Newspaper Jan Mot Afgiftekantoor 1000 Brussel 1 Verschijnt vijfmaal per jaar in V. U . Jan Mot januari – maart – mei – Antoine Dansaertstraat 190 augustus – oktober 1000 Br ussel No. 87, mei 2013 Erkenningsnummer P309573 139 –140 Jaargang 17 No. 87

There’s only four perfect Cer in The Rye; and the god- Name but at Weast include things in this world: my father’s 1 & 2. i can under- akira kurosawa mang I don’t grandmother’s cooking catch. stand you can’t fit everyo Pes care for it at all,I appreciates

(advertisement) Marian Zijlstra in Brussels

(advertisement)

By where she photographed mostly people in Jan Mot public spaces throughout the country. She has very rarely exhibited her work, one BRUSSELS, MAY 2013 – For the last show of the few occasions was a group show at of the season I invited Marian Zijlstra, a the Stedelijk Museum in 1967, a competi- close friend since many years, to present tion entitled ‘Fotoprijs Amsterdam’. The a selection of photographs taken in the selection of 27 photographs was made in Fifties and Sixties. Zijlstra (°1933, Amster- collaboration with Ben Krewinkel and the dam) studied photography at the Kunst- prints, all in black and white, were realised nijverheidschool in Amsterdam (which later by Michael Windig (De Verbeelding), son became the Gerrit Rietveld Academie) and of her former teacher. The show is her first under Carel Blazer and Ad Windig. She solo presentation and is entiteld Terugblik. lives in Amsterdam but has spent long pe- 1950 –1970 (Looking Back. 1950 –1970). riods in Mexico in the Fifties and Sixties 2 Newspaper Jan Mot 139 – 140

