So, Ok this isn’t REALLY week 13, I admit it – I actually didn’t do anything at all last week apart from lie on my arse on the Heath and stress out about my flat. HOWEVER, for one thing this isn’t bloody work, I don’t HAVE to do it and refuse to feel guilty for not managing it for one week. Secondly; I will do TWO cultural things this week to compensate and thirdly, come on none of you care anyway! OK?
So, to make up for my shameful lethargy and disorganisation last week I have managed, thanks once again to the fragrant Georgie, to do something so arty last night that post show I practically gave birth to a copy of Art Forum. Georgie kindly invited me last week and although very game I had no idea what it was going to be about save for this useful little blurb that I received on the day:
A morbid show-woman and a sinister preacher invite you to their bizarre exhibition of curious nameless bodies. Be wary how close you get to the exhibits and indeed the proprietors, for both have dangerous implications!
So, to make up for my shameful lethargy and disorganisation last week I have managed, thanks once again to the fragrant Georgie, to do something so arty last night that post show I practically gave birth to a copy of Art Forum. Georgie kindly invited me last week and although very game I had no idea what it was going to be about save for this useful little blurb that I received on the day:
A morbid show-woman and a sinister preacher invite you to their bizarre exhibition of curious nameless bodies. Be wary how close you get to the exhibits and indeed the proprietors, for both have dangerous implications!
Delving into the strange worlds of waxworks and religious cults, creator of Carneskys Ghost Train, (now permanently situated on the seafront in Blackpool) Marisa Carnesky teaming up with charismatic performer Rasp Thorne, visual artists from the Insect Circus, illusion designers and circus skilled artists to present Part One of her new spectacular seven-part show.
Before I go any further, for those of you in the know please ponder on this: it was performance art, it involved blood, it involved tattoos – GUESS WHO WAS THERE BEGINNING WITH D??? It’s not hard to guess who if, like me, you patronised the Courtauld Institute in the mid-naughties. Nice that some things never change.
Now, back in the day when I inhabited the oh so arty world of the east end (somewhere I now go occasionally to get drunk and that’s about it) I actually visited the above mentioned Carneskys Ghost Train. It was about 5 years ago I believe and I was interested to see it is now a permanent installation in Brighton, where it no doubt belongs perfectly amidst the hoards of tattooed and pierced weirdo’s. I remember little I have to admit other than that it was a jolly good afternoon out. Back then it was all about the burlesque I seem to remember, and Marisa and friends delighted us with a collection of skimpy outfits and sprawling limbs. Although am positive it was about more than that, just cant for the life of me remember what. God, literally now I think about it I remember NOTHING I may as well not have bloody gone frankly wasted on me totally wasted.
Well, anyway, this was a damn site weirder and, although highly enjoyable, I’m not really sure what it was meant to be about!!! Instead I will give a nice description of the performance:
Firstly, we were taken to a strange bricked up room in the bowels of the venue. Many of you arty cultured folk will probably know it well but for those of you as ignorant as me it was a circular room, all brick, with archways around the side leading onto a hallway surrounding the central area, if that makes sense. We were first lead in by one of the main performers, a very small red head who spoke in a strange voice somewhere between camp Butlins redcoat c. 1959 and terrifying girls-school headmistress. She instructed us to follow her, keep in groups for our own safety and not touch ANYTHING. We dutifully filed in, although Georgies hysterical giggles echoed reassuringly around the halls and I was particularly amused when the man in front of us fell behind so he wouldn’t be stuck listening to our blonde mirth anymore – somewhat ruined the ambiance but for that I am very glad!! Anyway, she lead us around the outside first so in the middle we could glimpse a shadowy group of people wrapped in strange bandages and a man dressed as Cardinal Richelieu. Then we were instructed to go into the centre and stand there. Through one the of archways could be glimpsed someone, also wrapped in bandages, trying to affix to him/herself incomplete plaster casts of various parts of the body. The cardinal and other people continued to progress round the parameter in silence. The red head, in a mechanical bored voice then proceeded to show us, around the sides of the room, strange half models/half people wax work style things. Basically at first they looked like waxworks but then you realised they were breathing and it was women wearing parts of mannequins and papier-mâché style body suits. The women, grasping torch from chin height to make her look crazy, explained, in same strange voice, that she was responsible for caring for the ‘exhibits’, on pink satin mattresses, restoring them, caring for them, polishing their organs etc etc. For her, apparently, they were like her babies. Basically they were subtlety implying that parts of these, things, were made from real people and reanimated to show breathing, blood circulation, or in the case of one; pregnancy - the stomach splayed to show the insides including unborn foetus. We were all instructed to come forwards in groups of 5 and look closer, which we all dutifully did.
We were then instructed to follow her further and meet ‘the curator’. We were taken to a lecture room where a women, I’m assuming Carnesky herself, dressed in the trademark 1940s feminine aesthetic stood at a lecture podium and in scary Sarah Wilson old school art history lecturer style started explaining what on earth was going on. In an amusing parody of art history lectures, slide show and all, she explained the tradition of, oh bollocks can’t remember the word she used, but basically a weird made up tradition of depicting saints in wax with their insides exposed to the world. This must have been inspired by works similar to those in the recent Sacred Made Real exhibition at the National Gallery which I covered in one of my earliest blogs. These were CREEPY beyond belief; 17th century waxwork statues in full colour including glass eyes and horse hair depicting Catholic saints and martyrs. These scared the fuck out of me, they were totally weird, and wouldn’t be in the least surprised if they had indeed inspired this crazy show.
The lecture got odder and odder, pointing out how fairytales such as Snow White demonstrate our need to live for ever, for our bodies to remain in perfect tact long after we have gone. She then started drawing in even odder references such as the idea that on judgement day these waxwork saints would rise again, her tone becoming more hysterical and extremist as she went along. Finally she asked if anyone had any question and a girl, who I had earlier spotted as an obvious audience plant due to her 1940s coat and hairstyle, and who was the spitting image of a young Sophie Marceau, complete with sexy French accent, asked if she really believed these waxwork saints would come to life on the day of reckoning. She did indeed and it became increasingly clear that this was some strange cult that she wanted us all ‘to be apart of’. Enter Cardinal Richelieu who was in fact an evangelical southern preacher. He started talking in crazy evangelical southern preacher style for a bit and then some girl came on, also in 1940s clothes obviously. She was barefoot and stepping to the front of the darkened stage she inserted her feet into (really nice) high heals which obviously contained some kind of fake blood pouch because as soon as she put them on blood started oozing out all over the floor – she started dancing in a weird stilted way pulling the classic religious poses as some women (turned out to be the red heard from the beginning) sang warbly high notes. When this stopped the preacher started again shouting at us about the judgement day and whether we would be guaranteed a place on the silver staircase. Then another women came in, after the preacher had exposed a ladder made out of swords, and the woman rather impressively climbed up it, as I turned my head away in cringey disgust, No one else seemed that bothered by this but it made me feel really rather queasy. Then more strange preacher stuff and then another woman doing lots of upside down twists and things using a big swathe of material hanging from the ceiling. At that point it started getting a bit silly and I’m glad that strain of activity didn’t continue. Each time one of the women performed they would go over to a side of the stage and start mechanically washing their feet in a strange latrine style affair placed on a red platform. After the last women had finished the curator, in weird washed out zombie mode, went over to the basin, lifted it onto the floor and at some point obviously surreptitiously plugged in a false arm as she started gouging away at her forearm with a knife and got roughly down to where the bone would be. It was really gross. Then she, or maybe it was the preacher guy I forget, called on us to give our bodies so we too could live forever etc etc. That’s when the French girl got up, also in zombie mode, walked to the stage and lay down on the red platform. The curator then got a big chain saw style thing and locked the women in a big clamp and started pretending to drill into her. It looked pretty realistic. Then after that, she removed the clamp and the French women continued to lie there, apparently unhurt although when she was having the electric saw thing applied she did a pretty convincing job of looking like she was being drilled into,
We were then asked to go back to the round brick room where the preacher and the group of random bandaged up people were all playing as a band, and they were damn good. The preacher was the singer. By this time the various models/women around the sides of the room were animated, moving around and stretching in a gross way, their bodies covered with bloodied bandages. One ‘body’ which was meant to be an authentic ‘half woman’, was wearing a mannequin face which has detached partly and behind you could see her own face covered in blood. She started silently screaming and interacting with the red head, now dressed in burlesque style red beaded g-string outfit, and the two started doing this weird dance sort of thing half way between really disturbing and high slapstick style comedy. The French women was all the time wondering round the room in weird spaced out post orgasm style and started stretching in amazing ways around the walls. At one point she was suspended from the very top of one of the archways using just her hands. Then she started to do this amazing incredibly flexible animal like dance all over the model with the exposed womb, twisting and writhing and doing really rather impressive things. Then she went head first into the womb and disappeared entirely. And that was the end of it!!! It was bloody ace, NO idea really what it was intended to convey other than ideas about cults and saints and religion and immortality and shit like that but it was damn good fun! Apparently she is doing a whole series of them each lasting only a few nights an would be well up for going to some more!! It also stimulated my biannual ‘why can’t everything I own be 1940s’ obsession. Must steer well clear of ebay over coming days.
Before I go any further, for those of you in the know please ponder on this: it was performance art, it involved blood, it involved tattoos – GUESS WHO WAS THERE BEGINNING WITH D??? It’s not hard to guess who if, like me, you patronised the Courtauld Institute in the mid-naughties. Nice that some things never change.
Now, back in the day when I inhabited the oh so arty world of the east end (somewhere I now go occasionally to get drunk and that’s about it) I actually visited the above mentioned Carneskys Ghost Train. It was about 5 years ago I believe and I was interested to see it is now a permanent installation in Brighton, where it no doubt belongs perfectly amidst the hoards of tattooed and pierced weirdo’s. I remember little I have to admit other than that it was a jolly good afternoon out. Back then it was all about the burlesque I seem to remember, and Marisa and friends delighted us with a collection of skimpy outfits and sprawling limbs. Although am positive it was about more than that, just cant for the life of me remember what. God, literally now I think about it I remember NOTHING I may as well not have bloody gone frankly wasted on me totally wasted.
Well, anyway, this was a damn site weirder and, although highly enjoyable, I’m not really sure what it was meant to be about!!! Instead I will give a nice description of the performance:
Firstly, we were taken to a strange bricked up room in the bowels of the venue. Many of you arty cultured folk will probably know it well but for those of you as ignorant as me it was a circular room, all brick, with archways around the side leading onto a hallway surrounding the central area, if that makes sense. We were first lead in by one of the main performers, a very small red head who spoke in a strange voice somewhere between camp Butlins redcoat c. 1959 and terrifying girls-school headmistress. She instructed us to follow her, keep in groups for our own safety and not touch ANYTHING. We dutifully filed in, although Georgies hysterical giggles echoed reassuringly around the halls and I was particularly amused when the man in front of us fell behind so he wouldn’t be stuck listening to our blonde mirth anymore – somewhat ruined the ambiance but for that I am very glad!! Anyway, she lead us around the outside first so in the middle we could glimpse a shadowy group of people wrapped in strange bandages and a man dressed as Cardinal Richelieu. Then we were instructed to go into the centre and stand there. Through one the of archways could be glimpsed someone, also wrapped in bandages, trying to affix to him/herself incomplete plaster casts of various parts of the body. The cardinal and other people continued to progress round the parameter in silence. The red head, in a mechanical bored voice then proceeded to show us, around the sides of the room, strange half models/half people wax work style things. Basically at first they looked like waxworks but then you realised they were breathing and it was women wearing parts of mannequins and papier-mâché style body suits. The women, grasping torch from chin height to make her look crazy, explained, in same strange voice, that she was responsible for caring for the ‘exhibits’, on pink satin mattresses, restoring them, caring for them, polishing their organs etc etc. For her, apparently, they were like her babies. Basically they were subtlety implying that parts of these, things, were made from real people and reanimated to show breathing, blood circulation, or in the case of one; pregnancy - the stomach splayed to show the insides including unborn foetus. We were all instructed to come forwards in groups of 5 and look closer, which we all dutifully did.
We were then instructed to follow her further and meet ‘the curator’. We were taken to a lecture room where a women, I’m assuming Carnesky herself, dressed in the trademark 1940s feminine aesthetic stood at a lecture podium and in scary Sarah Wilson old school art history lecturer style started explaining what on earth was going on. In an amusing parody of art history lectures, slide show and all, she explained the tradition of, oh bollocks can’t remember the word she used, but basically a weird made up tradition of depicting saints in wax with their insides exposed to the world. This must have been inspired by works similar to those in the recent Sacred Made Real exhibition at the National Gallery which I covered in one of my earliest blogs. These were CREEPY beyond belief; 17th century waxwork statues in full colour including glass eyes and horse hair depicting Catholic saints and martyrs. These scared the fuck out of me, they were totally weird, and wouldn’t be in the least surprised if they had indeed inspired this crazy show.
The lecture got odder and odder, pointing out how fairytales such as Snow White demonstrate our need to live for ever, for our bodies to remain in perfect tact long after we have gone. She then started drawing in even odder references such as the idea that on judgement day these waxwork saints would rise again, her tone becoming more hysterical and extremist as she went along. Finally she asked if anyone had any question and a girl, who I had earlier spotted as an obvious audience plant due to her 1940s coat and hairstyle, and who was the spitting image of a young Sophie Marceau, complete with sexy French accent, asked if she really believed these waxwork saints would come to life on the day of reckoning. She did indeed and it became increasingly clear that this was some strange cult that she wanted us all ‘to be apart of’. Enter Cardinal Richelieu who was in fact an evangelical southern preacher. He started talking in crazy evangelical southern preacher style for a bit and then some girl came on, also in 1940s clothes obviously. She was barefoot and stepping to the front of the darkened stage she inserted her feet into (really nice) high heals which obviously contained some kind of fake blood pouch because as soon as she put them on blood started oozing out all over the floor – she started dancing in a weird stilted way pulling the classic religious poses as some women (turned out to be the red heard from the beginning) sang warbly high notes. When this stopped the preacher started again shouting at us about the judgement day and whether we would be guaranteed a place on the silver staircase. Then another women came in, after the preacher had exposed a ladder made out of swords, and the woman rather impressively climbed up it, as I turned my head away in cringey disgust, No one else seemed that bothered by this but it made me feel really rather queasy. Then more strange preacher stuff and then another woman doing lots of upside down twists and things using a big swathe of material hanging from the ceiling. At that point it started getting a bit silly and I’m glad that strain of activity didn’t continue. Each time one of the women performed they would go over to a side of the stage and start mechanically washing their feet in a strange latrine style affair placed on a red platform. After the last women had finished the curator, in weird washed out zombie mode, went over to the basin, lifted it onto the floor and at some point obviously surreptitiously plugged in a false arm as she started gouging away at her forearm with a knife and got roughly down to where the bone would be. It was really gross. Then she, or maybe it was the preacher guy I forget, called on us to give our bodies so we too could live forever etc etc. That’s when the French girl got up, also in zombie mode, walked to the stage and lay down on the red platform. The curator then got a big chain saw style thing and locked the women in a big clamp and started pretending to drill into her. It looked pretty realistic. Then after that, she removed the clamp and the French women continued to lie there, apparently unhurt although when she was having the electric saw thing applied she did a pretty convincing job of looking like she was being drilled into,
We were then asked to go back to the round brick room where the preacher and the group of random bandaged up people were all playing as a band, and they were damn good. The preacher was the singer. By this time the various models/women around the sides of the room were animated, moving around and stretching in a gross way, their bodies covered with bloodied bandages. One ‘body’ which was meant to be an authentic ‘half woman’, was wearing a mannequin face which has detached partly and behind you could see her own face covered in blood. She started silently screaming and interacting with the red head, now dressed in burlesque style red beaded g-string outfit, and the two started doing this weird dance sort of thing half way between really disturbing and high slapstick style comedy. The French women was all the time wondering round the room in weird spaced out post orgasm style and started stretching in amazing ways around the walls. At one point she was suspended from the very top of one of the archways using just her hands. Then she started to do this amazing incredibly flexible animal like dance all over the model with the exposed womb, twisting and writhing and doing really rather impressive things. Then she went head first into the womb and disappeared entirely. And that was the end of it!!! It was bloody ace, NO idea really what it was intended to convey other than ideas about cults and saints and religion and immortality and shit like that but it was damn good fun! Apparently she is doing a whole series of them each lasting only a few nights an would be well up for going to some more!! It also stimulated my biannual ‘why can’t everything I own be 1940s’ obsession. Must steer well clear of ebay over coming days.
