Kilimanjaro Magazine Edits: art, love and everyday life

My friend Henry Roy will be featured in an upcoming show in London. If you are in the area, I urge you to go check it out.

Kilimanjaro Magazine Edits: art, love and everyday life
4th February – 27th February 2010
20 Hoxton Square Projects
Tel: +44 207 033 0506
Admission Free

Kilimanjaro Magazine Edits: art, love and everyday life, is a show curated by Olu Michael Odukoya at 20 Hoxton Square Projects. The show features work by five photographers and three sculptors.

Established and founded in 2003, Kilimanjaro magazine is Odukoya’s personal labour of love. Collaborating with 20 Hoxton Square Projects, Kilimanjaro is now an exhibition too. In this show, like all the things Odukoya does, there is a rich mixture of cultural references. Erected in the middle of the gallery are a series of tunnels designed by architect Tom Finch and built out of flat pack mdf. Inside the space are photographs by international talents, Henry Roy, Robi Rodriguez, Claudia Stockli, J.H.Engstrom and Lukas Wassmann.

Henry Roy was born in Port au Prince in 1963 but grew up in France. He studied photography in Paris, after which he worked as a photojournalist and in 1996 published a book of black-and-white studio portraits, reminiscent of Richard Avedon or Irving Penn, titled Regards Noirs. JH Engstrom learnt his craft as Mario Testino’s assistant in the early 1990s and in 2009 he was part of Ca me touché, a photography show curated by Nan Goldin at the Arles Photofestival. While Roy and Engstrom are more established, Lukas Wassmann, born in 1980 is an emerging, as well as prolific talent. In the past year his work has appeared in Art Review, Das Magazin, I-D, Another Magazine, 032c and Interview.

Participating artists:
Henry Roy, Robi Rodriguez, Claudia Stockli, J.H.Engstrom , Lukas Wassmann, Alex Hoda, Michael Samuals, Milton Marques.

Alistair Bell

Igor Posner

Notes From the Underground


Born in St. Petersburg (former Leningrad), Russia, Igor Posner moved to Los Angeles, California in the early 90s. His early work includes photographs taken in south-central and downtown Los Angeles, Tijuana, Mexico. Igor returned to Russia in 2006, taking up photography full time.

At present, he lives between St. Petersburg, Russia and New York. He is currently working on two series: One focusing on Russian immigrant communities in Brooklyn and LA, and the other focusing on former Jewish ghetto settlements in Russia, Western Ukraine and Belarus.

Blood Sports

Monkey Beach was the first book my mother gave me in university. English is her second language, so these types of gifts have been few and far between. She liked the title, and wrote her hopes for my success in the future on the first page. As you can imagine, it is one of my most treasured gifts. However, despite the special circumstances of my discovering it, it has always been one of my favourite books.

Blood Sports is Eden Robinson's second novel. Considering my anticipation for more of her writing, I couldn't believe that I had missed its release in 2006. The excerpt below proves that it was worth the wait:

Hi Mel,

If you’re not eighteen yet, I want you to put this letter down right now. Okay? There’s a whole bunch of shit you ­don’t need to deal with until you’re ready. Your mom (I call her Paulie, even though she hates it. Try it, and you’ll get her Popeye squint) and I talked it over. We agreed not to put the heavy on you because we’re trying not to fuck your head up too bad.

You probably ­won’t be Melody when you read this. I’m wondering what Paulie will change your name to. Paulie was stuck on Anastasia, after the princess, but I thought no one would be able to spell it and you’d get tagged with Stacy or Staz or anything but your real name. My top choice was Sarah, but Paulie thought that was going to bite you in the ass in school when you met up with the hundred other Sarahs in your class. We went through a whole bunch of baby-­name books, and ­couldn’t agree on a single name. Paulie’s picks were too fancy and she thought mine were dull. Her words in the operating room: “If you fucking stick my girl with Jennifer while I’m under, I will rip your nuts off.”

Paulie wanted an all-­natural birth at home. Her friends here are into hippie shit like giving birth in wading pools and eating the placenta. Besides, she hates hospitals, ­doesn’t think they’re clean enough and hated the thought of you in a germ-­factory. I’m not a big fan of hospitals myself, so we were all set to have you enter the world at home (no pool or placenta though). But things got hairy, and Ella, the midwife, called an ambulance. Paulie kept saying she’d spent enough of her life wasted and ­didn’t want any shit, but she ended up having every drug in the book. I’m sure when she’s mad she tells you what a pain you were to deliver.

