To speak about the artwork of Lizzi Bougatsos is to speak about Lizzi Bougatsos herself.   Multidisciplinary, punchy, and ephemeral, Bougatsos’ art is the child of an urban wasteland. The world is her oyster and her apartment is her studio. Her visual art is conceived in short bursts: give her a month and she will give you an art show. Bougatsos is a performer by nature, which means that being a fashion icon and noted queen of the underground is a part of her art practice. It is impossible to find an article about her that leaves out the fact of her sweet witchy vibes and her celebrity friends. She works quickly, touting a plethora of different art works and collaborations, often made with found objects and smashed together with the brilliance of a quick wit. Bougatsos is most known for her performative capacity both in her musical work with bands Like Gang Gang Dance and I.U.D., her performance art at venues such as the Museum of Arts and Design in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as her sculptural work that is represented by James Fuentes Gallery in New York.

In both her zingchat interview with zingmagazine and her lecture for School of Visual Arts, she describes an encounter she had with artist Suzanne Anker that would come to define her personal philosophy of art. “She [Suzanne Anker ] said to me, ‘This is sculpture’ [throws a no. 2 pencil in an arc]”.  This pedagogical moment was a profound one for Bougatsos’ career.  In truth, the aesthetic and metaphysical tendencies of her art can be traced back to this juncture: that of performance and sculpture. For Bougatsos, there is no distinction between those two mediums. A sculpture is just performance over a longer period of time. Each physical part of the object takes up space in a particular place for a particular moment in time be that the movement of a dancer’s body, or the time it takes for a material to disintegrate. Self-Portrait (2012) is a mold of the artist’s leg cast in ice which slowly melts as it is put on display in a gallery setting. The sculpture becomes a personal performance in destruction; Strange in its disembodiment, and beautiful in the natural slowness of its change from one state to another. Suzanne Anker’s observation about the nature of sculpture is so apt in describing Lizzi Bougatsos’ art not only in its philosophical implications, but in the fact of its humor. It suits Bougatsos’ style to have a story that is all at once funny, surprising and performative.

The Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax location houses six pieces by Bougatsos dating from 2010 and 2012. Her piece Good Hair (2010) encapsulates these elements of humor, performance, and sculpture that dominate her art practice. The piece consists of a large stage-vanity scene with bright lights surrounding a frame. Where the mirror would be is a poster of comedian Tracy Morgan from his 2010 film Cop Out. Below the “mirror” is a shelf strewn with lipstick, a hair straightener, a half finished cigarette, a glass filled with red wine. As a viewer, the piece forces you to participate in the narrative of a person readying themselves for a performance. For a moment, you are the main character of the scene. You stand in front of the mirror and you laugh because for a moment you see yourself as the brashly funny Tracy Morgan.

Good Hair is a physically static art object, and yet it feels more closely related to a stage set than a marble statue. Bougatsos is able to soften the rigidity with which we usually see physical art objects. It is also important to mention that Good Hair is a self-portrait. Bougatsos considers herself to be a comedian: a purveyor of the same kind of Saturday Night Live, yo-momma defacing, character-driven humor that is associated with Tracy Morgan. Her art reflects a character wrought with celebrity. And yet, she is not the revered, godlike kind of celebrity, but rather the archetypal jester figure that asks for attention with an exposed tongue and thumbs in its ears.

Indeed many of the Bougatsos’s pieces that reside at the Dikeou Pop-Up read as one-liners. Pussy For Rent (2010) consists of a For Rent sign with the words “my pussy” scrawled in marker on the blank space. Bougatsos makes a sort of feminist joke about her own genitalia being real estate in a world where women’s bodies are constantly being objectified. In God We Bust, also created in 2010, is a green neon sign that that displays those words. The piece references America’s catch phrase, satirized with pun, written in the medium of a late night city. The sign reads like a quip uttered in the wake of silence after political debate meant to tease out some laughs to ease the tension of the room.

