the livingblog

In 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his Futurist Manifesto, ushering in an interdisciplinary, revolutionary art movement that spanned painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, film, and music. A century later, Lynn has created Customized Marinetti, a new video debuting in the Futurist Film Festival at Performa 09 this November.

Performa is a performance-centered biennial which acts, like Portland, Oregon’s annual Time Based Art Festival, as a state-of-the-union laboratory for the many iterations of performance. Transforming the city through the collaboration of a multitude of curators, institutions, mediums, and disciplines, this year’s Performa uses Futurism as a jumping-off point, which according to the event’s website,

will re-imagine the past, with historical reconstructions such as the legendary “Intonarumori” and also look to the future, with its focus on new media and the infinite possibilities of generating new directions for the visual and performing arts of the new century, as imagined by today’s artists.

Lynn certainly has no hesitation when it comes to re-imagining the past. From reframing past performances and installations to creating and recording narratives of historical figures, her process is akin to a gathering trajectory, where past fuels present and future with a speed and boldness that would make any Futurist proud. As she quotes, “Time has a way of revising truth, particularly when one has unlimited perceptions of an experience.”

The schedule for the Futurist Film Festival is not yet available, but check back for updates- New Yorkers and those who will be in New York in November, don’t miss it!

Roberta's Construction Chart #2 (1975)

In other news, this past Wednesday marked the historic (and extremely auspicious) 9/9/09, which was also the opening night of Darkside II at Switzerland’s Fotomuseum Winterthur. The exhibition is the curatorial inverse of 2008’s Darkside I, which explored the photographed body through the lens of desire and sexuality. Darkside II, by contrast, takes on the photographed spectrum of bodily health, from intact and fit to diseased, injured, tortured, or even dead. Fotomuseum’s statement on the exhibition posits that

These images have a consoling aspect, at the same time they are fascinating and function as memorials, or as enlightening manifestos.

It seems fitting, then, that Roberta’s Construction Chart #2 (1975) will be included in this survey, alongside images from Christian Boltanski, Nan Goldin, and Sally Mann, among many others. This artifact from the Roberta Breitmore (1974-8) performance constructs Roberta’s identity through a paint-by-numbers-like alteration of a photograph, memorializing both an identity and a process that no longer exist in real time, in the real world. This expressionistic schematic enhances the uncanny artificiality and abject objectivity of both a scientific illustration and a makeup application guide. It is a haunting reminder of the ways in which all identities hinge upon consistency, repeatability, and external transformation.

Stay tuned to the Lynnverse- we’ll have lots of new things happening with Women Art Revolution, new ways to keep updated on news and events, and information on current and upcoming exhibitions very soon!