Untitled (I T's Almost a One-Liner

THE NEW GA UNTITLED (I LLERY PRESS T’S ALMOST A / 2014 ONE-LINER) / SARAH BECK AND SHLOMI GREENSPAN Untitled (It’s almost a one-liner)

Printed in Canada

Designed and edited by Steven Cottingham, featuring contributions from Sarah Beck, Shlomi Greenspan, and Sky Goodden. All photos courtesy the artists, the gallery, and the internet.

ISBN 978-1-895284-21-8

208 Centre St S, Calgary, AB, T2G 2B6 thenewgallery.org/ PAGE TWO PAGE THREE

Sarah Beck uses her art practice to address contem- INFO Canada from 2011 to 2014, and regularly writes porary issues, engaging the audience with humour and for Modern Painters, Art + Auction, Canadian Art, and common signifiers. Her studio practice favors accessibil- C Magazine, among others. She was the 2010 Editorial ity and moves between mediums. Beck is a Saskatche- Resident at Canadian Art, and holds an MFA in Criticism wan artist currently based in Toronto. She has won var- and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University. ious awards, including the Canada Council for the Art’s Joseph S. Stauffer Prize. She was featured at Toronto Untitled (It’s almost a one-liner) by Sarah Beck and City Hall’s Museum for the End of the World during Nuit Shlomi Greenspan was on view at The New Gallery’s Blanche 2012, and at the 2010 Winter Olympic Cultural Main Space (208 Centre St SE) from November 21 to Olympiad. Beck completed her Interdisciplinary Master’s December 20, 2014. of Art, Media & Design at the Ontario College of Art and Design University’s (OCADU) in 2010. In 2014 Beck was the first Artist in Residence at the International Space University.

Shlomi Greenspan is an Israeli artist, currently living and working in Toronto. He studied at the Avni Institute of Art and Design in Tel Aviv and at OCAD University where he received his BFA. Greenspanʼs practice is multidis- ciplinary, with an emphasis on painting, animation and video installation. His work interfaces elements of time, narrative and storytelling to explore the various ways in- formation technologies and mechanical devices mediate and distort the perception of time and space. By calling attention to certain patterns, cycles and unfolding mo- ments inherent in every day life, Greenspan examines the ambivalence and mutability of lived experience in the 21st century. Greenspan’s work is currently featured in Urban Fabric, an exhibition curated by Deborah Wang at the Textile Museum of Canada.

Sky Goodden is the founding editor of a new online art publication titled MOMUS, which promotes international art writing and journalism, and stresses a return to art criticism. She was the executive editor of BLOUIN ART- PAGE FIVE

Untitled (It’s almost a one-liner) is a multi-media installation that explores the ambiguity of a performance about to begin via an empty stage. Bearing the signifiers of a comedy club, the viewer is left to work out whether a show is about to begin. Here, comedic material becomes the material of the artwork. The installation cultivates expectations and then subverts them; waiting for a punchline is, in fact, the punchline of the work.

THE QUESTIO PAGE NINE

An old adage says brevity contains the soul of wit, but forgets the palimpsest that steadies it, and provides its N WE ASK WH punchline. A long-strung joke regarding modern and contemporary art confirms this (“my kid could do that”), but the biggest laugh’s still had by those who know art’s history. Art is a succession of attempts and redresses. EN WE JOKE / It’s a medium that only becomes something once it’s complete, and upon its recognition, goes negated: the Renaissance painters finally mastered realism only to be undone by Mannerism; Romanticism loosened the pic- SKY GOODDE ture plane that Neoclassicism roped-in; history painting found a thread that Modernism unspooled; and so it’s gone. Until recently. The joke, now, is harder to locate. It’s woven in and threaded out in such succession that N we don’t trust what’s made sincere, or laugh at something stupid. “What does it mean?” has become the best joke of all.

Sarah Beck and Shlomi Greenspan are having fun with our confusion. Untitled (It’s almost a one-liner) recalls the risk-taking and self-effacing stand-up of Andy Kaufman, and marries it with our renewed investment in performance and installation art (think The Artist Is Present, Marina Abramović’s self-serious MoMA “event”; or the omnipresent darling, Tino Seghal, whose vapid action is all there is to hold). Punching their weight on a well-lit stage, Beck and Greenspan perform a joke that’s made better for its build-up, and a delivery formed by absence.