In Happy Ending 2 (2012) Bougatsos presents a large scale version of anal beads. Five large reflective silver balls are connected by a rope and hung from the ceiling. At the bottom a pink rose trails to the floor. This piece exemplifies the dichotomy between objects and their referential, societal meaning. The title of the piece and the rose component can be symbolically understood in more than one way. The saying “happy ending” conjures relations to both fairytale stories and sexual climax. The rose is a symbol of natural innocence and is also used as innuendo when related to taboo body parts. By changing the scale of a sex object Bougatsos allows the viewer to consider each part of the piece in the context of erotic imagery and also in a societal vacuum.

The pieces in the collection at the Dikeou Pop-Up also include the controversial Dick Toss II (2012) which involves an upside down American flag hung on the wall, overlaid by a poster depicting the body of an explicitly clad and faceless woman. She offers the viewer a game of beer pong and the caption reads “ATM: Get your balls wet”. Where the woman’s breasts would be, two toy sized dildos are placed with removable rings. The title invites the viewer to play a game, toss the rings and incriminate themselves in the overt sexual objectification that dominates American culture. Once again Bougatsos’s art is performative. Just as Suzanne Anker suggested, the second half of the sculpture is created when the viewer engages physically with the work, throwing the ring in an arc and playing a part in the performance. Thus we implicitly participate in the cringe-worthy imagery that Bougatsos’s wants us to admit to.

-Liana Woodward

Janine Gordon, AFI, 2001, silver gelatin print

The early 2000s: The era of boy bands, pop divas, blinged out rappers, and middle of the road alt rockers. In the midst of this music-for-the-masses arena one genre stood apart, like a big middle finger eager to burst the bubbly world of Pop: Metal. System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, Disturbed, Slipknot, and Linkin Park dominated the airwaves and the Billboard charts, stomping the Britneys and Justins with ease. This “New Wave of American Metal” was fast, aggressive, and loud with dynamic musicians who knew exactly how to rile up their fans and unleash their angst. The crowds at live shows are quintessential representations of primal energy at its physical and psychological apex, and Janine Gordon captured the intensity with her camera to create her photographic “DIRT” series on view at Dikeou Collection. Gordon’s focus on the people in the audience shows that they were just as charismatic as the performers on stage, and, as a collective fandom, just as socially and culturally powerful.

The concerts Gordon attended took place at Randall’s Island in New York in 2001 and 2002, a time before everyone’s hands and eyes became glued to a smartphone. The body and mind were free to experience the music and the energetic environment without distraction, creating a perfect photographic atmosphere with no inhibition or distraction. She approached her subjects like a journalist, putting herself in the center of the action which “allows us to see the fury, the motion, the aggression, the camaraderie, the unity, and the spirit of a team/teenage life, angst, and revolution…” (Devon Dikeou, curatorial statement). Gordon’s photos serve as documentation of a specific sect of society, and the concert becomes a ritual ground where members of the sect perform a prescribed series of actions, primarily adulation of the music through movement.

Janine Gordon, Surfing, 2002, silver gelatin print

The figures in Gordon’s photographs are in the throws of the mosh pit. Whether circling, skanking, crowd surfing, stage diving, pogoing, or doing windmills, those who partake in this activity do so not with the intention to hurt others, but are accepting and forgiving of pain. Gordon states it’s one of the “dirtiest dances that youth culture embraces today,” but the pit really is a thing of beauty in its own right. Individual people coalesce into a swirling entity of humanity. There is no room for ego or vanity, and gender, religion, and sexuality mean nothing. Everybody is equal.

Naturally, mosh pits would not exist without the bands whose music incited such a concept. The early hardcore punk band Scream’s 1982 song “Total Mash” (which they pronounced as ‘mosh’), defined the ethos behind moshing in the lyrics: “Let me reach out and grab your heart / There’s no reason for you to stand apart / Prefab notions that hold your motions back / Cuts off your head, and tells you how to act.” Then there’s Penelope Spheeris’ seminal 1981 documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization,” which offered mainstream audiences one of the first looks at the punk and later hardcore and metal subcultures.

