The show, curated by Yasmeen Abdallah, Aneta Dodge and Kathie Halfin is titled Spaghetti-O Incident. It considers the prescribed gender roles and the body in relation to domesticity, the utilitarian, and food. Inspired by Martha Rosler’s Semiotics of the Kitchen, we celebrate its witty, performative critique of oppressive gender roles at the kitchen that displays and assigns names to the tools in alphabetic order. We embody its spirit by updating it to reflect an array of artists with contemporary interdisciplinary approaches.
In borrowing the title of the exhibition from Guns N’ Roses The Spaghetti Incident? that references a food fight between Axl Rose and Steven Adler and further reveals the code word Spaghetti for the Adler’s drugs that he stored in a fridge. We explore how the band’s swagger, grandiosity and macho behaviors constituted millennial stereotypes which were already present in place long before Gans N’ Roses existed. We question how certain aspects of these stereotypes evolved to reflect on their mystique.
In doing so, we further Rosler’s investigation of gender and heteronormativity into an updated dialogue that takes the viewer/participant on a journey, beginning in the 1970’s, through the 1990’s, and into the present day. Guns N’ Roses itself implies specified gender roles (macho rocker dudes and the sexy women that the songs are about and who appear in their art. Not to mention those allegations against Axl Rose of spousal abuse, self-indulgence, alpha machismo and control issues...
Participating Artists: Julia Blume, Victoria Calabro, Kat Cope, Pei-Ling Ho, Sarah Dineen, Vyczie Dorado, Ariel Kleinberg, Alison Owen, Muhajir Subuur Lesure, Jean Carla Rodea, Jordan Segal and Yasmeen Abdallah
THE NIGHT OF PERFORMANCES
AS A PART OF THE SHOW "TRACES OF LIFE"
The show "Traces Of Life" advocates and reflects on data privacy and the social impact of the Internet through the layers of video conference space.
Cayla Skillin Brauchle's "We the..." is a participatory movement sequence for democracy that responds to the current pre-election climate. This performance is focused on our personal and collective bodily experience and directly points to how our body responds somatically to the political climate and questions.
Ursula Endlicher’s "interACTions, live" (2011) questions our online activities and social-media terminology. In this newly staged data performance Ursula and Yuki Kawahisa use streams of social-media “actions” (such as follow or like) from the most used social-media sites of 2011 as score. Alternating, they re-enact corresponding videos from a user-submitted database or create a new physical vocabulary for each action.
Jana's "DeFiFem" is a collaborative performance challenging the patriarchal system in the tech industry and cryptocurrency.
She asks how would the goddess organize our world? Goddesses have no interest in centralized systems of power. Trust belongs in the hands of each and every one of us, not in the hands of giant centralized institutions. Wealth, and its transfer, finance and its benefits can be executed peer to peer and in distributed markets. This is the gift the goddesses have given us.