International Paneling/June 2021
By Horster
Racism, the Academy Awards and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
No Mention of Coronavirus!
By Wolf Vest
Berlin, June 2021
First, let us here at International Paneling say we are anti-racism and pro-human rights. If a political candidate is PRO racism and ANTI human rights, we oppose them. Furthermore, if a person votes for a racist and anti-human rights candidate, even though they might like some of the other things the politician says, we opine that you are supporting racism and against human rights. You can’t parse it out.
That having been said, what’s up with the Academy Awards?
About 100 years ago, the Academy Awards was born into a world where legalized slavery was still a memory in the minds of the living and blackface performance was still a thing. Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer” was a recent smash and the decade before, “Birth of a Nation” celebrated the KKK. Both huge successes.
What about Al Jolson? The son of a cantor, he was one of the biggest stars of the first half of the 20th Century. Jolson was an early casualty of “cancel culture,” and was almost totally removed from pop conscuiousness by the 1980s, latest. As talented and successful as he was, no one wanted to hear ol’ black-faced Jolie singing about Dixie where slaves loved their masters. Like the Mayan calendar, his time had passed.
That brings us to this past Oscars Celebration. The wokeness its creators took great pains to portray reeked of a kind of overdone acknowledgement of sins past. Not totally authentic. Black performers were featured, Asians were covered and Latins were totally left out. All as presented by the old school Oscars crew. But hey, Glen Close did “da Butt!”
Change is difficult and ugly sometimes, but I am not sure if the 100 year-old Academy is up for it. It’s like your 100 year-old, racist grandpa. You have to love him, but it might not be a tragedy when he goes. In the end, the relevance of the Academy Awards can be summed up in one sentence: Spike Lee has not received an award for Best Picture or Best Director.
Slightly younger, less racist, but equally as cynical and self-interested is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame! Founded by (all white?) record execs in the 1980s, the RaR HOF was probably destined to echo the racially entangled history of rock and roll, itself. I personally felt a twinge of ickiness when Dave Pirner and Winona Ryder were at the ground-breaking ceremony in the 90s, in Cleveland. Is Soul Asylum in the Hall of Fame? Is Winona Ryder? Why were they even there? Well, I guess it was for eyeballs on the project. A mutual use.
The founders looked at the Oscars and maybe realized they could do the same thing, which is to churn the music marketing machine towards themselves by harnessing the vanity and narcissism of the performers. Who, of course, went right along with it. But is the increase in plays on Spotify worth the $10K per extra ticket inductees must pay in order for their guests to attend? Don’t bring the grandkids, Steve Miller!
Hey, did you hear the news? The Foo Fighters were inducted into the grand old hall on the FIRST BALLOT recently!
Hey, did you hear the news? The Foo Fighters were inducted into the grand old hall on the FIRST BALLOT recently! Are they one of the greatest rock bands of all time? Or is it that every time you turn around, Dave Grohl is in your face, serving as the living embodiment of Rock and Roll itself? It turns out that the Rock Hall allows fans to vote, though how the votes are tallied is a little mysterious. I read that over 8 million people voted this past year. Maybe Grohl’s lovable omnipresence paid off for the Hall who could continue their method of profitable coattail riding. I also wonder is the Foo Fighters or maybe the Red Hot Chili Peppers are actually worth more than the Hall of Fame, itself? Who is honoring who? The Hall really has closed the circle of mutual use. Everyone is a winner.
Basically, these “institutions” are privately held, self-serving entities that have likely outlived their relevance. And we are still supposed to think of them as being very important in our entertainment lives. But do we really need to see another jam featuring John Fogerty and Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen? Or perhaps some more Rolling Stones for you?
We would like to suggest that these organizations consider new models, more transparent and open to the people that care, that spend the money on the stuff. Maybe a cross between the MLB’s all-star voting system and Eurovision? Or else, perhaps they both could be inducted into the newly minted “Cancel Culture Hall of Fame,” alongside Al Jolson and Aunt Jemima. We are living in a new world. A lot of changes will be necessary in order to evolve successfully. Not every “venerable institution” needs to survive, totally intact.