A recording device and mic sit on a stool, the word “one” reflected on its surface. A merrymaking comedian issues the first of many recordings, inviting his agent (the ever-absent “Bernstein”) to see his show. It beeps and another message goes issued (“just following up about those tables and those drinks”), and seven voicemails PAGE ELEVEN succeed. Again and again, the absent comic tries to seat his singular audience, but never lands him. In an unmoving frame, Beck and Greenspan deliver their joke: what would it add if the artist was present? When does absence become fame?

As with Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, and the chimeric Sophie Calle, Untitled (It’s almost a one-liner) performs a joke-as-commentary on the increasingly ephemeral matter of an artist’s presence and aura. With nothing active but the narrative of missing action, we’re made to query what it is we’re hoping to see. What would art look like, now, were it to present itself? How would it manifest, nevermind the thing it resists? Maybe that joke about Salvador Dalí walking into a fish and order- ing a pint of stamps (and the barman saying, “Why the bicycle wheel?”) utters something true. What is missing, and, moreover, would we know it to see it? I think of an Ad Reinhart cartoon: “An abstract painting will react to you if you react to it. You get from it what you bring to it. It will meet you half way but no further. It is alive if you are. It represents something and so do you. you, sir, are a space, too.” The text lies over a dead man, his eyes marked with an X. As with so much contemporary art, the punchline lands with a chill. We’re looking for mean- ing in a body that’s missing.

“What does it mean?” has become the best joke of all. “UNTITLED (IT’S ALMOST A ONE-LINER)”

Sarah Beck Shlomi Greenspan

ANSWERING MACHINE beeps and all recorded messages (Cont’d) play. ROGER ROGER Jerry, Roger, listen. Is there a guest Hey Jerry, Itʼs Roger. Just wanted to list for tonight? Thereʼs this agent. thank you for setting up tonightʼs Paul Bernstein. Heʼs kind of a big gig. You wonʼt regret it. My new mate- deal. Thanks man. Call me. rial is killer. Hope youʼre well man. 20. 21.

(Cont’d) (Cont’d)

ROGER ROGER Big J, Roger again. Went ahead and Yo, Roge the Dodge givinʼ you a shout. told Bernstein heʼs on the guest list. Just following up about that table and Promised him a front row table and those drinks for Bernstein. Thanks some comped drinks. Iʼm thinking Iʼll Jerry, call me when you get this. pay and we can just keep that between us, hey buddy? Call me, Jer. 23.

(Cont’d)

ROGER Jer-Bear! Itʼs Roger. Havenʼt heard back from you, so Iʼm on my way to the club now. Gonna leave my credit card with you for Bernsteinʼs tab.

The car honks and ROGER yells out the window at the car ahead of him.

Pick it up clown!

Back into the phone:

Anyway, call me back--

Sound of squealing tires, a car crash. ROGER becomes very serious.

Jerry, gotta straighten this out.

To the car ahead of him:

You bonked me, bozo! 24. 25.

(Cont’d) (Cont’d)

ROGER ROGER Jerry, itʼs Roger. Down at the sta- Jerry. Listen, this accident thing is tion. Rear-ended that clownʼs Prius. taking longer than I thought. Theyʼre You know how those guys are. A bunch acting like itʼs really serious, but of ’em poured out, grabbing their Iʼll work it out. Iʼm running a bit necks. Whining about injuries and in- late and this is the only call theyʼre surance. Theyʼre making a big deal letting me make. Iʼd be really grate- about it, but donʼt worry, Iʼll be ful if you sort out that stuff for out of here and early for the show... Bernstein. Still got to make sure we work out the Bernstein thing. In the background, a stern voice:

COP Wrap it up!

ROGER See you tonight man -- my setʼll knock ’em dead! 27.

RACHEL Jerry, itʼs Rachel. Turn on the news! They arrested some guy who slammed into a car full of clowns. Heʼs screaming “Bernstein! Bernstein!” There are bloody clowns everywhere. One of them is dead. Itʼs like performance art or something.

The ANSWERING MACHINE beeps one last time and au- tomatically rewinds to the beginning.