Early one night in the fall of, a college fresh- first experience on mescaline, as they are gling shoe salesman whose dark-brown pairs man ate half of a microdot of lysergic acid cracked open and left askew. H.P.P.D. does bled into the navy-blues; a confused student diethylamide on his way to a party. He was not generate hallucinations, technically whose text jumbled into “alphabet soup”; a young, but more than a little familiar with speaking. Sufferers can appreciate that their distracted office worker whose flower pot mind-altering chemicals: LSD, mescaline, perceptual aberrations are unreal—that their slid back and forth along the windowsill. psilocybin, and other, less common psy- surroundings only appear blurred by after- “This isn’t flashbacks,” said Abraham. “We chedelics. This trip, by comparison, turned images (palinopsia) and trails (akinetopsia); have to call it what it is: a persisting percep- out to be only a “mild experience.” The tin- shimmered by sparkles and flashed by bright tion disorder.” gling euphoria, splendid visuals, and sudden bolts of light; interrupted by transparent Preliminary estimates of the prevalence of bursts of insight mostly wore off by the time blobs of color floating around; electrified by H.P.P.D. dismissed the disorder as an outlier, he retired to his dorm. But the following visual snow; magnified or shrunk by “Alice- implicating as few as one in fifty thousand morning, some effects still remained. in-Wonderland” symptoms; adorned by ha- hallucinogen users. The most recent large- The streaking and trailing and after-imaging los around objects, around people’s heads. scale survey, questioning nearly twenty- persisted for days. He began to panic. “I re- The pseudo-hallucinations are ultimately five hundred users, found that over one in ally lost it,” he said. “I was sitting in one of unconvincing, if deeply unsettling. Eventu- twenty-five were considering treatment for my first college classes and, like, hallucinat- ally, a sense of permanent unreality casts a H.P.P.D.-like symptoms. But because par- ing.” He met with psychologists, who could pall over the acid-fuelled dreamscape, and ticipants, recruited from the popular drug discern little. He called his parents, who sufferers disassociate—from the world, due information Web site Erowid, did not repre- could discern less. He became unhinged, to derealization, and from themselves, due sent the average dabbler, and because only wandering campus in a daze, squinting at to depersonalization. At a recent Society a small portion of them had actively sought the world as if through a kaleidoscope. “I of Biological Psychiatry conference, Dr. medical care, the tally remains somewhat in- broke down,” he said. “I could no longer Abraham presented findings, later published conclusive. “Unfortunately,” writes Halpern, go to class. I couldn’t do anything.” He quit in the S.B.P. 2012 supplement, that suggest assessing the scant literature, “the data do school, moved back home, and entered re- up to sixty-five per cent of H.P.P.D patients not permit us to estimate, even crudely, the hab. His search for a diagnosis came up chronically endure panic attacks, and fifty prevalence of ‘strict’ H.P.P.D.” empty: no underlying medical condition, nor per cent, major depression. Some patients If “strict” cases of H.P.P.D. turn up only had the drug been laced with something sin- feel their only relief is suicide. rarely in scientific journals, though, at HP- ister. Weeks, months, then years went by. The The cluster of symptoms first appeared PDonline.com, a Web forum tracking re- trip just wouldn’t end. Psychedelic lore is lit- in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of search developments and connecting suffer- tered with cautionary tales. But it remains Mental Disorders in 1986. Ever since, the ers, nearly nine thousand monthly visitors to be seen whether reports of hallucinogen official diagnosis has been lumped together give some indication of what lies beyond persisting perception disorder—quite liter- with “flashbacks.” Brief fragments of a trip the academic purview. They report burning ally, the persistence of hallucinogen-induced