Paulie exploded when they put the tent around her belly because she wanted to watch you coming, even if they were going to cut you out. Is your mom all ladylike now? Ha. I bet she is. You ­wouldn’t believe the things that came out of her mouth, but they put the tent up anyway and she asked me to videotape everything so she could watch it later. I saw the first incision and said, ­“Can’t do it, Paulie.”

The midwife ­wouldn’t videotape, but she said she’d describe everything to Paulie. Ella is this tiny fireball, a Filipina in her mid-­forties, and she had to hop to peek over. I went and found her a stool and then waited in the hallway because there was no way I could listen to that. I walked down to the vending machine and got a coffee. So I missed your grand entrance. But we have a tape of everything up to that point, even the ambulance ride. I’m sure Paulie’s made you watch it by now. I stapled Ella’s business card to the back of this page, so you can look her up if you want.

I could hear you crying. You were loud as an opera singer. I could hear you all the way down the hall. Sad fact: Your dad is a big old weenie. I got a head rush and had to sit down. When I finally got my rear in gear, the nurse and midwife were checking you out, cleaning you up and swaddling you in the corner. The surgeon was finishing up your mom. She was pretty wiped. We’d been awake for three days by then.

When Paulie asked Ella if she should nurse, Ella laid you on her and you latched just like that. No problemo. All the shit going down and you took it in stride. Your mom’s smile, all proud of you.

“Come around here, you’ve got to see this,” Paulie said. “It’s like she’s mainlining.”

The nurse beside her stiffened. We’d had to disclose about Paulie being in Narcotics Anonymous. I think we freaked some of the staff. The whole week we were in the hospital, they acted like we were going to break out the rigs and turn our room into a shooting gallery.

I never got the deal with newborns. You were bald but hairy, red and wrinkled like any other newborn, and I’m sorry, Mel, but man, that is not a good look on you. You were sucking at Paulina’s boob like there was no tomorrow, your eyes screwed tight in ecstasy.

Read an online copy of Blood Sports at McClleland & Stewart.

Today's Note

Going West

Fantastics stop animation by the New Zealand Book Council for Maurice Gee's book Going West.

The Untamed: A Sinner's Prayer

I saw a brief interview with Stranger Comics publisher Sebastian A. Jones and was absolutely floored with the story of The Untamed: A Sinner's Prayer. Untamed is the introduction to new comic book universe centred on the world of Asunda and focuses on a character known only as the Stranger, who is returned to the land of the living for seven days to avenge his own, and his family's murder. Each day reveals one of the seven murders, his opportunity for revenge, and the moral struggles he faces.

In perfect compliment to the story, Swedish artist Peter Bergting has created beautifuly cinematic pannels reminicent more of a storyboard for a Kurosawa film.

The Untamed: A Sinner's Prayer #1 is available for free for the iPhone via digital comics distributor Panel Fly. An extended print edition will arrive in stores in 2010.

Forthcoming Asunda comics include:
Dusu, Path Of The Ancient - by Sebasitan Jones and Christopher Garner; art by Steph Stamb
Erathune - by Sebastian Jones and Darrell May; art by Sheldon Mitchell.

Randy Pandora

Pandora's work is beautiful. In fact I've put my money where my mouth is and purcahsed a couple pieces. He is a fascinating individual, and the Vancouver Sun interview below is worth a read.

MAKING ART FROM TRASH...REALLY
Randy Pandora has spent most of his life falling between the cracks. He was a teenage runaway, lived on the street for years, and admits to an on-and-off drug problem -- more on than off.

He's also been a longtime binner, sifting through people's garbage for bottles and cans to cash in. But he finds something else in the things people throw away -- the material for his art.

Pandora makes sculptures from almost anything: bicycle seats, a smoker's pipe, a faucet, a garlic press, an antique funnel from a gas can. In his hands, salad forks become noses, a shoe becomes a head, and a thumb from a boxing glove becomes a tongue.

It's not the kind of stuff you see at the big commercial galleries. But it fits right in at the Interurban Gallery at Carrall and Hastings in the Downtown Eastside, where Pandora's first solo show opened this week.

It's the highest public profile in decades for Pandora, who was a leading light in Vancouver's underground music scene, circa 1978-79. Back then he was the tall, whippet-thin singer in the Generators, an art-punk outfit infamous for its riotous live shows and songs like I Wanna Be A Girl.

"When we were good we were better than the New York Dolls," he states, "and when we were bad, we were just as bad as the New York Dolls. But we were definitely fun."

Unfortunately, the Generators broke up before they made any records. Then Pandora suffered a terrible beating which left him permanently injured.

"I had a head injury, a really major head injury, that still affects me to this day," says Pandora, who turns 51 on April 1.