Shorty of the Week: Sarah Oh-Mock, "Who am I?"
Sound by Dani Imhoff
Berlin-based artist, Sarah Oh-Mock has made loads of great videos, where she often portrays the sometimes scary protagonists. Many of these unique creatures will be featured in a massive VR installation that also incorporates the new Berlin airport and the Berlin underground. Keep an eye out for more news on that front!
Also, check out her contribution to “Clustered Minds” at The Wrong TV with works by Dovile Aleksaite, Banz & Bowinkel, Jonas Blume, Ornella Fieres, Laura Fong Prosper, Patricia Detmering, Jana Doell, Manja Ebert, Getrüda Gilyte, Franziska Harnisch, Daniel Hengst, Kathrin Hunze, Sabrina Labis, Sarah Oh-Mock, Lauren Moffatt, Dani Ploeger, Alla Popp, Julia Charlotte Richter, Anke Schiemann, Clemens Schöll, Theresa Schubert, Dagmar Schürrer, Liudmilla Siewerski, The Swan Collective, Ivonne Thein, Manuel Tozzi, Philipp Valenta, Tina Wilke
(only until June 5th):
A Lonely Ghost finds Her Way Home
Graveyard Strolls; Part II
By JCO
Baden Baden, May 2021
I was six, I started going alone to graveyards. As a kid I particularly loved to analyze the personal objects that were left sometimes by family members at the graves. I’ve seen little cars, sailing boats, key chains, teddy bears and, with my childlike imagination, I created characters for each grave using these objects as indicators.
One day I saw quite an unusual installation: female wedding shoes were placed in the center of the grave, circled by white roses. Of course, I was fascinated at the sight. I must have been staring at this grave for an irritating amount of time, when a woman behind me started to shout, “What are you doing? Don’t you dare to take the shoes!“ As if I was interested in taking these haunted looking wedding shoes. I answered calmly, ”I’m sorry Miss, I was just fascinated by this whole installation. Do you know anything about it?“ As a matter of fact it was her daughter’s grave. She warned me that her story was not for the faint-hearted, but since I looked unusually comfortable despite my surroundings, I could probably take it.
A month after her daughter died, two strangers knocked at her door. They were a young couple, newlyweds from the area. It took the lady by surprise that they were asking for her daughter in order to pick something up. She could tell that something was wrong. Their faces turned white when she told them about her daughter’s death. They were convinced that they had seen her daughter just a few days ago on their way back from their wedding party. They had stopped quickly at a gas station and while the husband was paying inside the shop, the wife stayed in the car. A young woman knocked desperately at her window. She was miserable, crying unstoppably.
“Please I did a mistake. I just want to go home.
I just want to go home! I have no shoes!”
The wife lowered her window and tried to calm the young woman. But she was unsuccessful. The young woman screamed, “Please I did a mistake. I just want to go home. I just want to go home! I have no shoes!” And indeed, the wife looked down and the young woman was tiptoeing on her bare and bloody feet. Feeling sorry for her, the wife took off her white wedding shoes and gave them to her. The young woman hugged her with gratitude and mentioned her address, where she could pick up her shoes a few days later. As it turned out, the young woman was the deceased daughter of the woman I was talking to. The young couple stopped at the same gas station where she was hit by a car while crossing the road. The force of the impact knocked off her shoes. The lady told me that even though she had shown them a picture of her daughter, the couple just couldn’t believe that she was dead. So they all visited her grave together. And there they were, the shoes were perfectly placed on the middle of the grave. “We just couldn’t touch them,“ she said. “So they’ve been here ever since.”
To this day I ask myself whether that lady spontaneously made up this story for me or became a victim of a tasteless prank. Or maybe after all it was a true story? I guess I will never know.
“Escape” by Bordos, Music by Johann Johannsson, as part of “Sense/Coalescence.” Curated by Leo Kuelbs, presented by LIGHT YEAR TEAM (fka 3_Search). Dallas, Texas, 2015
What has been the Art of Light?
