Pertes Blanches (in English)

You should have seen me in NY in front of Alex Katz paintings at Gavin Brown, and later at the Moma at Willem de Kooning’s show… or more recently in Paris in front of Werner Büttner’s work at Marion Meyer Contemporain, Reto Pulfer’s pieces at Balice Hartling: I was not complaining. I like shows.
But I swear, after having jumped a long queue – due to a strict capacity gauge- to see “Neon, Who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue?” I was feeling very sad at the Red House.
“Today the Red House has decided to pay tribute to this particular visual art, which has been aside for too long”
All right, I know it’s unfair, it’s not their fault, it’s on parisbouge.com and not on their press release. But if you google contemporary art + neon and click on images you will get a very good idea of the exhibition.

What I was actually trying to find on the net was a book I remembered from London, when I clicke on“And there was light at the Red House!” 
The book I was looking for was: "Who's Afraid of Red, White and Blue?" (Attitudes to Popular and Mass Culture, Celebrity, Alternative and Critical Practice and Identity Politics in Recent British Art (Art - Dialogue – Education), but as you can see, I had confused white and yellow. I wouldn’t be a very sharp art critic, would I?

This thematic exhibition has got two partners: Actif Signal, a French company specialised in neon and led and iGuzzini “whose mission is to improve the quality of light, and therefore people’s quality of life, by making luminaries with top technical quality” and with whom you can win the designer lamp PizzaKobra- if you take part in the competition.

The curator is David Rosenberg - and I must admit I did check if he wasn’t in a jury for a grant I’m applying for before mentioning one of his book I found in my research: “Art game book, History of the arts in the Twentieth century”
“The reader is having fun by taking part in an interactive book where it’s not rare to be asked a riddle like who wrote: “high painting was never to make people laugh”?”.
All right, I know, once again, it’s unfair of me, it’s from a bookshop website. 

The show made me question the very intrusive impression of being in the neon department of a DIY chain store. And what’s more (but that’s quite personal) I missed a simple Dan Flavin one, maybe like “The diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi)”.
I’m neither an art critic nor a curator; maybe that’s why I didn't get the point. Is it to deal with this contemporary “google effect”? Is it to question the idea of the collection? To investigate the notion of material as form? Is it a cynical position? Is it unfair of the curator? He is taking the piss?

My problem is what do to with experiences like that? Is it ok to complain about them, to disagree or is is better to try and forget?
What do you actually do with them? 

We went to a bar after the opening and a young curator suggested someone should do a show on tires. Tires in art. Everybody thought it was a good idea and started curating in their heads. Then we talked about the name for a new art space in Paris and my friend F.V. said “Pertes Blanches” which means “Vaginal Discharge”, but word for word would be translated as “White Losses” and suddenly some people had a disgusted look on their face.
It made me laugh a lot. I found the idea very exciting. I thought it was a brilliant name for an art space.“Pertes Blanches” sounds good in French. But the reactions around the table were amazing. Aversion. Repulsion. Outrage. Disapproval.
I asked why “Red House” was better than “Vaginal Discharges”.
- “DADA, is that good name?”
- “What about BANK’s Gallery Poo Poo, is that good?”
- And “Mike Kelley’s “Manipulating Mass-produced Idealized Objects”, is that good?”
- “Of course Mike Kelley is good. He’s a genius.”

French art press releases are constantly questioning notions of this and that, investigating critical approaches, staging interrogations, and radically changing the viewer’s approach to interacting with exhibitions spaces…. but try and pronounce “vaginal discharge” and you find yourself on your own with a “female sense of humour and a ridiculous political position”.
“Pertes Blanches” is not an acceptable name for an art space in France. You wouldn’t get funding for it. Governmental institutions wouldn’t like it.
PB maybe? Ok then, if nobody understands, it’s ok.
Talking about PB… Soon at the Pompidou centre: “The young art critic P.B. will investigate the very ancient art of ventriloquism and its impact of contemporary creation. Between image and voice, together with his multiple guests, he will call into question who is speaking and from where”. (*)
Translating a text with grammatical mistakes is a very weird task. Should you respect the mistakes or correct them? On the other hand, nobody’s disgusted, so that’s all right, init?
But I’m being unfair again. That might well be a very good talk.

Thematic sponsoring is of course out of question for our new art space. Bad taste of course. I mean to thematize it!
Paul McCarthy as a godfather, maybe that might work. With a good reference letter.
But you know what? I’m not sure one from Valie Export, Judith Butler or Peggy Phelan would do the trick.
The most opened-minded said that “vaginal discharge” was not of great interest. Too much a woman’s thing. Hummm, yes, I’d say it’s related to women, yes.
In French, the equivalent of the expression “you’re breaking my balls” is quite common. You wouldn’t say it’s too much of a man’s thing by any chance, would you?
Make the gesture that goes with “wanking”… You wouldn’t be a rubbing a penis, would you?

In the art world, we’ve overcome most taboos, we’re used to the uncanny. Once you’ve visited the Louvre, you’ve a good idea of the level of suffering you can find in art but mention white traces in a girl’s knickers and you hear the word “horror”. You probably get more facial grimaces than when giving the latest news about Syria

On the 4th of February, the prophet's birthday, Hamza Kashgari tweeted:
“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you”
In a second one he wrote: “On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more,”
He concluded in a third: “On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more,”  (*)

Saudi clerics condemned his remarks as blasphemous. Mr Kashgari apologised and deleted the tweets, but when he continued to receive threats, he left for Malaysia where was detained upon his arrival. On February the 12th he was deported from Kuala Lumpur back to Saudi Arabia, where he faces a death sentence.”  (*)

Sorry about all the English mistakes.... 

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