that occasionally bubble up to one’s con- and throbbing and numbing and tingling. perceptions—should count among them. sciousness, flashbacks may arise from sud- They claim that surfaces undulate (“breath- Hallucinogens are enjoying something of a den spikes in the cerebral cortex—stirring ing walls”), objects vanish (“they mix with revival: the drugs are being tried recreation- perceptions, sensations, or emotions mim- the floor”), and beams of light splinter into ally by nearly one in five American adults icking those of the hallucinogen high, in the shards of extended rays (“star-bursting”). (approaching that of the nineteen-sixties), absence of any chemical. But as the term They share encounters that seem inexplica- while being tested empirically for their pow- has been popularized, flashback has been ble—”fluids flowing down from my left tem- ers to heal alcoholism and other addictions, rendered “virtually useless” diagnostically, ple,” “a chemical aftertaste”—and plead for anxieties from impending death, P.T.S.D., writes Dr. John Halpern, an assistant profes- the group’s insight. They raise suspicions: major depression, and even cluster head- sor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School “Every time I walk past a certain type of tree aches. Reading too much into H.P.P.D., some and lead author of the most recent literature the leaves begin to shake.” They despair: “I say, could squelch the renewed intrigue— review of H.P.P.D. In the review, published hear my brain.” And they may be making even though, to some extent, the risk factors, in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Dr. Halp- their symptoms worse. While H.P.P.D. suf- causes, and effective treatments remain a ern reasons that by conflating two distinct ferers do misperceive their environment, mystery. Others, though, suspect that unrav- diagnoses, a strict definition of H.P.P.D. has some researchers suspect that severe anxi- eling this mysterious disorder could reveal remained elusive, leaving its prevalence ety—perhaps an underlying condition—ag- clues for the more familiar ones. According obscured. Yet, “it seems inescapable,” he gravates those misperceptions. As noted by to Dr. Henry Abraham, a lecturer in psychia- concludes, based on twenty related studies Matthew Baggott, a postdoctoral fellow in try at Tufts University School of Medicine dating back to 1966, “that at least some in- psychiatric genetics at University of Chica- who privately sees patients with substance- dividuals who have used LSD, in particular, go, fMRI studies generally show close links related disorders, neurophysiological shifts experience persistent perceptual abnormali- between the attention and visual systems. observed in H.P.P.D. patients “may yield use- ties reminiscent of acute intoxication, not Such observations have raised doubt over ful models for anxiety, depression, psycho- better attributable to another medical or psy- whether hallucinogens are the root cause of sis, and even addiction.”A chronic and debil- chiatric condition.” the disorder, and even whether H.P.P.D. is a itating condition, H.P.P.D. warps the percep- Peer-reviewed accounts of drug users bona-fide diagnosis. “The more you focus tual faculties: the external senses are marred whose world had been transfigured perma- on the condition, the more it spirals out of by a constellation of mostly visual distor- nently can be found as early as 1983, pre- control,” said Halpern. “So sufferers must tions, while the internal ones are paralyzed figuring the initial D.S.M. entry. In a case- practice letting go, which most Americans by a concoction of dissociative symptoms, control study of a hundred and twenty-three tend to struggle with.” In one study of five panic attacks, and depression. The doors LSD users, Abraham was among the first to hundred Native American Church members, of perception are not so much cleansed, as catalogue reports from those who flashed each of whom had taken peyote hundreds, Aldous Huxley famously found after his psychedelic and never turned off: a strug- even thousands of times, no way jose noway. 3 Newspaper Jan Mot Letter 139 – 140