Dan Witz, 70 Commercial St, 2012, oil and digital media on canvas

The heaving allure of mosh pits and its participants have piqued the interest of artists who work in a variety of media. Dan Witz has created dozens of photorealistic mosh pit paintings that exhibit the same Baroque exuberance as a composition by Rubens, creating a compelling combination of classical, academic sensibility with chaotic and rebellious subject matter.

Bryan LeBoeuf, Mosh Pit (study), 2000, charcoal on paper

Artist Bryan LeBoeuf’s illustration of a figure crowd surfing exemplifies the state of physical and mental surrender one succumbs to while in the heart of the mosh pit. The overhead perspective and languid anatomy is like witnessing, or undergoing, an out of body experience.

Charles Peterson, Mosh Pit at Endfest, Kitas County, Washington, 1991

Charles Perterson, well known for documenting the grunge scene of the early 1990s, directed his camera toward the sea of bodies at intimate shows and large festivals alike, proving that no crowd or venue is too small or too big to instigate such a frenzy.

Janine Gordon, Plant Your Feet, 2001, silver gelatin print

Janine Gordon captured moments that are damn near divine within the hedonistic mass that is the mosh pit. Her ability to hone in on an individual within the group highlights how the singular intensity of one person has a ripple effect, creating a collective energy enhanced by the music. She bravely integrates herself into the pit to capture these moments, while other photographers would likely work from a more comfortable distance. The clouds of dirt kicked up from the movement of the crowd got into in her camera and developed into the film, creating an atmospheric effect and adding that conceptual layer and authenticity to the powerful “DIRT” series.

— Hayley Richardson

Lisa Kereszi: Video Dialogue Screening

As a permanent, non-rotating, contemporary art collection, we are always working to engage our audiences with artworks or artists that they may already be very familiar with. In July of 2015, Saniego Sanchez and Jenna Maurice created and launched the Video Dialogue Series, a monthly video screening. The Video Dialogue Series is a program that focuses on one artwork/artist in the Dikeou Collection and uses videos to explore tangential connections to expand the conversation around the selected artwork/artist. Each screening features one hour of video clips assembled from common and unconventional sources and thus serves as an unofficial video conversation about the artwork/artist. So far, Sanchez and Maurice have created six of these Video Dialogues focusing on artists Chris Johanson, Momoyo Torimitsu, Giasco Bertoli, Lisa Kereszi, Sarah Staton and most recently, Devon Dikeou. Looking to the artist’s inspiration, contemporaneous art movements, location, or their own dialogue about the work, the Video Dialogue Series is able to carry both a light-hearted and a serious approach to discussions surrounding the artwork in the collection. 

Each screening begins with specific information about the artist/artwork featured. This introduction can either be the artist statement, or a video clip documenting the artwork and a localized conversation about it. From there, the selected videos range from advertisements, to conversations about similar artists. As customary to such varied presentations, there is a handheld program provided for the potential eager audience member, or more importantly for reference if they want to re-watch a clip or the entire hour-long series. Not only does the Video Dialogue provide an alternative visual and audio guide to explore the artwork, but the food and drink provided at the screening corresponds with the theme to extend the dialogue and to engage a more sensory experience. 

Lisa Kereszi’s Video Dialogue Program

Lisa Kereszi’s Video Dialogue on November 4, 2015, addressed addictive substances. In her photo series at the collection, Kereszi frames various social situations in which her friends are engaged in party-like scenes smoking and drinking. But there is also a lingering sense of hostility, tension, and frustration in what seem to be happy party-goers enjoying themselves. The minimal separation of enjoyment and potential danger is especially clear in Kereszi’s photo entitled Jack With Jim Beam, where a revolver is foregrounded with a bottle of whiskey. Inspired by Kereszi’s photography, this Video Dialogue focused on the various ways society views addictive substances and how these views have changed dramatically over time. The food provided at the screening included candy cigarettes, alcoholic chocolate and sugar crystals (in the shape of crack rocks). Clips included cigarette and alcohol ads that promoted the use of these legalized, government endorsed addictive products but other clips warned against the addictive use of substances considered “drugs.” As the categorical line between drugs and legalized substances thins out, the audience is able to recognize the classist and racist use of deception and hypocrisy when it comes to what is considered socially acceptable addiction. The end of the screening included a little bonus cartoon titled “Life Smartphone” about a society-wide addictive behavior, as we are all glued to our cell phones. In the video, characters are only engaging with their cell phones, taking selfies and texting, all the while the world is crumbling around them and they have no idea. Here is a link to the preview of the screening so you can get a little sniff for yourself https://vimeo.com/145013121.

Sarah Staton’s Video Dialogue Program

Sarah Staton’s Video Dialogue on December 18, 2015, focused on the Young British Artist (YBA) movement, Sarah Staton’s Supastore and contemporary viewpoints on the work and ethics of the YBA’s collective actions and creations. Touching on the com-modified and material economy of the art world, through her Supastore, Staton created a parody of department stores in which the audience would navigate their way through a traveling store’s drawers to find portfolios, cigarettes, or even credit cards. The portfolio in the collection from the Supastore titled 10 Supastore Supastars, includes a print series of one work from ten different artists. Staton’s Supastore featured artists in a unique exhibition space and art market, challenging the gallery and its stagnancy. The Video Dialogue informed the audience about the multidimensional ways in which the YBAs engaged their practice into their daily life such as Tracy Emin’s 1995 work, “Curriculum Vitae.” The Video Dialogue also addressed the ways in which the movement was critiqued. In a clip entitled “The Art of the Critic: The New Brutalists” an art critic follows around potential art buyers and makes fun of the artwork seen in the studios, putting off the buyers and thus sabotaging the next great art movement. The clips in this screening varied in topic, but each seemed to point directly to the YBA movement as a form of shock art, showing how they are simultaneously oppositional and entrepreneurial. Eating fish n’ chips, Cadbury Flakes and Turkish Delights while washing it down with Ribena and Old English 40s, the audience seemed to enjoy the multifaceted ways in which the YBA movement worked its way into the contemporary American art world by first contextualizing spaces and artworks back in England while critiquing or disrupting the global art market in a beneficial way. The preview for Staton’s screening can be found here https://vimeo.com/144802406.

Devon Dikeou’s Video Dialogue Program

The most recent screening of the Video Dialogue Series at the collection, highlighted Artist, Editor and Curator, Devon Dikeou and focused on her piece titled Not Quite Mrs. de Menil’s Liquor Closet. Looking at the connections between cabinets of curiosities and birds flying into the windows at Mrs. de Menil’s house, the audience was informed about Devon’s interests, practice and relationships to her fellow contemporary artists. Information about how to properly taxidermy a bird, mix a cocktail, and advertisements for portable liquor cabinets guided the audience on a Bud Light flavored path to better understanding her practice and specific use of space and other’s artwork in this installation. The clips also historically contextualized the practice of collecting small, foreign objects into cabinets of curiosities, while relating them to Mrs. de Menil’s actual liquor closet and home in the clip “Menil House and Museum.” Clips in the Video Dialogue connected these two temporally disparate art collectors to their various objects and methods of display. Even more so, the Video Dialogue gave an illuminating glimpse into Devon Dikeou’s intermingling of art collecting with her own art practice. As these works were either gifts or trades, none purchased, the audience can better understand Devon’s own relationship with the artists whose work she collects. Bar food like White Castle burgers, truffle popcorn, mixed nuts and vending machine candy were provided to compliment all of the liquor and taxidermy talk on the screen. Devon Dikeou’s preview can be found here https://vimeo.com/145013478. 

Video Dialogue Screening at Material Art Fair

It is no secret that the world’s history is largely shaped by the perspective of men, and this naturally applies to our understanding of art as well. Women have always participated in the visual arts—whether that be creating, collecting, teaching, or theorizing—yet their contributions are relegated to the sidelines while their male counterparts have been heralded as the apogee of artistic greatness. The feminist movement of the 20th century gave women the power and mobility necessary to gain recognition and respect for their cultural achievements, and the footing to express themselves and their worldview creatively. Tracy Nakayama applies “the female gaze” toward a subject that generally ignores any possible enjoyment or consumption by women—pornography—and thus flips the script on what these images look like and who they are intended for. Her series of watercolors at Dikeou Collection convey a sense of sweetness and flirtatious ease during erogenous encounters that appeal to females sexual interests, but there’s a raw edge left intact that can seduce women and men alike. Nakayama is representative of a growing number of female artists with a direct approach to nudity and sex, and who seek to disprove the notion that this kind of carnal imagery cannot exist without misogynistic undertones.

