Performance (a selection)

White heat Sin

Eastern adaptation of White Light Paint it White

Michael Janssen Gallery Singapore, Gilman Barracks
Singapore, SIN, 2012

I’m not so keen on doing the same thing twice, but what started as such turned out to be a world of a difference. Also: it was on the other side of the world… Great fun with local musicians at one of the most fancy art parties and openings I’ve ever attended so far.

Gillman barracks, with Michael Janssen Gallery Singapore in 2012, at first, it was really hot in Singapore, and 2nd, communication is always hard when you can’t work directly with the organization.. but we had a good laugh and made some nice new friends… Michael invited me on this special opening night of the Gillman Barracks in Singapore, where he opened his first Asian gallery. I summed up a list of what I needed, I give the short version; a stage of 5 by 2 meter, paint compressor, bass guitar, guitar, drum, piano, mics, and amplifiers who can handle the space, area. I arrived and needed glasses finding the stage in the grass, as so the amps.. it was a size bigger then most of my scale models, but only a size… First thing everyone was calling, then cancelling, I said nO No, I didn’t sweat my # off on a 24 hour trip to eat some fried curry crab and go back, we’re gone do this # and we do it now, the opening was the same day so we better hurry (I said). So on I decided to cut the stage in two, to have 2 parts and at least make the space look bigger, as I wasn’t allowed to make the stage in the first place, I was friendly asked not to cut the stage myself, they had someone to do it for me, that someone were actually 20 Bengali with a chainsaw (for steel) and small paint brush to restore the damage after. The way they didn’t with the 20 of them is a different story, for another time, it’s just … The amps, the amplifiers were small and so be it, the drum was an electric drum-kit I wouldn’t even buy for my child, so beat it, and the guitars were just guitars, cheap but stringed. The paint compressor… disastrous… (as the video shows) I knew it on beforehand as I have the same system in my studio and it doesn’t work, it’s rubbish. Same rubbish here, same rubbish there. So we, me and 3 musicians of Singapore, 3 young guys, and really well tuned on their gear, took of on the white light beat. The paint sprinkled only in small bits on our covered bodies, so I thought, well I don’t really think I was thinking at the time, after the 2nd verse, this calls for action (as the video shows).