From the Galapagos website, with additional “atmospheric” (unfocused!) photos that I took at the show:
To celebrate Europe Day in New York, Jim Avignon, Katja Loher, and the Goethe-Institut New York transformed Galapagos with a sampler of European culture by New York-based European artists and special guests, who flew in for the event directly from Europe.
Blind Date Europe presented extraordinary concerts, theater, video screenings, multimedia shows, paintings and DJs.
The stage in the front room featured concerts by special guests Felix Kubin, Neoangin, and Dorit Chrysler, and on the stage in the back room the premiere of Katja Loher’s new short movie The Chess Field, Ant Hampton’s experimental theater piece The Other People / La Otra Gente, several short films by Marie Losier, and a multimedia event by PotiPoti. Galapagos was decorated with paintings by Jim Avignon. Later at night, DJs spun while the audience danced or digested all the delicious art they have seen.
Performers/Artists
Art by Jim Avignon
Jim Avignon: Pop-artist and bohemian. Born in Munich the very day the Beatles conceived the song “Baby You Can Drive My Car,” the autodidact works as a painter, illustrator, and conceptual artist. He releases the journal Attack/Delay on a regular basis and masterminds the annual “Who is afraid of friendly capitalism” lounge in Berlin. As his one-man-lo-fi-electronic-band Neoangin, he enjoys performing unruly concerts in obscure locations all over the world.
Therimin artist Dorit Chrysler
Dorit Chrysler: This Austrian lady has been living in New York for the past twenty years—it’s the place she comes home to from her travels as the grande dame of the theremin. Her fascinating voice and her unique method of playing the theremin make her music sound like a message from another world.
Ant Hampton: A British artist who has never been to the United States. Once he arrives in New York, he will wander around looking for suitable people to invite to the Galapagos stage to perform their selves and to present their own worlds. These will not be “theater” people, but there will be theater in them. At the time of writing, he has no idea who they are yet, because he hasn’t yet arrived in the U.S. Who will they be? Bomb squads? Hairdressers?
Felix Kubin: His father is a nuclear physicist, his mother an interpreter with a knack for superstition. Felix was delivered into this world along with a keyboard, for the sole purpose of dedicating his life to the fusion of serious music and entertainment music. Be a witness to Felix mating ruthless experimentation with the gay science.
Scene from “The Chess Field” by Katja Loher
Katja Loher: “The Chess Field” is a game of chess that has somehow come to life. The pawns develop plans to strike, and the black and white pawns form a union to overthrow the government. The four rooks in the corner pass the time playing with a ball, which becomes a deadly weapon. The chessboard becomes a battle field. Katja Loher’s work has been shown at the Russian State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, at “Art Digital” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, at “DIVA, Digital & Video Art Fair 2006″, in New York City, at Dublin Fringe 2006, right now at the 708 Art Festival in Beijing, among other showings.
Marie Losier: Flying Saucey! (a battle for sauce and survival), Eat My Makeup! (five winsome damsels’ picnic on a roof), and Manuelle Labor (Marie Losier gives birth to Guy Maddin’s hands) are the three shorts Marie Losier will present. The French-born artist has lived and worked as a filmmaker and curator in New York for many years. Her films have been presented at various international museums, galleries, and festivals, including the Berlin Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of Art (as part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial).
PotiPoti: These two Spaniards-turned-Berliners are a ubiquitous creative duo roaming about Europe. The characters they design combine the styles of street art with the Spanish joie de vivre. Their animals, who can be naïve and cheerful as well as gloomy and mysterious, make appearances at fashion shows as well as in video projections.
Sweaty fun, Blind Date Europe, Galapagos
tags: berlin performance new york
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