Nakayama composes her paintings like a collage, incorporating poses, objects, and scenarios she finds from her large collection of vintage pornography from the 1960s through 1980s. As a cheeky twist, she uses the faces of people she knows on her figures as a personal albeit untraditional sign of affection. For example, the face of the woman in her large painting, Football, is that of her own mother, smiling gleefully as two mustachioed men in jerseys caress her body. The woman holds a football under her arm like the player on the Heisman Trophy, hinting that she’s the one who will come out on top in this game. Perhaps her mother owned a copy of The Joy of Sex that Tracy maybe discovered during her adolescence, and the illustrations by Chris Foss ignited some inspiration for her artistic pursuits. The combination of the vintage references and sepia color schemes makes Nakayama’s work strongly reminiscent of a time when the peak of feminist action was met with a new era of free love, spawning the Sexual Revolution which motivated female artists to depict sex and sexuality in ways women never had before.

The female nude is one of the most popular subjects in the history of art, a favorite of male artists in particular. Alice Neel presented a whole new perspective on this subject by removing the sexualized and idealized views cast upon the model. Her paintings revealed not only the bodies of her sitters in a more natural way but their psychological states as well. Neel was one of the first to paint pregnant nudes, and also did a self-portrait in the nude at 80 years old. She applied the same techniques to her male nudes, too, where they exuded the same vulnerability and true to life form. This focus on gender equality is prevalent in the work of English painter Sylvia Sleigh, who made gender-reversed versions of famous paintings like Ingre’s The Turkish Bath. Sleigh’s male nudes are more idealized than Neel’s, implementing the tactics of the male gaze onto male subjects and pointing out the problems of gender bias. Joan Semmel paints nude self-portraits from her own perspective so her face is invisible, which leaves the viewer to draw their own conclusions about how identity is constructed and recognized via the normally covered and private body.

Artists like Alice Neel, Sylvia Sleigh, and Joan Semmel were key figures in the progression of the female vision and sex-positive movement in the arts, while women like Betty Tompkins and Marilyn Minter push the envelope even further by depicting sexual acts and genitalia explicitly and unapologetically. Like Semmel, Tompkins and Minter remove the identity of their figures, as well as context, putting the viewer on the spot to make their own judgment calls about what the body parts themselves represent. When reduced to individual components like a machine, these bodies are performing exactly how they’re supposed to, yet art like this is still very challenging for even the most savvy art appreciators. If placed along a spectrum, Tracy Nakayama’s watercolor collages would sit comfortably between the avant-garde nudes of Neel, Sleigh, and Semmel and the pronounced emphasis on sexual parts and performance of Tompkins and Minter. As a respectful gesture toward our diverse audience at Dikeou Collection, Nakayama’s paintings are exhibited within a special enclosed gallery. The room is like a secret little love nest where Tracy’s works can be reveled privately or in the company of that special someone. When people exit the room and shut the door, the figures in the paintings can bask privately themselves in sensual bliss.

-Hayley Richardson

We are now officially in the throws of winter. It starts out as a joyous and enchanting time of year with glittering snow and hot cocoa but eventually slumps into long cold months of dirty slush puddles and expired eggnog. Let’s face it: winter sucks. Unless, of course, you’re fortunate enough to be able to travel or live some place warm and tropical and can avoid the wintertime blues. Lawrence Seward is one of those lucky individuals who was born and raised in Hawaii. He attended school at NYU, but has since moved back to the Aloha State and now teaches at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. His artwork at Dikeou Collection gives a glimpse of the island life from a local’s perspective, which, in reality, is not all rainbows and tiki drinks like we may expect.