Letter to the Editor

By exist in the present. Have you seen it? It’s stance, a high percentage relate not to the Asad Raza about luxury living. (Gangnam is a Bev- fantastic but to something more humble: erly Hills-like neighborhood of Seoul.) In it, unadulterated, single camera recordings of May 12th, 2013 – Randall’s Island, NY Psy is constantly revealed to be a fantasist, people dancing. Not only in pop dance rou- a kind of Billy Liar of bling: for instance, tines, but in collections of historical tap vid- Dear Jan, it begins with Psy seemingly relaxing on a eos, vernacular dance, and compendiums of Yesterday I was thinking about the concept beach, but when the camera pulls back, he’s dances styles. of ‘just-past,’ that comes from Walter Ben- in a kid’s sandbox. He hangs out in a stable The appeal of dance video may be re- jamin, which Dan Graham writes about. In with torn up newspaper being blown at him. lated to its lack of artifice--you can’t fake it. the eighties, Dan wrote: ‘I believe now that He dances his horsey dance in a parking lot, Complex bodily movement is not yet easy the task of the artist is to resuscitate the just- and then a subway station. to invent, and less easy still to animate via past... and apply it as an “anti-aphrodisiac” There is something distasteful, an em- computer as convincingly as a actual per- (Walter Benjamin’s phrase). The Rolling barrassment or even mild shame, in think- son moving. Digitally airbrushed artifice Stones’s song “Yesterday’s Papers”--”Who ing about Gangnam Style right now. It’s like is commonplace. In fashion and art, static wants yesterday’s papers? Who wants yes- remembering being overexcited the night displays of musculature and bone structure terday’s girl? No one in the world”--makes before. One can feel a kind of backward turn the human into an image of aestheti- this anti-aphrodisiac aspect of the just-past tidal pull, to forget now the strong sense of cized contours. In this moment, dance, a clear...’ newness that it once had. There is a sense visual language that relates directly to the Dan also wrote, ‘Benjamin wished to that it was just a “craze,” a “meme,” a mo- embodied human being in space, achieves demonstrate that for his generation slightly mentary intoxication, something “cheesy” a new kind of prominence. out-of-date--just-past--objects of mass cul- that would do well to forget. In short, Gang- In the case of Gangnam Style, Psy’s ture possessed a latent revolutionary power, nam Style currently has the classical anti- dancing is a major aspect of the video’s a notion he developed from surrealism. aphrodisiac quality of the just-past. This is popularity. Psy’s horsey dance is the cho- (The 19th-century consumer arcades and a disincentive to think about it, but also an reographic equivalent of a catchy tune: it’s crystal palaces of the universal expositions incentive. There are several relevant facts, it simple, funny, unique and thus memorable. functioned for Benjamin in a similar way; appears, about Gangnam Style that can be His goofiness, his non-perfection, works to they were “dream houses” that induced a noticed if one overcomes this anti-aphrodis- make the dance more appealing too, in a “time space” / “time dream.”) He wanted iac quality in the mind. way similar to the “imperfections” and tex- his arcades writings to serve as a dialectical For one thing, it appears to be the first ture of a singing voice. Psy’s sleek lack of “fairy tale”: “to reverse the myth of the late global craze that originated in Asia. This has protuberant features, of sixpacks and cheek- 19th century created by constant newness to do with the shrinking globe, but also a bones, normalizes him as well. It is not a and induced amnesia of the recent past.”’ particular quality of Internet video: its eras- sense of the unachievable that drives the (That was Dan quoting Benjamin at the ure of older barriers to distribution. It is an popularity of the video. In the end, a chubby end.) obvious point, but no less relevant for that, person dancing is more important. Thinking about this, I wondered what that this is the first two-way video format in Two final points about the popularity of belongs to the just-past, right now. What which anyone can watch anything--although dance in the first age of internet video: if it cultural detritus are we currently being in- in practice the operators of YouTube and is a return to embodied space, it’s also a re- duced to forget? It might be worth excavat- various state censors are obviously attempt- fusal or a record of the limitations of certain ing. What’s in yesterday’s papers? Who is ing to limit this theoretical possibility. kinds of imagistic embellishment. Much yesterday’s girl? This is also an age of digital image ma- contemporary art that derives its visual lexi- Yesterday’s girl, it seems clear to me, nipulation, in which almost any imagery it con from screensavers and iconography of is a chubby Korean pop star called Psy, is possible to imagine can be rendered on- computing does not do this. But perhaps a and his music video Gangnam Style. Psy screen. Popular cinema has embraced this simple video of a normal person in rhythmic wears a tuxedo and deploys cultural sym- technological potential by attempting to motion is also compelling today because it bols with a kind of dextrous clumsiness, a stage ever more spectacular and outlandish is can move from embodied onto a screen kind of oblong Pop. Gangnam Style is the scenarios: global destruction, epic historical and then back, when a dance style is learned most watched video clip that has yet been tableaux, extra-galactic life. Yet on internet from being watched online and then per- uploaded, with about 1.5 billion views as of video, a seemingly opposite tendency has formed in reality. Maybe it’s a way of return- today. In 2012, it was an inescapable marker prevailed. Of the most-viewed videos that ing to a simpler version of the real, in an age of the present, an element of what it was to have been uploaded to YouTube, for in- of synthetic reality.

