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And, Apollo: a Laboratory And, Apollo: A Laboratory Dean Erdmann 2 If Art Is Politics Carin Kuoni 3 Dean Erdmann. And, Apollo: A Laboratory Christiane Paul 4 Notes Dean Erdmann 6 Floorplan 8 Installation Views 26 Cultivating Weeds: Ephedra sinica, Ephedra distachya, Pinellia ternata and Sida cordifolia Marisa Prefer 29 From the Desert to the Sky: Ways of Being and Looking Eriola Pira And, Apollo: A Laboratory Dean Erdmann If Art Is Politics Dean Erdmann. And, Apollo: A Laboratory As authoritarian regimes continue to different scales of impact from mind-alter- And, Apollo: A Laboratory by artist and Vera of glass casting as a source object is passed emerge in unexpected parts of the world, ing substances to geological forces, might List Center Fellow Dean Erdmann is an back and forth between molds. Glass has yet we seek radical gestures to counter such provide important pointers on how to move exhibition combining experimental docu- another connotation, being a nickname for developments. What if we look to recent forward on this planet. mentary, video, and sculpture to connect methamphetamine or crystal meth, devel- modes of art-making and declare art itself The Vera List Center Fellowships autobiography to historical pasts that have oped by Japanese chemists in Berlin in 1893 a political practice? What if we take this support exceptional artists at a critical produced current moments of social and and used in pill form by German and Japa- proposition quite literally, and follow artists moment of their career, who undertake political crisis. The narrative of And, Apollo nese militaries as a drug unleashing ‘super- as they create spaces where individuals and ambitious projects that advance art as a is anchored in the Mojave Desert, the place human’ abilities. In the exhibition, crystal communities, but also archives and ances- vital tool for social and political agency. where the artist grew up and the background meth is embodied in Ephedra sinica plants, tors, soil, plants and air come together as Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Andrea Geyer, for their exploration of Americana, the which contain ephedrine and pseudoephed- political subjects? In Fall 2018, we launched Bouchra Khalili, Kobena Mercer, Lorraine body, and queerness. rine—used by amateurs to illegally manu- If Art Is Politics as the Vera List Center’s O’Grady, and Walid Raad are but a few Using artifacts and storytelling Erdmann facture crystal meth—as active constituents. two-year focus theme generating a constel- of our more than thirty fellowship alumni turns the Californian desert into a landscape The video Glass weaves voice and screen lation of research clusters. Among them whose bold projects are locating the liminal reverberating with connections between the logs from Apollo’s Space Command with are the open campus-style VLC Seminar spaces where aesthetic practices translate Cold War space race, militarization, tech- descriptions of meth use by German World Freedom of Speech: A Curriculum for Studies into political realities. We’re proud to nological acceleration, All Terrain Vehicle War II soldiers and German writer Hein- into Darkness with performances, lectures, add Erdmann to this roster of artists and (ATV) culture, class, and meth addiction. rich Böll, as well as conversations Erdmann and a forthcoming publication; a series of thank them for sharing so generously their What might seem to be unrelated histories had with their family about meth use. In panels on institutional accountability and transformative work. Thanks also go to the and cultural expressions, rituals, or diseas- the exhibition, Glass is represented both philanthropy; an international convening Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, to Urban es is distilled into a complex narrative that as video and as prints of stills from the around the legacy of Pan-African solidarity Glass, as well as to my colleagues at and crystallizes intersections between the deeply video work. The artist raises the question for the Jane Lombard Prize for Art and the board of the Vera List Center. personal and the geopolitical. of whether the technologies of the Apollo Social Justice; and as culmination this Riding ATVs, descendants of the lunar era, premised upon acceleration and speed exhibition, And, Apollo: A Laboratory. Carin Kuoni landing vehicle, has a rich culture in the (another name for one of the forms of crys- Dean Erdmann is a 2018–2020 Vera Senior Director/Chief Curator desert. NASA’s Saturn V rocket, which tal meth), contributed to generating social List Center Fellow whose fellowship Vera List Center for Art and Politics enabled the Apollo missions to land humans conditions that set up the use of drugs. project, And, Apollo, positions the political and the original vehicle on the moon, was Together the works on view become a at the confluence of material