"Somebody called me faggot and put my head in a corner and stomped on it with steel-toed boots. Caved in the whole left side of my head: six months in the hospital, three surgeries, huge memory loss.

"I'm pretty smart for a brain-damaged person, but my ability to memorize isn't the same, [and] my personality changed."

Since then, he's been on and off the street, although currently he has a place to live.

"I call it the fat man's coffin," he says. "I live in a seven-by-10 windowless room that I pay $350 a month for."

He has quite a story, Randy Pandora. He was born in Toronto, where his father J.J. Conroy was a bouncer and professional wrestler who went by a variety of names: Killer Kane Conroy, the Masked Marvel, the Assassin and the Psychedelic Killer.

Naturally, dad was a villain, or in Randy's words, "a beast." Dad also had a role as a villain in the Bob and Doug McKenzie movie Strange Brew: "He was the big fat ugly guy in the jail that scared the hell out of them."

But Randy Charles Conroy Hunter McArthur didn't spend much time with his father, who he claims sired 22 children by a variety of women. His mother was declared "unfit" to raise her children, so young Randy was put up for adoption. He ran away at 11, and ran away permanently at 14.

He moved to Montreal, where he landed a gig as a David Bowie impersonator in a drag show from 1972-74. "Two, three thousand people a week would see the show."

Somewhere along the line, Randy McArthur became Randy Pandora.

"Some drunken Russian sailors said my makeup reminded them of a panda bear," he recounts. "They went 'Randy Panda', and I said Pandora is much better."

He kept the moniker when he moved to Vancouver in 1976.

"I was reunited with my biological family; my mother had come out here to get away from my father," he says. "Harry Rankin did their divorce, actually."

In Vancouver he started attending the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr).

"I had been going there for about two years when they hauled me into the office and said 'Randy, has it ever occurred to you to register?' I said 'What do you mean, register?' 'Well, actually sign up. Enrol.' I said 'Why?' They said 'Well, you'd get marks in art.' Then they mentioned grant money, so I finally registered."

The first Talking Heads album had come out, and art students everywhere were inspired to start punk/new wave bands. Hence the Generators, which included the great Gary Middleclass (whose real name was Gary Bourgeois) on guitar.

After the Generators broke up, for a short time Pandora had a band called Exxotone. But then he more or less vanished from the local music and art scene, although there was the odd Randy Pandora sighting over the years.

His current comeback of sorts is due to the efforts of artist Carel Moiseiwitsch (who insisted he do a show) and John Lawrence of DoDa Antiques (who sells Pandora's work).

"I think Randy is incredibly resourceful, and very witty, and very inventive," says Moiseiwitsch.

"He's got absolutely no money, but he makes all this amazing stuff. All the rest of us [artists] have to have studios and God knows what, and this guy just makes it out of nothing. He's like a conjurer, he just brings the stuff up."

Lawrence feels the same way.

"I think he's a real product of his environment, which is very street-oriented. I like the idea of putting it all up and seeing it in a show where people can respond to it as a group, because there's a very wide variety of reaction to it, both on his part and on the part of the people who see it. He has said to me that sometimes he is frightened by his own work."

Indeed. His paintings -- which tend to be self-portraits -- can be quite sad.

"This is the sad clown with the vacant eyes," says Pandora, pointing to one of his favourite works.

"I think it [relates to my] head injury -- there's no top of the head. The eyes are vacant, there's a sadness. I suffer from bi-polar hyper-manic depression, it sometimes can be quite debilitating."

But in the main, Pandora's pieces are quite fun, playful and imaginative. He works wonders with bicycle seats, transforming them into amazing masks.

"It's a ripoff from Picasso," laughs Pandora.

"He's got the famous bicycle seat with the handle bars, like the bull's head. Bad artists copy, good artists steal."

Petropolis

Couldn't resist it. Anya Ulinich's writing is hilarious and she has a really great site for Petropolis worth checking out.


A CORRUGATED FENCE RAN THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF A STREET WITH NO NAME, until it crossed another street with no name. At the end of the fence, there were six evenly spaced brick apartment buildings and a grocery. Just under the buildings' cornices, meter-high letters spelled: glory to the, soviet army, brush teeth, after eatin, welcome to, asbestos 2, and model town! The letters, red and peeling, were painted along the seams in the brickwork, which forced the authors of the slogans to be less concerned with their meaning than with the finite number of bricks in each facade.

In the fall of 1992, Lubov Alexandrovna Goldberg decided to find an extracurricular activity for her fourteen–year–old daughter.

"Children of the intelligentsia don't just come home in the afternoon and engage in idiocy," declared Mrs. Goldberg.

