the process v - James Fuentes

THE PROCESS V
LIZZI BOUGATSOS
IRA COHEN
BRIAN DEGRAW
GEORG GATSAS
AMY GRANAT
KEMBRA PFAHLER
THE PROCESS V
CONTENTS
ESSAY BY ALEXANDRA BLÄTTLER AND REIN WOLFS
PRINT & DRAWINGS BY KEMBRA PAHLER
COLLAGES BY LIZZI BOUGATSOS
DRAWINGS BY BRIAN DEGRAW
PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORG GATSAS
PHOTO COLLAGES BY AMY GRANAT
PHOTOGRAPHS AND POEMS BY IRA COHEN
THE PROCESS DARK
BY ALEXANDRA BLÄTTLER
AND REIN WOLFS
A dark scene is holding court. Its current capital city is New York. The Anglo-Saxon world is – and always has
been – so very much darker than the rest of the world. Of course, the French have also had their dark and even
dismal phases, but over a century has run its course since then. The Germans, the Scandinavians, the Dutch, the
central and southern Europeans have probably never had it – this propensity for an all-embracing melancholy.
In Eastern Europe, the Russians have no doubts cultivated their own brand of devotion to darkness but nothing
of the kind has penetrated our climes via dark Asians, dark Africans or dark South Americans. That makes the
Anglo-Saxons veritable kings and queens of darkness.
Dark was La Belle Dame sans Merci, black romanticism, the Romantic Agony, Lou Reed at his best, ­Arthur
Rimbaud and his colleagues, Iggy & the Stooges, Kurt Cobain and others. Caspar David Friedrich is ­probably
a romantic but not necessarily dark. If at all, it would more likely be Gustave Moreau or Gabriele D’Annunzio
(Italian, yes, but an exception), Lord Byron or August C. Swinburne. Possibly also Bas Jan Ader, Dutch ­expatriate
and American-by-choice, metaphorically balancing on the brink of the abyss in his films and photographs. On
the verge of the abyss, there is something lustrous, mighty and especially seductive about dark. Except that contemporary figures are less inclined to venture beyond the abyss; instead they skillfully skirt around the danger
zone, an agenda also embodied by the no longer fledgling New York (art) commune represented here.
Dark is a state of mind. Not necessarily black, but certainly offbeat; dark – unconventional and shady – also
walks abroad in the twilight zone. Dark feels good in the vicinity of dopey narcotics. Opium and absinthe are
classics; Coke and viagra cocktails are more contemporary. Symbols are legion: death’s heads and other ­tattoes,
black leather coats and sunglasses, peachy skin and additional clichés. Laughing is not good, dark rings around
the eyes are much more authentic, fat won’t do, the emaciated look is more appropriate (Franz Kafka – German,
yes, but an exception – was supposedly anorexic) and casting a melancholy eye on the world-at-large right on
target. Dark is a state of mind, the above-mentioned ingredients its unmistakable symptoms.
Kembra Pfahler could pass as darkest, though flaunt all and every one of the above-named historically grown,
clichéd symptoms. She keeps coffins for children within her four walls but she also presents her latest beachwear
on catwalks – a perfectly legitimate revamping of symbols since individual morphology has been ­accredited as
artistic strategy. Brian DeGraw and Lizzi Bougatsos are as dark as New Yorkerish dark can be. And the blackand-white abstractions in the films and photographs of New York-based artist Amy Granat embody a space
in between or as she puts it, “Absence is the illuminator of presence.” Ira Cohen has been dark intoxication
personified ever since the sixties. And Georg Gatsas their court portraitist.
Juxtaposition sets the process in motion. A dark state of mind can, of course, be illustrated iconographically,
but evoking a parallel world in an exhibition or in a book is a challenge and an approach of a different order. The
Process V is a record of Gatsas’ ambition to be as close as possible to this state of mind without becoming part
of it. The Process Dark.
Alexandra Blättler is curator at BINZ39 Foundation Zurich
and COALmine - space for contemporary photography Winterthur, Switzerland
Rein Wolfs is director of exhibitions at Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, The Netherlands
KEMBRA PFAHLER
LIZZI BOUGATSOS
BRIAN DEGRAW
GEORG GATSAS
AMY GRANAT
IRA COHEN
KEMBRA PFAHLER
The Girls Of Karen Black as
Ryan McGinley, Dash Snow and Dan Colen, 2007
Drawings for The Process VI, 2007, ink on paper
LIZZI BOUGATSOS Sybil (for Colin), 2002
Untitled, 2003
Self-Portrait Attempts for Solo Album, 2003
The Old Angelblood Dayz, 2003
Acktion Drawing I, 2003
Acktion Drawing II (My Beloved), 2003
Acktion Drawing III (Underground), 2003
BRIAN DEGRAW
Untitled, 2006, 12 pencil drawings
GEORG GATSAS
Stephen O’Malley, 2005
Joey (The Locust), 2004
Marty Rev, 2005
Stephonik, 2005
Night, 2006
Lizzi, 2006
Foetus II, 2006
Edgar Oliver smiling, 2005
Edgar Oliver’s Guest Room, 2005
Edgar Oliver’s Black Cat II, 2005
Edgar Oliver/White Wall, 2005
Kembra’s Cross, 2005
Kembra/Mirror, 2005
Joie I, 2006
Ira Cohen’s Living Room, 2004
Ira In Bed, 2005
Bat Lamp, 2005
Breyer P-Orridge On Their Roof, 2005
AMY GRANAT Untitled # 1 – 3, 2007, photo collages
IRA COHEN
Stills from “The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda”, 1968
Selected poems
THE PROCESS V
Edition of 150 Copies
Thanks to all artists and musicians involved in The Process V, Gianni Jetzer,
Rein Wolfs, Alexandra Blättler, James Fuentes, Catherine Schelbert, Will Swofford
Translation “The Process Dark” by Catherine Schelbert
Supported by Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer
Published by Nieves
www.nievesbooks.com
Reproduction without permission prohibited.
All rights reserved. © 2007 the Artists , Georg Gatsas and Nieves
Nieves