and social developed with the help of Werner von multifaceted and open-ended reflection history, autobiography, and notions of Braun, who had overseen the design of the of the artist’s intimate knowledge of the progress. Each element of the installation German V2 missile during WW II and was desert’s physical force, its potential for radi- at the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center is one of the top Nazi scientists and engineers cal openings and different forms of being, anchored by a historical moment, and from brought to the U.S. by the military during as well as its geopolitical complexities. there spins out and contributes to a dynamic the Cold War. Local ATV riders often build In the desert landscapes of And, Apollo, landscape, a force field of interdependent giant bonfires in the desert, which litter the Dean Erdmann discovers materialities and agents. Accommodating different tempo- terrain with translucent glass detritus. Glass their transformation, queer fragmentation, ralities as the exhibition does with glass as also materially connects to the desert in that and cosmic exploration. ancient sand, one-off, sun-melted relicts it is the end product of heating sand at very or kiln-blown casts; considering a range of high temperatures. The glass objects on Christiane Paul subjectivities, here for instance, the artist’s view in the exhibition reference the bonfires Director/Chief Curator hand, the roaring sound of wind, budding of ATV culture and also capture a process Sheila C. Johnson Design Center plants; and acknowledging, even reconciling of imprint and transfer that becomes part 2 3 Notes or lifeless shucks, but consist of tensions, History, Benjamin told us, is a pile of rubble. Dean Erdmann forces, hidden powers, all being constantly Only we are not staring at it any longer from exchanged. 1 the point of view of Benjamin’s shell-shocked angel. We are not the angel. We are the rubble. We are already time traveling – We are this pile of scrap. so many latent relationships within us. I am also trying to understand modernity’s arc towards progress and the future, and Tumb nongue the depletion of resources that figures the future into a place that is nearly impossible Why would a thing be called a tire, because to live. it never stops? How to figure the fold of the present? In the room that is not windowless, but does not really have a window either, Doug and I Put all the images in language in a place of The force of my touch is asymmetrical to sit and talk about politics and family. safety and make use of them, for they are the amount of force required to slow. When I read, I’m in communication with in the desert, and it’s in the desert we must someone who wrote 100 years ago, 50 years Dear James, go and look for them. Fossil fuel is life that went dead and then ago, 200 years ago, and I am connecting To dusty mouths – Jean Genet came back around again. In transforming, with them in their future, which is my And sore hands did it become undead? Alive? present. Surface burns What about things that have not been And We place each glass object on an 11 × 17 Tongue numb in my spinal cord and bones digested, that linger here and inform the Adrenaline exhaust paper on a kind of lazy Susan. Doug says it’s ringing in my cells. present? Violences or pain inherited, not It was a great ride to help the scanner orient itself. Are you ever afraid? dealt with. The law of the conservation of matter. Energy cannot be created or love, dean Sometimes I have to do a body check several destroyed; it simply changes shape. Rather Grill, tire, time, filter, dust times a day like when I was deployed. Then the than addressing the pain of guilt, respon- adrenaline takes over and I usually don’t think sibility, and shame following the disgraces of it again. moto_dave. and mass criminality of the Nazi period, Tire, tire, handlebars, holding, fossil the Mitscherlichs describe that post-war I sometimes say I’m gonna hang it up…which Germans focused their energies on tech- Frame, Time tire time, ignition lasts for three months. But, that feeling fades nology, with charitable progress and gains.2 and the itch comes back and I’m back out The moon landing, inhabitinga different there. What can you do…its as much fun as place in American history, also holds a We wait. it is dangerous. mark_s. will towards a particular mark and value of progress (technology), global dominance, I don’t race anymore I just head out to the and an unwillingness towards other forms A point cloud emerges. desert. of progress (social equity, justice, national Dots in space will triangulate further. rehabilitation). Its byproduct produces a mirror or opportunity for reorientation. Apollo lands. The potency of jet fuel: how did something so new and fast come from The simultaneity of disparate stories in Raimund, the gay archivist, is a satellite.
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