Streaking and trailing and after-imaging per- as if through a kaleidoscope. “I broke down,” just wouldn’t end. Psychedelic lore is littered sisted for days. He began to panic. “I really he said. “I could no longer go to class. with cautionary tales. But it remains to be lost it,” he said. “I was sitting in one of my I couldn’t do anything.” He quit school, seen whether reports of hallucinogen persist- first college classes and, like, hallucinating.” moved back home, and entered rehab. His ing perception disorder—quite literally, the He met with psychologists, who could dis- search for a diagnosis came up empty: no persistence of hallucinogen-induced percep- cern little. He called his parents, who could underlying medical condition, nor had the tions—should count among them. Halluci- discern less. He became unhinged, wander- drug been laced with something sinister. nogens are enjoying something of a revival: ing campus in a daze, squinting at the world Weeks, months, then years went by. The trip the drugs are being tried recreation. 4 Newspaper Jan Mot Manon de Boer 139 – 140

Manon de Boer in Eindhoven by Jan Mot

BRUSSELS, MAY 22 – The Van Abbemu- seum in Eindhoven has collected over the past few years a trilogy of cinematographic portraits by Manon de Boer: Sylvia Kristel – Paris (2003) about the actress Sylvia Kristel, Resonating Surfaces (2005), about the psy- choanalyst and cultural critic Suely Rolnik and Think About Wood, Think About Metal (2011) about the percussionist Robyn Shulkowsky. De Boer asked these three woman about the experiences which were decisive for their work and lives in the 1970s. The protagonists talk about their personal circumstances, encounters and events in voice-off and are touching directly or indi- rectly upon subjects as memory, time and the body. The three films will be at the core of a solo exhibition at the museum and are accompanied by documentary materials such as audio and video fragments, reviews, scores, posters and books. On the occasion of the exhibition a new publication will be released, entiteld Encounters, which focuses exclusively on these film works. The contri- butions are by Sven Augustijnen, Helena Homberg, Marine Hugonnier, Tris Vonna- Michell and a conversation between the artist and George van Dam, a composer and violin player with whom she worked intensively on the soundtrack of her films. The publication was made in collaboration between the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, INDEX in Stock- holm and OEI Editör, Stockholm. The book launch will take place during the opening of the show on Saturday 8/6. Writer Lieve Joris will read a letter by Sven Augustijnen published in this book (at 17h).

For decades, federal funding for public servative writer, lambasted it in the most. On called Koch at his office and told him that broadcasting has been dwindling, and the the Friday before the film’s Monday airdate, the Gibney film “was going to be controver- government’s contribution now makes up Stoll, whose Web site, Future of Capitalism, sial,” noting, “You’re going to be a big part of only twelve per cent of PBS’s funds. Affili- has frequently defended the Kochs, wrote, this thing.” Shapiro offered to show him the ates such as WNET are almost entirely de- “If the station has any sense, it will use the trailer, and added that he hoped to arrange pendent on gifts, some of which are sizable: time until then to reconsider its decision to “some sort of on-air roundtable discussion in 2010, WNET received fifteen million dol- air the program.” He added, “If it doesn’t, its of it, to provide other points of view.” It lars from James Tisch, the C.E.O. of Loews trustees and donors, some of whom live on could air immediately after the documenta- Corporation, and his wife, Merryl. (James , may want to consider whether ry. (Shapiro told me, “We did this after Ken Tisch is now the chairman of WNET’s they want to continue supporting an insti- Burns’s film on baseball, too. We like to have board.) In , such benefactors tution that insults them so viciously.” The a local angle.”) Shapiro asked Koch, “Do inevitably live in lavish buildings. Indeed, reviewer for the Times was more positive, you want to be involved?” He also offered several relatives of WNET board members writing, “There is plenty here to turn you Koch the opportunity to provide a written live at 740 Park. into a Wall Street occupier,” and observing, response, which the station could air after In a recent phone interview, Neal Sha- “If you were still on the fence about whether the show. According to Shapiro, Koch, who piro, the president of WNET, said that he to despise the superrich, this film will almost rarely speaks in public, passed on the round- grew concerned about the film, which he surely make a hater out of you.” table offer, saying, “I may just want to take it had not yet watched, after Ira Stoll, a con- That Friday, Shapiro initially said, he in and watch it, and form an opinion.” 5 Newspaper Jan Mot Tris Vonna-Michell 139 – 140

rhythm strays images falling, failing fading incessant clicking a constant misfre, drawing blanks words bypassing, empty images

disarmed losing breath images lingering, lost for words any moment now it will collapse, saliva slackening the story unwound unbound from the words previously written yet rarely spoken

a muted presence, an ascribed duration words held together, presence encompassed intonation moving, a discrepancy evolving this fragile form of remembrance the dissonance, an opening

in a sound studio, performing loose sheets, breathing a shrinking rug a foundering orator, a mono mic all encompassed

pages, words, indentations and paginations on standby weeks, months, seconds deliberations

rehearse, rehearse, rehearse hastily repeated, the seemingly same, the same picking, placing and replacing words, images, breathes sequences Tris Vonna-Michell the seemingly same excerpts from portraits in waiting, 2012 6 Newspaper Jan Mot 139 – 140

