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What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
It is a hard question for me cause I can't say that any one work caused an art epiphany, my head is always spinning. As a child I remember being fascinated with the decayed swan boats of Asbury Park and the artificial sky and fake stars of the planetarium on a school trip. Later in the 80's, I saw the Wooster Group performing L.S.D. (...Just The High Points)(pictured above). That was an amazing experience, it was a spontaneous, immediate collage of historical events of the 60's, based on Timothy Leary. Since then I try to see most of their work. Another work that i remember was a co-production of Richard Foreman and the Wooster Group called Symphony of Rats. The stage of the Performing Garage was giant maze with Ron Vawter as the president of the United States. The piece was social /political theatre at its visceral, best. The total frenetic environments of the staging are one of the things I love about what the Wooster Group do. I seem to remember that the stage of the Performing Garage does all sorts of tilts and movements, can sway up on a sharp angle I seem to remember. Sort of like an amusement park.
I also love early surrealist films, especially Bunuel and Cocteau. Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou sticks in my mind. The dreamlike sequences are so nightmarish and ultimately freeing, they defy gravity. Over the years I have shown them at the [14 Karat] Cabaret, since the Enoch Pratt Library has such a remarkable film collection.
A retrospective of Laure Drogoul's work, Follies, Predicaments, and Other Conundrums, is at MICA through March 15th. Tonight, Drogoul hosts a special edition of the 14 Karat Cabaret at MICA's BBOX Theatre (Gateway Building), at 9 pm.