Introduction to the LIGHT ART Manifesto
By Endre Patxi
Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, May 2021
Before it was called “Art of Light,” with the purpose of orientating the community’s attention toward the light as our environment, it had been a multidisciplinary activity. It consisted of utilizing inseparable knowledge and practice of disciplines we now call land or environmental art, astronomy, geometry, mathematics, architecture, and theology. With massive agricultural ties: when do we start planting? – the physical light environment was taken as manifestation of the spiritual.
Not mentioning the pre-classical examples of monumental works one by one, the first work of art, in fact a metaphysical treatise made of masonry, is the cathedral of Saint-Denis by Abbot Suger from 1144. This is where, for the first time, we see the words “light” and “art” connected literarily, at the birth of what we now call “gothic.”
In the 1920s, Thomas Wilfred, a Dane living and working in New York, labelled it “Lumia,” a new, eighth branch added to the existing Seven Arts. László Moholy-Nagy, a Hungarian living in Berlin, then Chicago, and Wilfred’s contemporary, repeatedly identified light as key to the art of the future. Throughout his several theoretical writings, he articulated possible forms and levels of it as a ‘system of an architecture of light’ in open spaces and interiors: urban light-plays, light canons, light organs, expanded cinema etc.
By the 1960s an artistic movement evolved based on Wilfred’s and Moholy-Nagy’s ideas. Frank Popper, a Czech living in Paris started summoning exhibitions and issuing publications centred around the Art of Light. Not in English, though. It would have sounded somewhat awkward to try to propagate ‘Light Art’ – as an antithesis of something serious – so the Dutch expression Lichtkunst is articulated in 1966, at the Eindhoven exhibition of Popper. More exactly: KunstLichtKunst, a play on words, but determining the new art form as restricted to the art of artificial lights. This decision became a tradition in (the former) western history of art, culminating in Peter Weibel’s encyclopaedic venture, the Lichtkunst aus Kunstlicht exhibition in Karlsruhe, 2005. And this is not seriously questioned until the Brno exhibition Ejhle Světlo by Jiřzi Zemánek in 2003, which opens up the ingredients of light as not only the artificial, nor exclusively physical. I followed this approach when assembling the Budapest exhibition in 2015 – deeply persuaded by the fact that also in Slavic and Hungarian we have the same word for light and world.
The Art of Light was developing alongside the medial expansion and the proliferation of isms. But the enormous power with which light is affecting the audience is also the source of critique and contributed to the problems that led to the need for the Manifesto of 2021. The attractive element, that concept art or abstract expressionism (or any other) was lacking when speaking to/of a broader audience immediately activated the commercialization of the Art of Light.
We shall never forget Speer’s Lightdome at the Nazi Party’s mass gathering. As we did forget the Hollywood movie premieres of the same period…
Although the other worldly moving abstract backgrounds of Moholy-Nagy were rejected as “too sci-fi” for the sci-fi film “Things to Come,” in 1936, light and commercialism would not long be denied. Not surprisingly, the Art of Light needs serious technical background on a larger scale. Nicholas Schöffer, to be able to realise his urban-scale visions, had made a beautiful friendship with the Philips company. Or in 1968, the French television’s New Year’s Eve programme used his light modulations for the background of the video clip of Brigitte Bardot singing a Serge Gainsbourg song. The ‘advertisement / spectacle stigma’ was kept alive in capitalism – in socialism it did not make sense. Nevertheless, lumino-kinetics was banned as something “capitalist” in the former east.
Still Image from John Ensor Parker’s "Moments of Thought," as part of “The Diamond Sky,” Presented by Leo Kuelbs Collection for Tiffany and Company, 2014.
Photo Credit: Joe Schildhorn/BFAnyc.com
And truly, not speaking of popular culture, the “high” culture of Art of Light, the list of exhibitions is connected to key members of capitalism. The 1966 exhibition was held in the museum of the “light bulb city” (‘Philipsstad’), where later even a separate light art museum was also established. Popper’s later work, the exhibition this time thematising instead of “Art of Light” the “Art of the Electronic Age” (“Electra”) was set up in Paris in 1983, for the anniversary of the French Electric company. The same thing happened in Vienna in 1986, the “Lichtjahre” exhibition also celebrated the 100th anniversary of the national electricity company.