Well, it was time to get trippy on Mad Men instead went to a weird, wild, wacky place off-kilter vibe to this whole episode contin- again! After last season’s “Far Away Places”, shortly after, along with the rest of the office. ued back at the Draper residence, as Sally which not only had a very unusual structure, And there was some humor to be had with it, encountered a woman in the middle of the but also had Roger Sterling on acid, this was to be sure, as we got a sort of Uber-Don ini- night who claimed to be her black grand- Season 6’s turn to get very weird. tially. There were some very funny, meta mo- mother (!) – but was clearly actually a thief I’m assuming this episode will probably ments, as Don gave Big Inspiring Speeches Sally had stumbled upon. It was good to see divide audiences, but I loved it. The “what -- “Dear lord, you’re as good as they say!” Sally realize this was the case, even as this the hell?!” of it all was established in the -- about winning Chevy over, without actu- scenario had its own funny moments (Bob- very first scene, with Ken caught in some ally having a good idea on how to win Chevy by’s, “Are we negroes?”) while also growing sort of bizarre scenario that felt like a movie- over. Though the funniest/oddest might have scary, not knowing what this woman might inspired dream… but turned out to be very to be his interaction with Ken, as Don’s own do to these kids as she was found out. real, as we learned that Chevy is apparently a self-reflective bit about the importance of the Moving back to Don, “The Crash” once rather hellish client to deal with. timbre of his voice was followed by Ken’s more provided insight into his origins, as we But we were just getting started, in an amazing tap routine. (Nicely done, Aaron again saw his life growing up in a whore- hour that found most of the men at, um, Staton!). house and learned more about why his re- whatever this company is called taking In the midst of this, we also got some lationship with women is so screwed up. speed Jesse Spano’s caffeine pills an “en- more insight into Stan, as we learned his Yes, the show is certainly laying it on thick at ergy serum” while trying to brainstorm for goofy, smiling, drug-fueled persona was in this point as we learn one thing after another Chevy over a weekend. But this was mostly the midst of hiding his pain over his cousin that would make Don Draper be the kind about Don’s journey, who was going into being killed in Viet Nam. He and Peggy of guy that would be Don Draper. I mean, this situation already in an especially dark had a terrific scene in which he kissed her Don was nursed back to health by a kindly, place (and this is Don we’re talking about), and she actually briefly reciprocated, before motherly prostitute… who then immediately given how distraught and outright creepy thinking better of it (man, Peggy has two took his virginity! That’s some Shakespear- he was being about Sylvia. The eavesdrop- could-be affairs going now!). She tried to be ean level backstory for you. But was good ping/stalking was a new dynamic for Don, a good friend to him, warning him not to turn to see these flashbacks all resonate via Don’s and it was impressive to see Sylvia talk so to drugs and sex to mask his grief… only to decision to no longer be actively involved tough with him – “I don’t know how I ever find, thanks to Jim, that Stan simply turned in coming up with the Chevy campaign. trusted you” – as she basically stressed that to someone who would have sex with him, “Every time we get a car, this place turns he needed to keep his s**t together now that via Wendy the psychic… Speaking of Jim, into a whore house.” Things also came to a they’d ended their affair. Of course, Don how fun is Harry Hamlin in this role?! The head earlier, when Don returned home after such a screwed up weekend to find out he’d speed Jesse Spano’s caffeine pills an “energy the midst of hiding his pain over his cousin been robbed and that “She said she was your serum” while trying to brainstorm for Chevy being killed in Viet Nam. He and Peggy mother.” It’s no wonder he finally simply over a weekend. But this was mostly about had a terrific scene in which he kissed her passed out. Don’s journey, who was going into this situa- and she actually briefly reciprocated, before The scene where he called Sally was a tion already in an especially dark place (and thinking better of it (man, Peggy has two poignant and sweet one. It’s rare Don reach- this is Don we’re talking about), given how could-be affairs going now!). She tried to be es out to his children and is really there for distraught and outright creepy he was being a good friend to him, warning him not to turn them, so him taking the time to call her and about Sylvia. The eavesdropping/stalking to drugs and sex to mask his grief… only to reassure her and tell her it was his fault that was a new dynamic for Don, and it was im- find, thanks to Jim, that Stan simply turned to woman got in meant a lot. At the same time, pressive to see Sylvia talk so tough with him someone who would have sex with him, via Sally telling him, “And then I realized, I don’t – “I don’t know how I ever trusted you” – as Wendy the psychic… Speaking of Jim, how know anything about you” was of course she basically stressed that he needed to keep fun is Harry Hamlin in this role?! very true. Could Don ever finally fix this? his s**t together now that they’d ended their The off-kilter vibe to this whole episode Especially considering all the secrets he’s affair. continued back at the Draper residence, as kept from Sally and almost everyone else? Of course, Don instead went to a weird, Sally encountered a woman in the middle of It seems unlikely, but one can only hope… wild, wacky place shortly after, along with the night who claimed to be her black grand- Well, it was time to get trippy on Mad Men the rest of the office. And there was some hu- mother (!) – but was clearly actually a thief again! After last season’s “Far Away Places”, mor to be had with it, to be sure, as we got a Sally had stumbled upon. It was good to see which not only had a very unusual structure, sort of Uber-Don initially. There were some Sally realize this was the case, even as this but also had Roger Sterling on acid, this was very funny, meta moments, as Don gave Big scenario had its own funny moments (Bob- Season 6’s turn to get very weird. Inspiring Speeches -- “Dear lord, you’re as by’s, “Are we negroes?”) while also growing I’m assuming this episode will probably good as they say!” -- about winning Chevy scary, not knowing what this woman might divide audiences, but I loved it. The “what over, without actually having a good idea on do to these kids as she was found out. the hell?!” of it all was established in the how to win Chevy over. Though the funniest/ Moving back to Don, “The Crash” once very first scene, with Ken caught in some oddest might have to be his interaction with more provided insight into his origins, as we sort of bizarre scenario that felt like a movie- Ken, as Don’s own self-reflective bit about again saw his life growing up in a whore- inspired dream… but turned out to be very the importance of the timbre of his voice house and learned more about why his rela- real, as we learned that Chevy is apparently a was followed by Ken’s amazing tap routine. tionship with women is so screwed up. Yes, rather hellish client to deal with. (Nicely done, Aaron Staton!). the show is certainly laying it on thick at this But we were just getting started, in an In the midst of this, we also got some point as we learn one thing after another that hour that found most of the men at, um, more insight into Stan, as we learned his would make Don Draper be the kind of guy whatever this company is called taking goofy, smiling, drug-fueled persona was in that would be Don Draber. I mean, Don was 7 Newspaper Jan Mot In Brief 139 – 140

