Points of Penetration: The Grotesque Body and Humor in Art

Double Consciousness: Painting and Performing the Racial Grotesque, Lecture at NGBK http://www.ngbk.de/site/?id=46 Berlin by Rajkamal Kahlon, March 20, 2009

Re/Positionierung Conference organized by Meta Nationale http://www.metanationale.org/index.php/repositionierung

SUBJECT!

Racist structures degrade People of Color to objects – the taking on of a subjectivity by rejecting an ascribed passive position describes a form of resistance and a simultaneous process of empowerment. The African American philosopher W.E. Dubois coined the term of “double consciousness” in order to speak about a form of self-perception which juggles an individuals point of view in relation to the perspective of a dominant exterior world. Rajkamal Kahlon discusses this phenomenon in her artistic/scholarly contribution. Suzan Onur Kömürcü speaks about the life and working experiences of artists of Color in Germany. Branwen Okpako marks the consequences of and dealings with an individual's subjective positions based on the history of Maggie Mufu and Juliane Strohschein shares the insights she gained, conducting Critical Whiteness workshops.

Friday, March 20

18:00h: Double Consciousness: Painting and Performing the Racial Grotesque
Rajkamal Kahlon
lecture/Performance (E)
20:00h: Cultural Diversity and the creative City: Living Conditions of artists of Color in Berlin’s cultural Industry
Onur Suzan Kömörcü
Lecture (E)

Saturday, March 21

17:00h: Maggie Burns
Branwen Okpako
Painting and Sound Installation
19:00h: Positioning and Dealing with Whiteness
Juliane Strohschein
Lecture (G)

All events will take place at:

Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst Oranienstraße 25, 10999 Berlin VH, 1. OG (Veranstaltungsraum)






Aktion with a Male Body: Notes from Schwarzkogler to Shahzada
Performed at Artists Space, July 16, 2008, Rajkamal Kahlon

Aktion with a Male Body: Notes from Schwarzkogler to Shahzada marked my first public performance and continues my explorations of the transformed and grotesque body within historical moments of crisis. The multi-media piece moves between post-war Austria of the 1960's and our contemporary moment of war, offering a new way of looking at Rudolph Schwarzkogler's work, while reflecting on the impact of technologies on our present individual and collective bodies. Considering that war can now be created and watched from a vast distance, Notes from Schwarzkogler to Shahzada addresses a collapse of this distance and attempts a recovery of the bodies we have seperated ourselves from.

An audio component features the voice of Shahzada, a former Guantanamo detainee and tribal elder from Afghanistan known through the camp for his sad and beautiful singing voice.The songs are based on lines of poetry smuggled to him by fellow inmates.

Schwarzkogler, a member of the Vienna Actionists, began his career as a painter and went on to create largely private performances using himself, a model and a photographer. The results were simple, disturbing and austere photographic images of the body injured, healing and in the process of being handled and manipulated. Aktion with a Male Body: Notes from Schwarzkogler to Shahzada makes reference to the frame as a device that links painting to performance, image to the real and the past to present.

Actors:
Rajkamal Kahlon
Jesse Lopez
Erin Shigaki
Elia Alba

Photography & 8MM: Elia Alba
Digital Video: Kara Spellman