Wall Works: Selected Writings and Performances

By Silvia Ziranek

A selection of writings and performances by visual artist, Silvia Ziranek, produced 1976-2011, including ICI VILLA MOI (1990) and NOT UNDIRTY (2011). This ebook includes links to 5 video clips of Ziranek in live performances in the UK at conferences and exhibition openings, with the full script of the performance and photograph

• Language: English
• Publisher: KT press
• Release date: Sep 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9780953654178

Book preview

Introduction

WALKING WORDS TO WORK WITH.

WORDS TO WALK WITH.

WALKED WORKS WORDED.

WORKING WORDED WALKS.

TALKING WALKS.

WALL TALK.

Included in this book are texts about walls, bricks, buildings, façades, elevations, the consideration of areas, contour, environment, architecture, atmosphere, needs (occasionally provision), scale, resources, communication, un/contained spaces and, also, emotional entasis.

Some were (and are) performances, others straightforward text works.

Elements in these works include:- intelligence; humour; wit; colour; feminism; cost; subversion; determination; imagination; practicality.

My influences include Fanny Craddock; Katie Boyle (and Tupperware); Come Dancing; Alice in Wonderland; motor biking; Pugin; Charles and Ray Eames; (lack of) self control; (Brazilian) cocktails; ambition/greed; stacking; love no no no emotion; ballet; travel; d.i.v.o.r.c.e.; manners; Elvis; Bruce Lee; hope, and guilt; sponsorship; Dad’s travel dollies; Mum’s treadle Singer; Ready Steady Go!; India; medieval Japanese society as depicted by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi etc; the National Theatre of Brent, by which I mean Patrick Barlowe; Bruce McLean; Flann O’Brien; Charles Trenet singing Boum and La Mer,; the absence of Poland; the practice of domestic non management; Raymond Chandler; Paula Rego and motherhood. I would gladly say that I was strongly influenced by my Foundation year tutor at Croydon School of Art, Bruce McLean, a man of modest height and great wit, charisma, and energy. Other direct influences at that time were Moholy-Nagy and Paul Poiret.

I prefer to write to a given theme. I like to say I extend, complement, complete a concept, not only with words, but also with some wall based, some floor based works, photographs, installed conundrums and banquets alongside the actions of my performances.

In 1975, as a student at Goldsmiths’ College, I devised SOVIET SENSATION. My work at Goldsmiths’ concentrated entirely on performance and related matters: photography, print making, music, and costume design. Each perf(ormance) was a polished and complete production.

Having worked with McLean and Nice Style, ‘The World’s First Pose Band’ on a number of occasions, I developed my own decisive action attitude (posing) for the duration of my Goldsmiths’ time, despite the disregard of certain tutors.

The idea for SOVIET SENSATION visually and physically was a series of foot frolics – ‘poses’ – with verbally accompanying questions about the domestic / global / fiscal / philosophical / epicurean / emotional.

This performance was recreated at Acme Gallery, London, for New Contemporaries, curated by Mike Collyer.

CHEZ Z (SHE SAID), my night of glory on 28 September 1983 at Riverside Studios, London, was a collection of four performances, comprising AS AN EXPERIENCE, I SUIT MY PURPOSE; IN CASE OF TASTE; CHOSEN MOMENTS (WITH SUDS) and CHEZ Z (SHE SAID). The final piece became the title of the evening and involved a chaise longue, cocktails (in which the text of the performance was written on cocktail sticks in some snazzy glassware) and a waiter. My aim was to explore the function of form, the form of function, empathetic seating arrangements, the provision of domestic development in architectural reciprocation…..with a cocktail and good service. The event was curated by Anthony Reynolds and David Gothard.

England is not a land which generally critically appreciates sartorial extravagance, it tolerates it. My outfits are an intrinsic part of the performance. From an early age, I understood that ‘to be’ was to be me, whatever the whether/weather. I like to dress: I have the urge to play with fabric, texture, colour and shape. I mingle material, structure and form to cross design decades and aspire to a pinnacle of dressness. Most performances have an outfit designed and made from scratch specifically for the occasion, though a (very) few are put together from found items. I enjoy scale, scope, texture, shape, colour, combinations and contrasts when I consider costume, and I do not dress for the crowd or the mirror, though I dress with a last minute look in one. Co-ordination is key. I am never knowingly underdressed, though in truth the items which combine to make the overall outfit are, in my opinion, simple – it’s the effect which is extensive. I learned to read with my chin propped on my mother’s Singer treadle sewing machine. I learned to make clothes for Gigi and Rosemary (my dolls) from ‘cabbage’ left from my mother’s commissions. She was a tailor, I a constructor. After the performance, the (eponymous) outfit is then assimilated into my general wardrobe.

HOW TO IN TEN EASY took place in the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988. The piece was written to dismiss normal distances between object and subject in terms of architecture / environment / affectionate (or not) associations. It set out to question mores and to develop a kinship with roofs, floorboards, shelving, handy knick knacks, and contemporary colour charts whilst, at the same time, reconsidering their adaptability and allure (in terms of personal use). The main source material was The Practical Householder, a 1950s colour publication by the National Do-It-Yourself Magazine, positively riddled with details of zazzy ways to jazz up that dreary décor with the simplest – and most economical – of techniques. Curated by Isabel Vasseur, I chose The Shanghai Pavilion Garden amongst the festival gardens as my