Here Comes The Judge

Further to my earlier post: Here Comes The Judge was the first rap record, notwithstanding Debbie Harry’s absurd claim to have invented rap with Rapture (1981).
The phrase was used by Pigmeat in his stand up comedy routine, performed on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1947. Sammy Davis Junior then used it, dressed in judge’s robes and a wig, on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, 28.3.68, after which it was used as a catch phrase on the show, subsequently performed by Pigmeat himself, passing into popular usage, along with “That’s a no no” and "Very interesting - but stupid”,  among others. 
Pigmeat’s single was released July and August ‘68 in the US and UK respectively, reaching No 19 in both countries. 


The best rap record of all time is of course The Revolution Will Not Be Televised...

Verticalability

Durational Performance 18.00-20.00 Thurs 30 Nov Baerum Kunsthall 

Rigging by Torgeir Gabrielsen Photo by Sigrid Z. Heiberg

Into the Void
French artist Yves Klein famously claimed he had flown in a performance in 1960; in this performance Connolly floated 4 metres up, conquering the upper atmosphere and ceiling space of the gallery.

Performance Proposal                                                                 © R.Connolly 2017

For: Baerum Kunsthall exhibition 30.11.17 – 17.12.17

Title: Into the Void

Concept: Klein’s Saut dans le vide meets Lawnchair man. 

Klein’s ’performance photograph’ gives the paradoxical illusion of a man hurling himself into space above a drop that would injure or kill if the image were an accurate depiction of real life.

This performance creates the real-life paradox of what appears to be a man only being stopped by the gallery ceiling from being carried into space by an absurdly small number of helium-filled party balloons (5,000 would be needed in reality  )

Tech spec:

30 x party balloons

Ball of string

Double-sided adhesive foam pads (UK: Sticky Fixers, US: Buddies)

800kg suspension straps, wire rigging

Suspension seat

Hydraulic lift platform (Genie or scissor lift)

Synopsis:  The suspension seat is attached to the RFC ceiling beam using the lifting straps and rigging.

30 party balloons are filled with air and strings tied to them.

The balloons are attached to each other with adhesive foam pads, clustered around the straps until the straps are invisible, and the cluster glued to the ceiling,

The balloon strings are attached to the chair and the tension on the strings adjusted to give the appearance of the chair being suspended.

The lift platform is removed.

The audience is admitted.

Duration: 2 hours approx (duration of vernissage). 

Following the performance, the balloons began to detach from the ceiling and deflate, so that over time, the already obvious implausibility of the concept became increasingly manifest.

plus

Title: Per Ardua

photo Jon Lundell

Concept: The title is an abbreviation of the Latin motto Per Ardua Ad Astra (Through Adversity to the Stars) and refers to both the Space Race and the ephemera commemorating it that are the focal point of this exhibit, and Yoko Ono’s Yes* (1966), famously used as a means to meet Paul McCartney and John Lennon when she exhibited in a gallery whose owner knew McCartney.

Synopsis: A collection of lapel badges commemorating the early space missions pinned to a small plush display frame is hung on the wall at a height of approx 2.5m.
An illuminated magnifying glass on a piece of string is hung near it.
A ladder is leaned against the wall next to the display. This text is displayed on the wall by the exhibit.

*Yes consisted of a step ladder placed beneath a black canvas on the ceiling with a magnifying glass hung next to it, with the word YES printed in tiny white letters in the middle of the canvas.
Having discovered that Paul McCartney was associated with the gallery, Ono asked to show there. Having met him without result, she then applied pressure for John Lennon to be invited while she was hanging work before the opening and used the occasion to meet him, attempting to get into his car with him when he left. After he came to the opening, she bombarded Lennon with postal invitations and mail art pieces until he agreed to meet again, and the rest is history.
I was told this by John Dunbar, who ran the Indica Gallery with Barry Miles and Peter Asher (brother of McCartney’s girlfriend at the time), and he and Miles gave an abbreviated version in an interview for a BBC documentary on 60s art (Art and the 60s: Politics and Performance).

"Verticalability - what a great word! Even if it might only exist for the duration of a few moments. Nevertheless, more than being a term or not, it points out directions and ways to walk on. The up and down, the over and the under, the below and above, the good and bed. In any sense, it is elusive and momentarily, not made for eternity. Who wants to live forever? Not us, neither do you.

Reaching out into space and it’s beyond, or digging deeper the mining caves towards the centre of the earth, human ambitions appear limitless expressed by a momentum delivered onward ever since the age of Sirum. The question today is when we are about to benefit from this or if it already is too late?" - Tammo Rist

Verticalability: Tammo Rist, Robert Connolly, Jon Lundell

at Baerum Kunsthall 30.11.17 - 17.12.17

In the Country

'In the Country', mixed media performance/installation, Hvitsten Salong 2017.

Nationalism, symbols of nationalism, Norway's 112 years as a sovereign nation and gale force Norwegian summer weather. Norway celebrates as a nation every year by parading with flags, tricolour lapel ribbons (sløyfer) and processions of children with school bands.

Title: In the Country

At: Hvitsten Salong, Hvitsten, near Oslo

Saturday 29.7.17

Concept: 

A ritual enactment of the historical use of the Norwegian flag, nationalism, and symbols of nationalism in the celebration of Norway’s existence as an independent nation since 1905.

Synopsis: While wearing a suit covered with 50 Norwegian National Day lapel ribbons and a red white and blue tie, 112 small paper Norwegian flags of the type waved on the 17^thMay were planted in a lawn in front of a monument on a village green.

Six of the flags were defaced by the addition of a central swastika and a small Iron Cross to resemble a Nazi flag of the type flown during the occupation.

If only