger (the head of Ryerson’s Theatre Dept and an expert on the Michael Chekov Acting Technique) and Judith Rudakoff (scholar, dramaturg, playwright, editor who has worked with me on my stage scripts and who has editted the forthcoming book TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work) and myself
OPEN TO RYERSON THEATRE DEPARTMENT STUDENTS
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Wednesday, Nov 21, 7pm-9pm
Nina Arsenault: Queer Art Diva (an evening of selected writings, monologues and visual art)
(organized by GLOW – Gays and Lesbians of Waterloo)
in the Main Theatre, University of Waterloo Theatre Department
OPEN TO ALL UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO STUDENTS AND THEIR GUESTS
(ticket prices tba – in support of GLOW)
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Wednesday, November 30, 10am
in Praxis: Intersections of Identity in Theory, in Performance (3rd year course)
Brock University
(course director J. Paul Halferty)
CLOSED TALK
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Mon, December 5, 2:30pm
in Performing Gender (4th year course)
York University
(course director J. Paul Halferty)
CLOSED TALK
I found this on Buddies and Bad Times Theatre’s facebook page. It’s great and a very awesome companion to the (much longer) David Lynch youtube video I posted below about creativity. I hope it sparks something in you!
I’m just in a photo from Bruce Labruce’s Toronto Film Festival party in Spetember at The Bovine Sex Club, but it’s really cool cause Vice magazine (and vice.com) is a legendary NYC counterculture magazine. I’ve always loved it, and laugh out loud reading it.
CUT AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING LINK to read Bruce’s column.
http://www.vice.com/read/tiff-tribulations
here’s the picture captioned: Hot trannies Nina Arsenault (left) and Lexi Tronic
CUT AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING LINK TO GO TO THEIR WEBSITE:
http://www.wix.com/culturaalacarte/artecontemporaneo
The image used is a modified photo from the Transformation series I did with Bruce Labuce in 2005 (NSFW!). A couple of the images are available to see on my website (ninaarsenault.com) if you search under the Category “photographic projects.” Contemporary art History Presents, however, did a compelling gold treatment on my body though giving the shots a different effect and meaning.
And, you can see all the shots from the series as they appear in the magazine by CUTTING AND PASTING THE FOLLOWING LINK:
http://www.wix.com/culturaalacarte/artecontemporaneo#!obra/vstc2=bruce-la-bruce
TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work is a book which is being published about me and my work by Intellect Books. The book is edited by Judith Rudakoff. There is information on the book below. It will be available for purchase in May.
CUT AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING LINK TO GO TO INTELLECT BOOKS’ TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault: An Unreasonable Body of Work:
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/books/view-Book,id=4875/
Not yet Available
Price £19.95, $30
ISBN 9781841505718
Paperback 160 pages
230x174mm
Transgendered playwright-performer, columnist, and sex worker Nina Arsenault has undergone more than sixty plastic surgeries in pursuit of a feminine beauty ideal. In TRANS(per)FORMING Nina Arsenault, Judith Rudakoff brings together a diverse group of contributors, including artists, scholars, and Arsenault herself to offer an exploration of beauty, image, and the notion of queerness through the lens of Arsenault’s highly personal brand of performance art.
Illustrated throughout with photographs of the artist’s transformation over the years and demonstrating her diversity of personae, this volume contributes to a deepening of our understanding of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be beautiful. Also included in this volume is the full script of Arsenault’s critically acclaimed stage play, The Silicone Diaries.
At one and a half hours this lecture/demonstration takes some time to absorb, but it was one of the most healing and vitalizing 90 minutes of 2011 for me so far.
I totally recommend it for anyone, but especially for artists.
It features the inside story on transcending the brain, with David Lynch, Award-winning film director of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mullholland Drive, Inland Empire (filming); John Hagelin, Ph.D., Quantum physicist featured in “What the bleep do we know?;” and Fred Travis, Ph.D., Director, Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition Maharishi University of Management.
Ophelia/Machine is a long form video I have been developing in between phases of work for about 18 months. It is partly inspired by Heiner Muller’s postmodern masterwork Hamlet/Machine and partly inspired by events from my life.
While Ophelia/Machine is more surrealistic than my plays, The Silicone Diaries and I was Barbie, I see the works as a trilogy about autobiographical objectification.
I will shoot it this week on high def video working again with my collaborator Jordan Tannahill.
Ophelia/Machine will go into postproduction in phases in between me touring my theatre pieces and speaking at universities. Because of the unfolding way Jordan and I develop video we do not know what form the final product will take. I don’t expect though that it will be finished for another twenty-four months.
I’m very gratified by a short video (about 15 mins) that Jordan Tannahill and I have finished together (everything done now– the score, the end credits, the artist statement). It’s a total collaboration between Jordan and I and a new direction artistically for me. I love this piece. NOW WE APPLY TO FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVALS WHICH MEANS THE VIDEO CAN NOT APPEAR ON YOUTUBE. (It contains nudity so we wouldn’t be able to post it anyways.)
Jordan and I have been working on this piece for about ten months, on and off between our other various projects. It was formally called Dryad, but because of how it developed into a more metaphysical work it is now Plane of Immanence.
Below is some information about Jordan for those who don’t know him, followed by the artist statement for Plane of Immanence and a short trailer for the piece (which intentionally doesn’t reveal too much.)
Jordan Tannahill is a film and theatre director living in Toronto. His works of multimedia performance have been developed and presented on some of Canada’s most prominent stages including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Canadian Stage, Great Canadian Theatre Company, and the Harbourfront Centre. He is the founder and artistic director of the award-winning theatre company Suburban Beast. Recent honours include the Inside Out Film Festival’s Emerging Canadian Artist Award, the Ken McDougall Award for Emerging Directors, and being named one of Canada’s Top Twenty Under Twenty. Jordan is a graduate of Ryerson University’s film production program.
Plane of Immanence
Nina Arsenault / Jordan Tannahill
14 mins / Canada, 2011
Plane of Immanence began as a guerilla intervention at the (re)construction site of Maple Leaf Gardens, which artists Jordan Tannahill and Nina Arsenault found in a gutted, liminal state of transition. In this video, this iconic space rich with national cultural significance – an arena of masculinity – is realized into a new potentiality as a metaphysical labyrinth and virtual womb. The queering presence of the body of Arsenault, both naked and constructed, climbing through a jungle of rebar, front-end loaders, and caution tape, reveals to us a multilayered allegory for the trans body, the Deluezian notion of the ‘body without organs’, and permutations of the divine within the Self and the material world.
TEASER TRAILER BELOW: