Thursday, February 10, 2022

farO SEMANA 0 JACOB'S LADDER





SATURDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2022, 10 PM
Rua de S. Joaquim nr. 2, Campo de Ourique, LISBOA 
(entrada do lado esquerdo da Igreja de Santa Isabel


ON THIS SESSION
William Anastasi 
Without Title (Jacob’s Ladder), 1968

Light, nails, dimensions variable (site specific)
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff 

Standish Lawder 
Necrology (“The sickest joke on film”* H. Frampton), 1970 
16 mm, b&w, sound, 11' 25’’
Copy from the Film-makers’ Coop.

Jim Melchert 
Location Project #10 (Paramount Theater), 1974
6 b&w slide projections
Photo documentation by Peter Ogilvie, transferred to digital
Courtesy of the artist

THE SLANT STEP, found by William Wiley and Bruce Nauman, 1968 
Replica produced by João Cabral Coutinho

***

We are now at farO, far from Oporto. 
It’s been just over a year since we left our former headquarters and moved here, a modernist parish theatre unsuspiciously wedged between the thick walls of an XVIII century church and its mortuary chapels.

Closed off for years, this theatre has grand features. Velvet curtains, wooden walls, a 10 meter wide panoramic screen and a museum grade 35 mm projector which is way too much for us to handle. The best experience of the light cone is from the balcony. It comfortably seats 200, in classic cinema folding chairs. Only there are no stairs to access it, just a hole, cut open between the floors.

We’re all familiar with the feeling of walking up the stairs in the dark and encountering that phantom step at the top of the flight which makes your foot fall in the air and causes a sickly 20 cm vertigo. That last step is Mike Kelley’s definition of art, which was perhaps inspired by the mysterious slant step, a Duchampian cult relic once exchanged among artists, that according to some theories is a toilet footrest to put the guts in the right position.

In this artist tradition, to attune ourselves to a new beginning, for the next six weeks we’ll share pieces, stories and artists we love. Each work of art is a step of a virtual slant staircase for a hole that, up or down, will connect ideas, mediums, places and audiences.
We invite you to step with us into this new programme, climb blindly and walk lightly.


Thank you to Tiago Fortunato, Ricardo Lima, atelier José Adrião, João Maria Gusmão, Galen Melchert and Pato em Pequim for the technical support. To Jim Melchert, William Anastasi and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, without whom this session wouldn't have been possible. 
With the support of Fundo de Fomento Cultural Garantir Cultura–Compete 2020 / Républica Portuguesa-Ministério da Cultura.

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