9.18.06: Robinson, Otto

Biked up to check out the Nadine Robinson piece at the Studio Museum of Harlem. There was the African American day parade on Adam Clayton Powell. T-shirts being sold that said I "heart" my nose, lips and hair. Shocking that this affirmation is still needed — that the models of beauty presented to us don’t include a lot of us. Here (from a photo blog) is Sharpton, former Mayor Dinkins and Ferrer:

Robinson’s show was essentially one piece, a wall of speakers with an elaborate sound mix/collage.

From the Grand Arts website — where she had a retrospective:

Robinson's new work, Alles Grau in Grau Malen (2005), offers a soundtrack for the end of time. It is a large-scale sound painting measuring over eleven by forty-five feet. Fit onto one wall, it is accompanied by fog emitted from low-lying fog machines, obscuring the rigor of the white cube. The built-in audio player components play a mix of popular dramatic soundtracks taken from Hollywood films and Jamaican dance music. The pounding and chanting tracks derive from the climax scenes in Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Omen (1976) and The Matrix (1999). These manufactured movie versions of synchopathic sounds are mixed with Catholic funerary chants. Special effects specific to Jamaican sound systems are then piled on, in the tradition of Houses of Joy.

 

Here’s another piece which had a Pentecostal singing mix.

Would love to see these installed as a sound system in a club or on stage. Speakers as shrines, and the music mixes she creates are usually a spiritual mashup of one sort or another.

Saw a nun on rollerblades going up the Hudson river park. Rosary flying behind her.

Caught Otto’s set at Joe’s. I expected a laptop show, as the stuff I’m familiar with from this Brazilian singer is electronic samba loops with hooky vocals. But he had a full band — and they were great, and he’s a great performer — pulling up his pants to dance, patting his tummy and evoking the saints Shango and Yemanja.

Here’s a phone video (link) — terrible sound and picture quality, I’m afraid — but it gives a little bit of an idea.