The Art of Light was always as expensive as it was spectacular. Though not always exclusively applied for mere commercial use. We shall never forget Speer’s Lightdome at the Nazi Party’s mass gathering. As we did forget the Hollywood movie premieres of the same period that has used basically the same exterior lighting design — a circular array of spotlights calling out and drawing attention in. György Kepes, light artist, closest colleague of Moholy-Nagy started as a military camouflaging light designer at MIT. Frank Malina had just left the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (yes, the core institution still today at NASA) after conceiving the solid fueled rocket, to devote himself to his other worldly luminous Art. The further military utilizations of experimenting with light is not always accessible for the public.
As (modulated) light still may have its superpower on people, it is the artists’ and curators’ shared responsibility to create art of it; something elevating, but with the sole purpose of elevation of persons into light itself – this is why this manifesto has born.
Trying to Create Context
The Middle East and Ancient Aliens
by Horster
by Leo Kuelbs
Berlin, May 2021
In no way are we trying to minimize the current situation in Israel, nor the thousands of years of killing and violence that has happened in the larger region. The misery is so ongoing and massive that it can start to seem almost abstract for those far enough away to willfully ignore it, if they so choose. Also, while we’ve seemingly gone through the majority of the Coronavirus period and the recent USA elections, it’s reasonable that one would like a break from constantly checking the computer for updates on the latest crisis.
The aliens left, said they would come back like Jesus (and Quetzalcoatl in Mexico) and pick up some people, and leave the rest to kill each other in a fiery hellscape.
In trying to find some other way to approach the issue, I realized that part of the answer may lay in the show “Ancient Aliens;” where Ancient Alien theorists (basically anybody with a theory about aliens) have shared their varying views for over 15 seasons on the History Channel, and now sort of everywhere else online. If you haven’t seen it, the basic theory is that aliens were here a very long time ago and mixed their genes with other creatures already living on earth (maybe the creationists and the evolution set can finally find some common ground?!). A variety of beings was created at a variety of levels of consciousness, in a variety of places, for a variety of purposes. Lots of controversy ensued, which was taken and used as raw materials for many religious texts. The aliens left, said they would come back like Jesus (and Quetzalcoatl in Mexico) and pick up some people, and leave the rest to kill each other in a fiery hellscape. Those are the basics. There’s a lot of stuff about Egyptians and gold and let’s just say that I have watched enough of these to be able to call myself an “Ancient Alien Theorist,” as well. It was the virus times, what can I tell you.
During the 90s, a good friend of mine named Glen, led some trips down through Colorado and into New Mexico. Glen is a part time archeologist and we stopped at several ancient sites during the few journeys we shared. Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon and several others feature pictographs of almond-eyed creatures with ram horns. Drawn on rocks and walls of caves. The word is that the Native Americans also discovered these images, as well as remains of a variety of types of dwellings and more, when they arrived in the formerly lush lands. In short, there was a lot going on that didn’t make it into the history books in Minnesota.
And what about pyramids, stone clock things, and other sky view-oriented objects in Central and South America, Asia and the Far East? You get my point. “Ancient Aliens” was the bias affirming thing for me regarding my opinion that aliens were the obvious fit to resolve all of these, otherwise seemingly impossible, coincidences.
But wait! There’s more! Back in the 70s, my Catholic parents took about 5 of us to a movie about Armageddon and the end of the world, etc. Ah, Studio 97, where we sat sharing popcorn and listening to stories of the scary stuff from the bible, which is apparently scheduled to take place somewhere between Israel and Iraq in the (always) near future. There’s a lot more that can be said here, but since it’s all just my “theory,” I will stop there.
The Holocaust needs to be factored in since it was such an unbelievably cruel and just sick, practically inexplixable, aspect of the 20th Century. It went on to serve, rightly so, as a blanket cover for the return of the Jews to their homeland and everything that went along with it, from the middle part of the 20th century to today. Of course, this is not a master’s thesis or history course, so we are going with pretty broad strokes here. Let just say, it’s impossible to leave the 20th century out of the equation. Yet, there’s so much more: Buildings built upon sacred buildings over tens of thousands (more?) of years, religions using parts and pieces of other religions, the seeming destruction of previous civilizations, a lot of abstract language, lost contexts, etc. Taking the 20th Century into consideration, there’s yet a super long history of conflict between religions (types of people?), which clearly represent ancient views that are so strong and ingrained that people have been willing to do genocide on others since before history seemingly began. In short, these conflicts seem to be as natural as the sun-baked sand and everything that lays beneath.
