September 21st, 2019 – FreshGrass Festival & The Flying Cat.

Getting up this morning, we’re off to Mass MoCA in the hopes that a) when we pick up our merch, we don’t have to pick up quite as much as we dropped off, b) that we’ll catch our friend Lauren Pratt for her set and that c) the Anselm Kiefer building is open! Not necessarily in that order!

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Anselm Kiefer.

I’d be hard-pressed to tell you why this man’s work speaks to me so intensely. Until I looked him up just now I don’t know that I could’ve told you if he was alive or dead (alive, he’s 74 years old) – and I frankly think I stumbled across his work by accident. It might’ve been a random purchase of something that appealed to me on a bookshelf. I really have no memory of it. Maybe it was a book that my grandmother bought?

I don’t speak his language, I don’t know the background of much of his work. I know he works in natural materials, mud and straw, and not-so-natural – sheets of lead. Photo emulsion. His colour palette is one that I understand and speaks or tortured ground and thunderstorms.

Being in the presence of his piece Zim Zum in the National Gallery has brought me to tears. The reflectivity of the central water patch, the devastation of the earth, the sullen sky. I remember writing about his work in college, listening to Alice In Chains, “Down in a Hole” and Zim Zum seemed the perfect combination and spoke to me somewhere deep.

I associate his work strongly with World War II and the horror of the Holocaust. He leaves his work in the open air to let them Live, breathe and slowly decay. He beats his paintings with sticks and with chains. He’s visceral and physical and his work is beautiful.

When this building wasn’t opened yesterday I was deeply afraid that it wouldn’t be opened the next day either…. going in today I understand now why it wasn’t open… the grounds didn’t open till 5pm, sunset was 5.57pm – and there is no artificial lighting in this hangar-like space. Though I’d have appreciated exploring his work by cellphone flashlight, I can imagine I’m in the minority.

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But today, the sun is bright, the doors are open – and we have this church-like space entirely to ourselves barring the presence of the lone guard / docent – who opens the door for us and never QUITE lets us leave his sight. He steps in with explanations that unfortunately aren’t particularly insightful. He can’t answer any of my questions, and HERE the “museum-ish-ness” breaks down…. Kiefer writes a LOT on his pieces and next to them, but it’s all minimalist French (I have a lot more trouble reading a word or two than a paragraph where you can grasp context) and German (a language that doesn’t whisper ANY sense to me) and the docent knows very, very little.

Is the water that evaporates refilled? How often? Is it treated to make sure it leaves a mineral residue? The few translations he DOES give… well, my French isn’t SO bad that I can’t tell he’s got his signs mixed up…

… but no matter. Eventually he leaves us in beautiful silence of this massive space and we soak in Anslem Kiefer’s statements on the human condition. The smell of dust and lead and dry earth, the quiet of the dead.

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Lauren Pratt… and surprise! Elena LaCayo!

Heather met Lauren Pratt at a festival last year and thought I’d like her a lot. I met her in the dark at the festival last night, and she was very, very right. Bright and smiling, bubbling and fiercely intelligent, she went from music to property values and back again all while we bopped along to Andrew Bird in the middle of a field in North Adams, MA. She’s pretty cool. Today I got to catch her set in FreshGrass and was really surprised by her deep, syrupy voice and musical imagery. Even if she DOES play one of the NEWFANGLED Breedloves!

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The Boiler Room Thing (“All Those Vanished Engines” by Stephen Vitiello).

I didn’t grasp much of this, mostly because it’s a light and sound installation happening during the day with a music festival – still, especially on the heels of Bethlehem, PA – it’s a cool thing to wander through.

From Mass MoCA’s description : “Sound artist Stephen Vitiello created All Those Vanished Engines especially for the MASS MoCA Boiler House. This building is a relic from the industrial past of the site and was once used to heat the factory campus the museum now inhabits. Starting with the inherent resonance of the pipes and metal drums in the space, Vitiello composed a layered sound installation that can be explored throughout the building.“

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Boiler selfies….

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MICHAEL OATMAN: ALL UTOPIAS FELL

“… a 1970s-era satellite that has seemingly just crash-landed. This gleaming, re-purposed Airstream trailer—with large parachutes and active solar panels—is, according to the artist, inspired by an earlier era of pulp aeronauts such as Buck Rogers, Tom Swift, and Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, as well as the works of Giotto, Jules Verne, NASA, and Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée.”

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Then we drove to New York…

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And then… Flying Cat Music…

A good show in Phoenicia, NY.

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Maybe these are the flying cats?

Going back to our host’s place for the crashening… there was quiche and cats. Well, one cat and one oversized cat book… that Heather feels has solved the mystery of what Prince be.

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