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Roll Call: Bay Area Arts and Culture
PLAYLIST
Selections by GARY FEMBOT GREGERSON and GWENAËL RATTKE
Hit Movies: Puce Moment
Berlin: Wayne County & The Electric Chairs
Salon de Musique: Su Tissue
Ask Cicegi: Mavi Isiklar
ISTANBUL 70: Erkin Koray “Cemalim” Baris K edit
Krysmopompas: Edgar W. Froese/Krysmopompas from Kamikaze 1989
I Need Somebody to Love Tonight: Sylvester
Neuköln: David Bowie
I Live In The Springtime: Lemon Drops
Whatever Happened to the Seven Day Week: Bella And Me
Holiday Maker (Unseen TV Performance): Kaleidoscope (UK)
Joy-Riding: Monica West / Roland Grand A STAROCK/SFTV Production
Sister Watch Yourself: The Mirettes
Solid Life: Frank Chickens Get Chickenized
Homesick/Heimweh: Christiane F
A Puce Moment: Lazily Spun
INTERVIEW
Dj Margaret is joined in conversation with artist GWENAËL RATTKE from Berlin who is currently artist-in-residence for his third upcoming solo exhibition with Romer Young Gallery San Francisco, opening Friday September 14, and filmmaker extraordinaire GARY FEMBOT GREGERSON on their current projects, practice, travels, and music.
Artist GWENAËL RATTKE grew up in both France and Germany. Rattke works in collage, silkscreen, photography and Xerox graphics. For most of his teenage years, he was producing DIY fanzines, flyers and graphics in the Berlin punk community. Rattke began his queer punk zine, Easily Grossed Out, in the early 1990s. Issues were initially published from Rennes, France, and then later from the US. The zine featured interviews with bands such as Christ on a Crutch and Capitalist Casualties. Rattke’s collage works borrow from the visual codes of the 1960s and 1970s; the works are intricate, ornamental and excessive, and present “an imagined past life with beauty and sexual freedom.” Rattke’s work has been exhibited at Galerie Knoth & Krueger, Exile Projects, and Arratia Beer, Berlin, Skol, Montreal (2002); YYZ Artists’ Outlet, Toronto, and New Langton Arts, Romer Young galleries in San Francisco. He graduated in Communication Studies (film) from Concordia University, Montreal in 1997. He is represented by Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco. In his upcoming exhibition of new works at Romer Young Gallery, Gwenaël will present a series of new silk screens and paper-based collages created from his collection of visual material—long culled from old publications, papers and books, old magazines, found photos, and record covers. Although drawing from a collection of references, preoccupations, thoughts and art, the great inspiration for this exhibition began on a recent trip to Lebanon where the artist visited the Jeita Grotto outside of Beirut. Situated only a few miles outside of the bustling capital, the caves run 4 miles deep into the mountain and contain some of the world’s oldest and biggest stalactites. In these caves the artist discovered a structure both physical and spiritual that gave shape to his ideas in both form and content. Dark and silent, the sculptural forms inspired awe and reverence and offered a kind of meditative, transformative retreat from the world. Caves have often been symbolic of new life, creativity, warmth, safety, as well as the unconscious mind. For Rattke, the caves inspired a shelter from the rapidity of life, a place to step back and recharge, a place to ‘reconnect with what is “us” and reflect on what is “our” purpose.’ In a world increasingly globalized economically and culturally, the caves brought the artist to question: “how do we preserve (progressively, not conservatively) our safe-spaces, our various pasts, our cultural histories, our identities, maybe even our personal sanities? ...In an age of hyper digital interconnectivity and in times of increased political, moral and religious polarization, in what ways can we connect to one another rather than push in opposite directions or fall prey to alienation? ...” Some of the works in the exhibition directly reflect this idea of shelter, while other works venture to engage more directly with the world beyond the shelter. What all the works share is a reference to past strategies and past lives as a potential source of inspiration for current and future generations. Ultimately what the artist wishes to express is his own personal longing for community and a sense of face-to-face togetherness. In search of this collective spirit, Rattke works exist as metaphors for the inter-connectedness of all things: real, imagined, and aspired, past, present and future, and for the overlapping kaleidoscopic nature of his own streaming thought patterns.
GARY FEMBOT GREGERSON was born 1965 in the flatlands of Illinois. Moved to the “hill country” in 1989. A late bloomer, since 1991, he has been making up for lost time by learning how to play music in bands (Sta-Prest, Feelings on a Grid, Swishin’ Duds, Mon Cousin Belge, Puce Moment), performing in underground theater (Sick and Twisted Players), dj’ing, writing zines, and producing short films. He began releasing his zine Fembot in the early 1990’s. After the fourth issue, subsequent publications were called Fembot Presents Jam While You Cram, named after a popular high school locker poster from the 1980s. Gary Fembot’s vocals appear on a number of the group’s recordings, released by labels such as Outpunk and Kill Rock Stars. He has also made the films The Willows, with Iraya Robles of Sta-Prest, and Mondo Bottomless with zine editors Brontez, Johnny Ray Huston, Gwenaël Rattke and Martin Sorrondeguy from the band Limpwrist (among others). His film AIDS Camp has a cast of over 30 including Jerry Lee Abrahms, Annie Danger, Iraya Robles, Chelsea Starr and Alison C. Wright. Gary is presently working on two videos (shot on film) for his band Puce Moment, and another short dance film for Brontez upcoming along with “nanobites” and “Scream of the Mandrake”. “nanobites” is a collaboration on a web series based on birdmites.org, a Yahoo group, with characters including “Linda” and “Sad Girl”. “Scream of the Mandrake” will be about Gary losin’ it on the streets of SF. Patiently working a nonprofit job with people with developmental disabilities, off the clock, unleashing my anger on the rest of society. That sort of thing. “Advancing the utopian promise of underutilized San Francisco public art and spaces circa 1960–1985, my best ideas come from years of watching exploitation and educational films, or cable access shows usually when I’m half asleep at 3am on a Sunday morning. Making films is also an excuse to bring my different groups of friends together.” Gary Fembot and Malcolm Hamilton co-hosted a wonderful program interviewing queers on KUSF IN EXILE, see Fembot & Friends in our archives.
For more information:
GARY FEMBOT GREGERSON
www.youtube.com/user/dmfeelings
Fembot & Friends Facebook
GWENAËL RATTKE
www.romeryounggallery.com/artists/Rattke/index.html
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