That isn’t to say that the world should just throw up its hands and let the eternal enemies battle it out until they die. Hey, the bible says if we let them do that, then we will all go along with them. I guess I am only trying to create another type of context about this situation to help me deal with it, decade after decade. And we didn’t even get into religion and the basis and motivation for its creation atop of previously ruling beliefs. It’s an onion, a deep mystery that may go back to the beginning of time and into the essence of what it means to be a human (human/alien hybrid?). And the information we have is given to us drop by drop, just enough so we react. But likely in a proper way. I do worry about the darkness most people (we) have been living in since about forever, and it’s difficult to generate trust for governments overseen by inherently greedy, self-interested people. I guess the best thing to do is try to minimize suffering, and just hope that all of those lives lost will somehow get another chance, a better one, in one of those parts of the universe that we do not yet know about or understand.
By Juliane Pieper
Poetry Corner!
By Holly Day
Minneapolis, MN
In the Grip of Sensual Illusion
the pop star’s new album comes in the mail and I am uncomfortably aware
that time has passed, the man on the cover has grown older.
There are memories tied up in his musical legacy, indelible fingerprints
on my childhood: my mother humming along at the kitchen sink
my father playing along quietly on his beat-up acoustic guitar
others from when I started calling the music my own: a tiny apartment
with a shitty stereo that I loved, the lights off, the music loud
blissful in my solitude, later: in bed with my first husband, eyes closed
pretending to be asleep, pretending there was nothing wrong
the pop star’s then-new CD playing itself to the end in the background
even later: my son in my arms, face tiny and red, missing the last few words
from a well-worn song that finally put him to sleep.
I take the new album to my office, pull out the various incarnations of media
bearing the pop star’s name: two cassette tapes, four vinyl LPs, seven CDs, lay them out
in chronological order, like portraits of a family member never seen
yet sorely missed.
By Juliane Pieper
Poetry Corner (Again!)
By Noel Dantikaar
New York City
“Look Up! Look Up, You Fool”
A modern ode to Professor ________
Class started 3 minutes ago.
3 ripe minutes of your meticulous shuffling of lesson plans.
That indescribable way your preparation builds to volatile modalities,
Like the moon on its cycle – plunging earthlings into utter emotion reckoning.
I am delicate and ravished by your knowledge that transports me to new dimensions.
– Look up! Look up, you fool!
You call on Kristy. You always do. Even though I can tell you don’t respect her thoughts.
She doesn’t understand portals to intentional spiritual nourishment come with pain.
Alan interrupts as usual and I try to catch your eye; it’s been hard to catch these months.
– Look up! Look up, you fool!
Let me share this absurdity with you.
Only we see the world’s ignorance of chronic hyper arousal withdrawal.
Let me bare my expansive vibrational discharge of consciousness.
– Look up! Look up, you fool!
I am a fire in Row D.
I am through the gateway to evocative divinity,
Waiting for you to rustle your hair the way your shocks of hair stir my loins.
Give me just one sign.
– Look up! Look up, you fool!
3 Questions with German TV Star, Julia Obst
Jenny of “Die Fallers” on growing up on TV and more!
Actor, director and producer, Julia Obst has been a part of “Die Fallers” since the early 2000’s. She has also directed and starred in short films and music videos, These days, she is based in Berlin.
Here are the 3 Questions:
1. You’ve been on the same show, die Fallers for over 16 years. How was it being a “child star”?
2. How does your show, which is produced by regional German TV outfit, balance regional and international issues?
3. How did the pandemic effect shooting the show?
Thank you for reading “International Paneling!” Next month, we will feature lots of interviews, more Cemetery Strolls, Cryptid Mushrooms and more!