Donatien Veismann "Mister Nude Punk America"
envoy enterprises
This event has ended.
Through a little door, one enters Donatien Veismann’s Mister Nude Punk America, a Wonderland that seems to expose the art industry as a strip club as well as a place to experience beauty and to be challenged.
Veismann’s video and photographic installation takes issue with the term ‘vulgar’. By putting the emphasis on the poetic and the beautiful, the artist chooses to challenge vulgarity by using poetry and beauty as a shield against the rules of the outside world.
The walls of Veismann’s Wonderland show pictures of beautiful, sad boys and pictures of antique busts. Claws ready, a barn owl graced with gold leaf is standing on a pedestal, wisely watching over the surrounding beauty while secret albums with tutu boys are hidden in an old vitrine. A large section of prints, made from Polaroid’s of the artist’s Mister Nude Punk America series, show models that are art students or prostitutes, the line being intentionally blurry.
As in Zürich’s Cabaret Voltaire, Veismann’s Wonderland is a place for artistic entertainment where guest artists, such as Del Marquis from the Scissor Sisters, give performances and readings that deal with social themes, beauty, political developments and intellectual criticism. The ‘soirees’ are meant to be raucous events with experimenting artists.
Because life became increasingly more expensive at the start of the 20th century, the cabaret became a place for the rich, a fact that brings the reference to the current art industry full circle.
Donatien Veismann, born in 1974, lives and works in France. His work has been exhibited in Paris, London, Hamburg, Basel and New York City.
Media
Schedule
from March 12, 2009 to April 19, 2009
Opening Reception on 2009-03-15 from 18:00 to 20:00
Performance by DEL MARQUIS (SCISSOR SISTERS) AND EMBRYOROOM at 7.30PM sharp.