Last fall, , a documentary film- maker who won an Academy Award in 2008 for an exposé of torture at a U.S. mili- In Brief Agenda tary base in Afghanistan, completed a film called “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream.” It was scheduled to The next Brussels Downtown Gallery Day Sven Augustijnen air on PBS on November 12th. The movie will take place on June 29 and will coincide Spectres, VOX, Montreal (CA),11/5 –13/7 had been produced independently, in part with the opening of the show of Marian (solo); Spectres, Foundation for Contempo- with support from the Gates Foundation. Zijlstra in the gallery. rary Art, Accra (GH), 24/5 – 25/5 (screening “Park Avenue” is a pointed exploration of & talk); Spectres, tranzitdisplay, Prague, the growing economic inequality in America Tino Sehgal will present a new work, 7/6 – 9/6 (screening); Le Guide du Parc, 21er and a meditation on the often self-justifying yet untitled, in The Encyclopedic Palace, the Haus, Vienna, 12/6 (screening & talk); mind-set of “the one per cent.” As a narrative central exhibition of the Venice Biennale Spectres, Collective’s Gallery, Edinburgh device, Gibney focusses on one of the most curated by Massimiliano Gioni (1/6–24/11). (UK), 13/6 –14/6 (screening & talk); Spec- expensive apartment buildings in Manhat- tres, 98weeks, Beirut Cairo, 14/6 (screen- tan——portraying it as an For the third time since the reopening of ing); Spectres, Centre d’Art Contemporain, emblem of concentrated wealth and con- the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, a Geneva (CH), 23/7 – 8/9 (screening & talk); trasting the lives of its inhabitants with those special room will be dedicated to the work Leisure, Discipline and Punishment, Con- of poor people living at the other end of Park of Rineke Dijkstra. Starting in June the tour 2013, Mechelen (BE), 24/8 – 3/11; Just Avenue, in the Bronx. Among the wealthiest new presentation will include several pho- what is it that makes today so familiar, so residents of 740 Park is , the bil- tographs from the series of Park Portraits. uneasy?, LIAF 2013, Lofoten (NO), lionaire industrialist, who, with his brother 6/9 – 29/9. Charles, owns Koch Industries, a huge en- Asad Raza was invited for a series of 5 con- ergy-and-chemical conglomerate. The Koch tributions to the newspaper, the first one is Pierre Bismuth brothers are known for their strongly conser- published on page 3. Raza is a writer and The Causes of Things, Centrale for Con- vative politics and for their efforts to finance producer working in the art world. He pro- temporary Art, Brussels, 7/3 – 9/6; Liquids a network of advocacy groups whose goal is duced several large-scale projects with Tino and Gels, Christine König Galerie, Vienna, to move the country to the right. David Koch Sehgal, including These associations for 16 /5 – 22/7 (solo). is a major philanthropist, contributing to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, 2012 and This cultural and medical institutions that include progress at the Guggenheim Museum, New Manon de Boer Lincoln Center and New York-Presbyterian York, 2010. Raza is currently program - Langages: Entre le dire et le faire, Caloust Hospital. In the nineteen-eighties, he began ming the Mayfield Depot venue for 2013’s Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, 24/4 – 27/7; expanding his charitable contributions to the Manchester International Festival, with Objects in Mirror are Closer than they media, donating twenty-three million dollars Hans Ulrich Obrist, Alex Poots and Sehgal. Appear, Contemporary Image Collective to public television over the years. In 1997, His writing has appeared in n+1, Minnesota (CIC), Cairo, 15/5 – 12/6; one, two, many, he began serving as a trustee of Boston’s Review, Modern Matter, NERO, Post Road, Media City, Windsor (CA), 21/5 – 25/5 public-broadcasting operation, WGBH, and and Tennis magazine. He was born in (screening); Encounters, Van Abbemuse- in 2006 he joined the board of New York’s Buffalo, New York and studied literature um, Eindhoven (NL), 8/6 – 15 / 9 ( s o l o ) ; Atti- public-television outlet, WNET. Recent and film at Johns Hopkins and NYU. ca, 21er Haus, Vienna, 12/6 (screening & news reports have suggested that the Koch talk); Encounters, Kalmar Konstmuseum, brothers are considering buying eight daily After the summer break (29/7–20/8) the Kalmar (SE) , 15/6 –15/9 (solo); Un escalier newspapers owned by the Tribune Company, gallery will start the new season with a d’eau, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 20/6 – 9/9; one of the country’s largest media empires, exhibition by Manon de Boer which will one, two, many, Jan Mot, Brussels (6/9– raising concerns that its publications— include her most recent work one, two, 26/10) (solo). which include the Chicago Tribune and many (2012). The show will open during the Los Angeles Times—might slant news the weekend of the Brussels Art Days (6/9). Rineke Dijkstra coverage to serve the interests of their new The Krazy House, Museum für Moderne owners, either through executive mandates tion. (It also contains a few quotes from me; Kunst, Frankfurt (DE), 23/2 – 26/5 (solo); or through self-censorship. Clarence Page, a in, I wrote an article about the Kochs for this Fail Better. Moving Images, Hamburger liberal Tribune columnist, recently said that magazine, noting that they were funding Kunsthalle, Hamburg (DE), 1/3 – 18/8; the Kochs appeared intent on using a media much of the opposition to President Barack Ages. Porträts vom Alterwerden, Die Pho- company “as a vehicle for their political Obama by quietly subsidizing an array of tographische Sammlung/ SK Stiftung Kul- voice.” “Park Avenue” includes a multifac- advocacy groups.) tur, Cologne (DE), 22/3 – 28/7; So Much I eted portrait of the Koch brothers, telling the A large part of the film, however, sub- Want to Say: From Annemiek to Mother history of their family company and chroni- jects the Kochs to tough scrutiny. “Nobody’s Courage, Goetz Collection at Haus der cling their many donations to universities money talks louder than David Koch’s,” the Kunst, Munich (DE), 19/4 – 15/6 ; Paisaje and think tanks. It features comments from narrator, Gibney, says, describing him as a 1969–2013. Revision de un genero, Museo allies like Tim Phillips, the president of the “right-wing oil tycoon” whose company del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Kochs’ main advocacy group, Americans had to pay what was then “the largest civil 25/4 – 7/ 7; Performing Gender, The George for Prosperity, and from activists in the Tea penalty in the E.P.A.’s history” for its role in Eastman House, Rochester, New York, Party, including Representative Michele more than thirty oil spills in 2000. At one 11/5 – 13/10; Ages, Porträts vom Bachmann, of Minnesota, who share the point, a former doorman—his face shrouded Alterwerden, Landesgalerie Linz (AT), Kochs’ opposition to high taxes and regula- in shadow, to preserve his anonymity—says. 7/11 – 16/2. 8 Newspaper Jan Mot Agenda 139 – 140

