ARt

I never cease to be amazed at the sophistiated creativity that continues to emerge from the 80s-90s East Village New York City scene — which I enjoyed and knew at the time as merely a safe haven for a band of misfits. Never underestimate the short bus. From Rupaul to Antony Hegarty to John Cameron Mitchell and many others, Gotham has purely gone global. Mx Justin Vivian Bond’s show at Vitrine, London is informed and cohesive, with a strong personal narrative — my favorite kind of art. The diptych portraits of Mx JVB juxtaposed with model Karen Graham are soft and alluring, yet bear a compelling human-ness that lifts the figures beyond the surface, and creates a conversation between the deities and observer. Although I’m not a professional art critic, I did notice that Mx JVB’s technique is precise, and does not rely on laissez-faire watercolouring of the inattentive hand.

Taking this from ‘show’ to ‘experience’, which many attempt but few manage, is how Mx JVB steps beyond the fourth wall of the gallery space in the front window. Upon arrival, to my delight, a large crowd gathered outside — not to wait in some queue while vying for some perverted association with fame (which haunts most openings imho) — but to observe the artist transcend the barriers of ‘art’ and present an opportunity for observers, both intentional and passersby.

Dressed in a bright pink silk dress by Graham’s designer Frank Masandrea, we observed Mx JVB perform; taxis shuttling people to and from London Bridge Station slowed to watch us; and local residents on their way home summed up the invasion with piqued curiosity. The walls of the window and inside the gallery was covered with a bespoke wallpaper created from repetitive portraits, reminiscent to me in tone of the rare Warhol gold-leaf sunflower wallpaper — but this art is not ‘pop’ it’s present, a presence — complete with an intimate boudoir installation highlighting the relationship between the two characters. The atmosphere intimate, the crowd congenial, the conversation sublime. As a complete bonus, with a fortuitous announcement yesterday by the fine people at the Oxford English Dictionary, the prefix ‘Mx’ (pronounced ‘M-ix’) has been made official – a pure highlight of the event.

In the wee-early 90s, I met a Justin Bond, who in all honesty never ocurred to me as strictly male, female, or this or that. To me, Justin has always been Justin, simply a beautiful, determined being. Along the way Justin adopted, dare I say co-promoted, the gender-neutral prefix, which I first noticed on JVB’s web site. Now it’s official — a far cry from the raucous word-police vitriol of late — and to me curiously appealing, inviting, and freeing.

Now the only question I have for Mx Bond is: what is to become the associative pronoun-nomitive? Mr = ‘him’, Miss/Mrs/Ms = ‘her’ and so forth. What is to be used with ‘Mx’ and take the incredible chore out of sentence-crafting for articles and reviews like these? But au contraire, perhaps that’s the point: get rid of them all. Look at people as humans. Struggle to redefine…

What? Art, ideas, artists, stepping forward, affecting life? Being alive? Instead of, like Quentin Crisp said, being ‘hung on a wall to die,’ or buried in the comments section of some gossip column?

I know at least two old ladies on a wealthy pension who’ll drink to that.

-mlb, London 6 May 2015

Mx Justin Vivian Bond • JustinBond.com

My Model / My Self

through 13 June 2015

Vitrine Gallery

185 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UW
020 7407 6496

thanks to Christopher J Barley for additional photos

OK. So, EV-e-r-yone’s an “artist.” EV-e-r-yone’s “famous.” Hooray. The outcome: sweet fuck-all to watch on TV, 95% of theatre is a mere heroin pill for the masses, two generations of stupid people who can’t look up from their i(diot)phones and the film industry stuck in a time warp on an exploding Christmas tree with tits.

Fame. Huh. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin. The world got Warhol’s quote wrong. I don’t think he meant ‘every single person (individual) would be famous for exactly fifteen minutes.’ Instead, he had a perspective from the top of fame: that, everybody, collectively, will be famous for a period of fifteen minutes. And collectively, they have been. Fame is over. Bieber’s in jail. Winehouse is dead. Madonna is still aging.

I used to produce Squeezebox! (which was, according to Jon Waters, the best club ever, in New York) during one of the most fertile eras of unprecendented creativity that New York City will never see again. What’s the secret? You may ask. How do you nurture a collective of scenes which yield the most productive, robust collection of contributions modern humanity has seen?

Here’s my top five:

1. Participate. You cannot accomplish anything by being a consumer. Money is useless. Buy your outfit in the superstore called your brain. Every single person in a place like Squeezebox!, Jackie 60, CBGB, Danceteria, Mudd Club – (fuck it read my first book for the laundry list) – plays an integral, key role.

2. Forget ‘icons.‘ I’ll never forget how peculiar I felt, and still feel, when I noticed people like Waters, Debbie Harry, RuPaul, Joey Ramone, and many others making room for new people, imperfect people, experimental people. The challenge is to recognize, accept, and do something with it. I’ve never, in 30 years of being involved in real culture, seen anyone worthy of being called ‘icon’ dismiss another person for trying anything creative – as long as it comes from an honest place.

3. It’s not about ‘me.’ This one’s easy. Every single scene, album, theatre production, music show, book, song or party worthy of a warm-air fart is a group effort. Bianca Jagger would never have road to Danceteria on a white horse without Steve Rubell and company. The Sex Pistols would never have wailed-together a punk anthem if they hadn’t seen the Ramones. We’d have never accomplished the first internet show at Squeezebox! without the 8-10 regular producers and a swarm of the partners.

4. Persistence is key. You’ll hear about the ‘legendary’ nights, performances and parties. The internet is splitting at the seams with ‘iconic’ shite. By the time you get to the awards shows, or big arenas, it’s all anticipated and incredibly boring. What’s more worthwhile, are the slow nights. The off-nights. The times when the crowds just don’t show up. That’s when, if you’re absolutely lucky, the hosts, performers, audeinces, participants-all reach deeper, work harder, and bring forth greatness – & that’s where you learn. I’ve seen Mx Justin V Bond go from a five-seater to Carnegie Hall. Hedwig went from our stages to Off-Broadway, and opens on Broadway this March.

5. Don’t Dream It Be It. If Rocky Horror can teach you anything, it is this statement. No matter if you’re in Kentucky or Catalonia: walk like a singer. Talk like a writer. Move like a painter. Fill your own shoes & the world will follow. My friend Varda started her singing career with Bette Midler in the queer saunas of the NYC 1960s, and went on to open for Bob Dylan, and now in her eighties, remains in character in Paris – hosting parties and dinners, and getting around the active art scene – with, character.

And if I were going to include a ‘6’, it would be: Stay home. London, New York, LA, Paris…they’re all, in the words of William Gibson, “cooked”. The world ain’t gonna change if people don’t change it. The world, in the broad sense, that is.

Mark Twain was inspired to write by a river he called home. Georgia O’Keeffe made flowers in a desert, and her Alfred Stieglitz shot the sky. AE Houseman write abotu a lad from Shropshire, and even Rimbaud’s Season in Hell was largely spent on the Belgian border.

Now, go get a copy of Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story, sit down, and stay there, until you can answer the question:

“What have I come to say?”

-mlb, London

Martin Belk

Hurricane Bond Hits London! reflections on Mx Justin Vivian’s – My Model / My Self at Vitrine Gallery, London

Fuck “Famous” — 5 Ways to be Remembered, or at least Relevant.