She would've loved it if Sasha played the piano, but the Goldbergs didn't have a piano, and there wasn't even space for a hypothetical piano in the two crowded rooms where Sasha and her mother lived.

Mrs. Goldberg's second choice was the violin. She liked to imagine the three–quarter view of Sasha in black and white, minus the frizzy bangs. This is Sasha practicing her violin. As you can see, there is a place for the arts in the increasing austerity of our lives, she wrote in her imaginary letter to Mr. Goldberg, whose address she didn't know. But after the money was spent and the violin purchased, three consecutive violin instructors declared Sasha profoundly tone deaf and musically uneducable.

"A bear stepped on her ear," Mrs. Goldberg complained to the neighbors, and Sasha thought about the weight of the bear and whether in stepping on her ear the animal would also destroy her head, cracking it like a walnut.

"Sit up, Sasha," said Mrs. Goldberg, "and chew with your mouth closed."

Then came auditions for ballet and figure–skating classes, which even Mrs. Goldberg knew were a long shot for Sasha. On the way home from the last skating audition, where the instructor delicately described her daughter as overweight and uncoordinated, Lubov Alexandrovna walked two steps ahead of Sasha in a tense and loaded silence. Trudging through the snow behind her mother, Sasha contemplated the street lamps. She tried to determine the direction of the wind by the trajectories of snowflakes in the circles of light, but the snow seemed to be flying every which way. Sasha was staring straight up when her foot hit the curb and she landed flat on her face in a snowbank. This was more than Mrs. Goldberg could take.

"I told you to stop taking such wide steps. You want to see what you look like walking? Here!" Mrs. Goldberg swung her arms wildly and took a giant step. "See? This is why you fall all the time! You trip over your own feet!"

Sasha got up and dusted herself off. Her right coat sleeve was packed with snow all the way up to her elbow, and the anticipation of it melting made her shiver.

"I have some advice for you!" shrieked Mrs. Goldberg. "Watch your step! You should see yourself in the mirror, the way you move!"

Sasha woke up and stared at the water stain on the ceiling. For a while, her eyes were empty. She allowed the horror of life to seep into them gradually, replacing the traces of forgotten dreams. It was the first day of winter recess. The Fruit Day.

Mrs. Goldberg had a new diet for Sasha: each week, six days of regular food, one day of fruit only. Fruit meant a shriveled Moroccan orange from the bottom of the fridge and a mother's promise of more, since oranges were the only fruit found, if one was lucky, in midwinter Siberia. Mrs. Goldberg was already at work or orange–hunting somewhere, her bed neat as a furniture display.

Sasha got up and went to the kitchen. Feeling faintly revolutionary, she boiled water in a calcified communal teapot and pulled a chair up to the cupboard. In the corner of the top shelf was her mother's can of Indian instant coffee. Sasha put four spoons of coffee granules and four spoons of sugar in her cup and added water. The next stop was the fridge. Her mother had hidden all the food that belonged to the Goldbergs, but the other tenants still had theirs.

Sasha found half a bologna butt wrapped in brown paper, an egg, a brick of black bread, and half a can of sweetened condensed milk. She ate a bologna omelet and washed it down with burning coffee. For dessert she had the bread with condensed milk. Some of the milk seeped through the pores in the bread and made a mess. "Fruit!" cursed Sasha, licking the drips off her fingers. When her hands were clean, she made another cup of coffee and returned to the fridge.

Sasha Goldberg was determined to enjoy her vacation. Winter recess would be over in six days, and her fellow inmates would be waiting for her by the gates of the Asbestos 2 Secondary School Number 13, ready to knock her bag out of her hands and send her flying backward down the iced–over staircase. Hello, Ugly! Wanna die now or later? She would pluck her books and her indoor shoes out of the deep snow like birthday candles out of frosting and hurry to class.

Elliott Wall

You Look Familiar

No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

No Subtitles Necessary follows the lives of renowned cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond from escaping the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary to present day.As film students in Hungary, they shot footage of the Russian invasion of Budapest and subsequently volunteered to smuggle it out of the country. Barely escaping with their lives, they fled to America and settled in Hollywood, eventually saving enough money to buy their own 16mm camera to begin shooting movies.

Both rose to prominence in the late 60's and 70's having shot films such as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Deliverance, Paper Moon, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. During that time, working with directors including Robert Altman, Bob Rafelson, Peter Bogdanovich, and Martin Scorsese, they helped define a new American film aesthetic, and pioneered innovative, fearless ways to tell stories.

This is the story of a 50 year journey, an intimate portrait of two giants of modern imagemaking and their deep bond of brotherhood that transcended every imaginable boundary. Two heroes. One road.