Mario Garcia Torres Ve n i c e B i e n n a l e , Venice (IT), 1/6 – 24/11; Oh Colophon The Causes of Things, Centrale for Con- Man, Oh Machine, Malta Festival, Poznan Publisher Jan Mot, Brussels temporary Art, Brussels, 7/3 – 9/6; Paisaje (PL), 24/6 – 20/7; Manchester International Concept Design Maureen Mooren & 1969–2013. Revision de un genero, Museo Festival, Manchester (UK), 4/7 – 21/7. Daniël van der Velden del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Graphic Design Maureen Mooren, 25/4 – 7/7; Un escalier d’eau, Palais de Tris Vonna-Michell Amsterdam Tokyo, Paris, 20/6 – 9/9; MADRE, Naples L’ I m ag e p a p i l l o n , Mudam, Luxembourg, Printing Cultura, Wetteren (IT), 21/6 – 30/9 (solo); Project Arts Centre, 23/3 – 8/9; I Know You, Irish Museum of Dublin, 5/7 – 17/ 8 ( s o l o ) ; 9a Bienal do Mer- Modern Art, Dublin, 19/4 – 30/6; Unrest of entists, most psychoactive drugs, including cosul, Porto Alegre (BR), 13/9 – 10/11. Form. Imagining the Political Subject, psychiatric medications, can alter the brain’s Secession, Vienna, 11/5 – 16/6. neural structure.) While neither Durgin nor Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster Niederman study such rare perceptual dis- Belle comme le jour, Koyanagi Gallery, Ian Wilson orders as H.P.P.D., their expertise is illustra- Tokyo, 6/4 – 8/6 (solo); Cloud Illusions I Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (AT), 1/2 – ongo- tive: the symptoms of H.P.P.D. are just the Recall, Irish Mueum of Modern Art, Dub- ing (solo); Statements, Jan Mot, Brussels, kind of perceptions ordinarily present in the lin, 21/6 – 25/8; Vila Do Conde Film Festi- 27/4 – 15 / 6 ( s o l o ) . brain, only occluded—or inhibited—from val, Vila do Conde (PT), 6/7 – 14/7 consciousness. (screening). Also represented by the gallery: Philippe Thomas What is least known about H.P.P.D. is treat- Douglas Gordon ment. “Unfortunately,” Halpern writes, “the I am also...Douglas Gordon, Tel Aviv literature on this point remains largely an- Museum, Tel Aviv (IL), 25/1 – 6/7 (solo); Consistent with croh’s findings, Abraham of- ecdotal.” Options are limited: palliative care Deep Feelings, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems fers his own account of why H.P.P.D. causes from more drugs (benzodiazepines and anti- (AT), 10/3 – 30/6; Disabled by Normality, sensory input to linger within neural cir- epileptics), adjustment through psychother- DOX, Prague, 23/5 – 16/9; Dave Allen / cuitry, firing even after the stimulus is gone. apy (of the cognitive-behavioral or straight- Candice Breitz / Douglas Gordon, The “What we have proven through psycho- talking variety), a pair of sunglasses. While Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (DE), physics, electrophysiology, and quantitative the college freshman, now middle-aged, is 11/6 – 26/7; Mogwai performing live to analysis,” said Abraham, “is that when the celebrated by his psychiatrist as “the poster Zidane. A 21st Century Portrait, Manches- brain of an H.P.P.D. person is stimulated by child for healthy adaptation to the disorder,” ter International Festival, Manchester (UK), some perceptual force in the environment, healthy adaptation is no cure. 19/7 – 20/7 (screening); Silence, Exile, mostly visual, the stimulus is disinhibited.” Deceit, Ruhr-triennale, Museum Folkwang, Objects of perception, in other words, are not One day several years ago, he was taking a Essen (DE), 23/8 – 6/11. readily disengaged, breaking up an ordinar- draw from a cigarette after work when he ily seamless flow of conscious experience. If noticed, for the second time, a sudden shift Joachim Koester the brain is like a paintbrush, then H.P.P.D. in his vision. He had finally gotten his life on Channelled, Lunds Kunsthal, Lund (SE), appears to make the bristles sticky, and the track—securing a degree, starting a family, 23/2 – 2/6; Tarantism, The Ian Potter Muse- old stimuli—colors, shapes, and motions— building a career—and had managed to you. um of Art, The University of Melbourne muddy the new. (AU), 20/3 – 2/6 (screening); For No Appar- (advertisement) ent Reason, CA2M, Madrid, 10/5 – 15/ 9; Ed Frank Durgin, a professor of psychology and Ruscha. Books & Co, Museum Brandhorst, the director of the Perception and Cognition Munich (DE), 6/6 – 22/9. Lab at Swarthmore College, affirmed that Abraham’s theory holds promise. “The dis- David Lamelas inhibition hypothesis is pretty safe as a ge- The Whole Earth, Haus der Kulturen der neric account,” said Durgin. “There is a lot Welt, Berlin (DE), 26/4 –1/7. of inhibition involved in normal perception. Failure to distinguish and inhibit noise sig- Sharon Lockhart nals is a reasonable first guess about a variety The Society Without Qualities, Tensta Kon- of hallucinogenic effects.” The theory seems sthall, Stockholm, 13/2 – 26/5; Deep Feel- to be consistent with the current science of ings, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems (AT), perception, according to Irving Biederman, 10/3 – 30/6; More Real? Art in the Age of a professor of neuroscience and the direc- Truthiness , The Minneapolis Institute of tor of the Image Understanding Laboratory Arts, Minneapolis (US), 21/3 – 9/6; Sharon at the University of Southern California. A Lockhart, Centre for Contemporary Art, healthy brain, Biederman explained, is Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 16/5 –15/9 bathed in inhibitory neurotransmitters— (solo); Arbeidstid, Henie Onstad Kunst- gamma-aminobutyric acid, primarily—in senter, Hovikodden, Norway (NO), order to mute mild perceptual noise (like 23/5 –1/9; The Whole Earth, Haus der Kul- visual distortions), and ultimately to safe- turen der Welt, Berlin (DE), 24/6 –1/7. guard against full-blown cacophony (like seizures). H.P.P.D. patients, he offered, might Tino Sehgal have “done something structurally to those Unrest of Form. Imagining the Political interneurons, causing perceptual noise to ex- Subject, Secession, Vienna, 11/5 –16/6; 55th ceed the threshold.” (According to some sci-