Upon entrance into Seward’s room at the collection, the viewer is confronted with an oversized self-portrait of the artist made of foam, paint, and plaster. This work was made in 2001 but titled 1989 and is meant to depict himself from that period in time. His long hair and casual flannel are indicative not only of his laid-back personality but of the easy-going environment in which he lives. A little island scene with a golden sky and palm trees is hidden inside his mouth, complete with pearly grains of sand upon his tongue, as if he carries a taste of Hawaii with him wherever he goes. Sculptural self-portraits are not very common, especially in this size, but there is a tranquil quality to this work that does not make it self-aggrandizing. The sculpture faces a wall that is hung with twelve different drawings and watercolors by Seward that depict various Hawaiian themes like sunsets, surfing, luaus, and tiki paraphernalia, but a thoughtful analysis would lead one to see that these images portray a visitor’s paradise at the local’s expense.

Barbed wire, concrete walls covered in graffiti, and steel beams frame ocean waves and sandy beaches in several of these works. The largest depicts a surfer impaled by his board and left for dead on the beach which, as Seward says “evokes suicide, sacrifice, mishap, and the death of youth.” Other drawings show ukulele players and Hula dancers from the back as they entertain a crowd of tourists, and Summer No Fun is an unsettling look at the subliminal relationship between performer and viewer in the state of Hawaii.

With her head bowed and wrists crossed behind her back, a female dancer stands on an X as if she is a target for exploitation. The palm trees are transformed from serene elements of nature into props for light fixtures, turning Hawaii’s beauty into a stage for outsiders’ amusement.

Westerners first impeded upon the Hawaiian islands and its inhabitants in 1778 when British Captain James Cook and his crew inadvertently encountered them while trying to find a Northwest passage between Europe and Asia. The Hawaiians maintained rule of their territory only by forming alliances and assimilating with colonial powers, but the indigenous kingdom was completely overthrown in the late 19th century by the United States government. Like all other ways of life, native art and culture changed with the new hierarchy.

Prior to the European arrival, traditional Hawaiian art consisted primarily of woodcarving, feather work, rock and bark painting, and tattoos. These art traditions used techniques as well as iconography and patterns that had been in practice throughout the Polynesian islands for centuries, and commonly referenced their mythology and the natural environment. With the arrival of the Europeans, the Hawaiians were introduced to painting, ceramics, sculpture, and quilt-making. While the Hawaiian artists stayed true to their artistic and cultural heritage utilizing both their established and new art making tactics, there were still colonial undertones to their work that illustrated how this outside force radicalized their way of life. Lawrence Seward brings these undertones to the forefront of his work and shows how the influence is still prevalent today.

As Westernization continues to dominate the landscape, artists to this day keep the legacy of traditional Hawaiian art making alive. Rick Makanaaloha Kia‘imeaokekanaka San Nicolas is a master at Ka Hana No'eau I Ka Hulu, which means “art of the feather.” Rick painstakingly creates capes, helmets, and leis made out of feathers that once adorned Hawaiian tribal royalty. Dalani Tanahy makes beautiful kapa, which is handmade bark cloth that is painted with natural pigments and used for quilts, clothing, and decoration. Keone Nunes is one of the few tattoo artists in the world who still uses the Polynesian “tapping” technique, known as kakau, and makes his own tools and inks.

There is no way to turn back time and prevent the West’s overtake of Hawaii, but this part of history should not be ignored especially since the ramifications are still felt today. Artists like Rick, Dalani, and Keone help keep the past alive through the native art forms not just by practicing them but by sharing their skills and experiences with others in the hopes that the next generation will continue these aspects of their heritage. Seward does the same by displaying his insights through his art, and by educating students at the University of Hawaii. Having lived both on the island and on the mainland, he has a well-rounded view of how these two parts of the United States influence one another in the 21st century.

Lawrence Seward also has beautiful project in zingmagazine issue 20 where he collaborated with John T. Koga on collage illustrations inspired by the Doris Duke Foundation of Islamic Art in Honolulu, which is worth pursuing if you want to see more cross-cultural pollination to the nth degree in the USA’s youngest state.

—Hayley Richardson