“NEW PAINTINGS”, A PERFORMANCE BY K8 HARDY
PLAYING THIS SATURDAY DECEMBER 11th
AT REENA SPAULINGS FINE ART
165 EAST BROADWAY, NEW YORK 6-8PM
“Timing is important for this event. And a good time. We’ll have fun. More ramblings below image.”
– K8 Hardy
I was taking care of your dog for you and I picked him up for a quick photo while posing naked [nuditude] on a fashion shoot for a new project. Was that a violation? Your silence was disturbing. Seeing me like that is disturbing. So we took a picture. We did it for you to have a fancy funny picture of your dog but that didn’t happen. Did I commit a violation? Mostly we’ve been nothing but subjects and quite self aware of that condition. So it’s fucked up when we become an object, when we work to protect and limit our objectification or context. I mean power and control. When who you are is attacked and abstracted all over the internet so much that who you are gets sliced and diced and back-codes and turned into ringtones for sell made in Xyzjpq from when you were drunk and singing karaoke like a charming asshole. I am always violating myself. Is that performance art?
When you just got back from Europe Somewhere – alienated – and people acted as if they know who you are; or is it actually nice because yes you have done a lot of work and so could it be so rad that our, I mean my, passion is beaming energy so far? That my work is worth this reward? But the question looming in the back of the mind: is my work really worth what and why does it get more attention than an amazing teacher who is bringing drowning kids up to the surface to breathe. Spectacle, right? I also mean I didn’t have a kid when I was seventeen, but what if. I didn’t want too either but what if. Class, Race, Education. There’s so much money involved so what fruits is our fetishization. It’s so gross one easily thinks of freaking out and walking away, but away from this economy of work that comes from your heart (can you say come from your heart anymore?). The economy that less wants to help you continue than to feed off their own narcissism of getting close to you- that freaky cool weird smart lesbian whose looks don’t actually threaten men. I mean she has blonde hair I mean she’s White I mean she’s skinny she doesn’t look like a man I mean she’s not one of those scary dykes… right?
You Us Them. Hey yeah! Let’s do be around each other. Let’s do hang out and talk. Let’s get our bodies close together and get heated. Lez we can. Wait I got distracted.
And so I am making my own tension before anyone else does it. This privilege of looking like THAT, of being able to look like THAT, of being able to ask people to help make you look like that; totally consumable. EASY not difficult.
Is it the person’s own fault if they become a celebrity [sublebrity (e.halter)]? Can we blame that person for having selfish priorities in her life? I’ve been a celebrity since I was 11 years old. Let’s face it some of us just suddenly realize that when we walk into a room we get all the attention. It was never an intention. So what do you do with that? It’s fucking annoying, I mean cool but like annoying too. Like hot or not, you get to decide before you meet them. But we like being hot. We like it. And you like to watch. It’s just that this patriarchal deeply embedded sexist power structure penetrates the conversation when you are looking. And so we are feminists so we fight it. And we feel guilty when we like it. But shame and guilt can be so hot. We went sex positive in the 90s to feel empowered and in control. But then it’s nastier when we keep the shame. It’s weird how many kids let themselves be filmed having sex. That’s a new thing but I’ll put it into the trajectory. Especially because some of what I am saying is that really it’s about being a kid. The patriarchy is for grown ups. And that’s why your family doesn’t take you seriously and treats you like you are immature and that’s why people laugh at the way you dress because you give that all up to “grow up” and stop sagging your pants [read: patriarchal racists]. Wow everything is so mixed up. No it’s not. I’m getting close to a point.
Being a professional has a deep and intense racist history, but it’s also a form of survival. And being an artist can be kinda like a part of leaving that- but then there you are trying to succeed and who is trying to touch your hair but the worst click of the professionals. The cream. It’s fucked up. And so when you are an artist and you go up in production level, so far up like use crazy money to make your art because usually an artist doesn’t have afford as a necessity to make her art. Seriously. It’s a choice. Think about Western civilization you know? The rent is too damn high so you are in a place where it’s not your human right to have a roof over your head oh I mean place to live to all you rich ones reading this. Roof is so abstract! But see this is where it gets warped right because I can’t think that certain types are bad especially when I know so many people who are so rad. You can’t be so judgmental! I’m jumping around. But the “men” are so angry. Why are the men so angry? Don’t let’s not stop talking about this just because the guys admitted a little bit that “women” were not being treated fairly. They honestly feel generous because as they look at it they gave you a little piece of their power out of kindness and understanding. Sexual politics are not over.
I would like to drink tea all day with everyone. On a couch. Let’s sit down and talk. So we have to figure out how to actually survive and it’s real. This is realness. I am authentically real. I do care about my face actually. Am I making the connections too fast? But my ideas are getting bigger. I’m a fucking colonizer. I have most of my health back! Let’s not speak too soon. I don’t think they actually want kids to go to school anymore, which is really the freaky thing. It’s a better way to stay brainwashed. And believe it because they tried to brainwash me- I am speaking from experience. To those of us who think we are enlightened. I mean we really do though, right? Fuck all that religious shit right? And Jesus was a radical, right? Was Mohammed because I don’t know. Point of View. Does your mom bring God up when you are crying on the phone? Or something like that? It feels like conformity. And using commercial apparatus in my work feels like conformity too? But what if I’m using it to call attention to using it? I move around differently in the world than most people; how I enter a room. It becomes an exploration of possibilities. Let’s move into that beloved delusional mode of positive thinking now. I love it! It really does feel good. So what is positive (delusional) about this totally Capitalist and White standard of beauty that infects everything we see and the way we gaze. Reversal? THAT WAY WE GAZE.
– K8 Hardy, 2010
Footnotes: 1.
“An [poor] artist’s responsibility for a very long time is to get collected, socially.” – Eileen Myles, Inferno
2. Petróleo (Oil)
empty stomachs, brains full of air
give me you blood, mutant pig
(chorus) It’s the oil that takes me higher
deforms with no hope
semen in all the bed
look how they scream inside of me, inside of me…
while I open my legs, I hear the sirens
And if I kill my children, it is for optimism
(chorus)-solo-(chorus)
-Femicidio