Zuzu Fridays z07 – Ink in Omaha

I visited Omaha last week — you can see one entry from last Friday…Zuzu Fridays z06 – O! is for Omaha! and I’ll be adding one about THE Bemis next week.

The first day I arrived in Omaha last week, I hung out in my friend James Gilbert‘s studio while he worked.  He had an intern working along side him – her name is Claire.

Once it was time for lunch, we sat down and had pizza together in the studio.  I learned that Claire is from Omaha, is currently in university (interested in Anthropology and Museum Mgmt) and is interning at the Bemis — working with artists and exhibitions, among other things.  I noticed that Claire had a few tattoos so I asked her what the interesting studios were in Omaha.  She named a couple of places.

Then she tells me, oh and by the way, me and my girlfriends are camping out on Friday night so we can get a free tattoo on Saturday.  WHAT??!!  I love it.

Claire with her new ink.

Here’s the skinny…

Liquid Courage (custom tattoo studio) was hosting a customer appreciation day.  If you had been tattooed there in the last 12 months, you were able to show up on this particular day to receive a FREE tattoo.

You did have to bring a donation for the Humane Society which I thought was pretty cool.  So there were bags of kitty litter, dog food and the like.

And this is probably the most interesting part (and the reason that Claire and her girlfriends camped out) — once you arrived, you were given a number.  This was the order you were to be tattooed AND the order in which got to choose the flash that you then got tattooed.

Even though Claire was there at 10:30pm the night before, she was still #9.

So Saturday around noon, James and I made our way over to Liquid Courage.  There was Claire.  She had her flash picked out and was ready to go in.  Once she was in, she and her artist graciously let us hang out for a few minutes while she was getting tattooed.

Thanks for letting me crash, Claire!  xoxoxoxo

Here are some pics…

Liquid Courage

Liquid Courage

her choice…a good choice indeed!

the rules

Claire getting tattooed

Claire getting tattooed

the final product

Zuzu Fridays is a weekly post about all things weird, pervy, vampy, sexy…or just plain effed up.

¡Zuzu en España! z02…por fin.

Life in the big D has been pretty insane lately and I’m finally going to post about the rest of my trip in Spain.  Then I am back to regular Zuzu blogging.  Love you!

Upon arriving back in the great city of Madrid (after our awesome weekend in Barcelona), we were fulfilled but tired.  We had a quick dinner and then off to sleep!

The next day was a school day!  Alexa had a meeting around noon and then class in the afternoon.  I joined her on the trip to school so I could see where she studies.  It is a large university with a huge campus – Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  She showed me her route (which is quite the route).  We went to the cafeteria for a croissant and cafe and then headed to the library for some wifi.  Weefee, as they say.  It was nice for me to see where Alexa goes to school every day.  Now when she texts me about something weird about school, I will know what she is talking about.  Love it.

Once Alexa was off to school, I ventured out to La Casa Encendida (see this Zuzu Fridays entry for more on that).  I walked around the neighborhoods of Lavapies and La Latina that day.  It felt very local….as if the people in the hood all knew each other.  A nice vibe…

That night we went over to Hernan’s house for dinner.  He and his bro, Seba, whipped up a fabulous meal of yummy olives, Spanish tortilla, shrimp cocktail and then a delicious rice with seafood.  Topped off with a coffee flavored flan.  And of course, wine, wine, wine.

Spanish tortilla made with love by Seba

there was a little dancing too....

The next day, I took the day off essentially.  I chilled at Alexa’s, made a grocery list and went to get the ingredients for a Lebanese meal for Alexa’s Spanish amigos!  It was a successful grocery shopping trip (only one mishap – I didn’t weigh my own produce).  Once I got back to Alexa’s, I cracked open some wine and got cooking.  It ended up being a delicious meal….if I do say so myself.  Stuffed cabbage, squash and peppers with meat and rice, fattoush and yogurt sauce.  And of course, more wine.  In attendance:  Alexa, Hernan, Seba, Teresa, me and Teresa’s sister and Alexa’s friend that she met in Baltimore, Chelo.  So fun…and everyone was pleasantly full.

Hernan, Alexa, Chelo, Me, Teresa and Seba

The next day I did some walking around.  I went to the Prado and walked through Retiro Park to see the Crystal Palace.  I got some weird souvenirs for the girls and some children’s books in Spanish from a strip of book vendors near the Prado.

Crystal Palace

That night we made it a movie night!!  In English!!  I met Hernan and Alexa and an old man bar for some tapas and vino.  Seba joined us too.  Then we were off to see SHAME with Michael Fassbender and Casey Mulligan . Nothing much to report here.  I didn’t like the movie.

On my last day in Spain, we caught an early train to Toledo.  What a way to end my trip.  It was SO lovely there.  We walked around the little town, stopped here and there for food, wine and souvenirs, Alexa made friends with a nun who had lived in Toledo all her life and then we headed back.

Toledo

sweet A

sweet H

sweet T

The next morning I had just enough time to pack and then Alexa escorted me to the airport.  We had a small run-in with the ops agent there.  She asked me and Alexa if we were mother and daughter.  We certainly didn’t want to know which one of us was the mother.  ¿WTF señorita?  Alexa gave this chick the look of death, and said something along the lines of “Hold the phone, lady.  I don’t think you want to go any further.”

We had a laugh….and then a cry because we knew it was going to be a long time until we see each other again in person.  Adios….xoxoxo.

me and A

Zuzu Fridays z05 – The Prince of Puke

I made a trip down to Houston for a couple of days for work.  It’s warm and weird down here in H town.

Last night I decided to get a little taste of Baltimore via McClain Gallery.  I saw that Baltimore’s darling, John Waters, was opening an exhibition there.

I walked in and the show looked really great.  I even saw “Chesty” – a piece that I spent a lot of time with in Baltimore at C. Grimaldis Gallery.  Oh, Chesty!  How I have missed you!

After taking a look around and mingling with people who had drawn on pencil thin mustaches (yes….there were a lot of them), I saw the gallery director who shares my name.  Said a quick hello to her and then was out the door.

Lucky enough, as I was walking out, so was Mr. Waters.  I said hello, introduced myself and told him that I used to work for Costas Grimaldis.  His eyes lit up and then he said, “God bless him.  He’s still there.”

Not a question, but a statement.  Yep, the ol’ Greek is still there in Baltimore doing his thing.  That city is lucky to have him.

So cheers to John Waters who has made some of the most effed up films I have ever seen (he was way before his time….and it hasn’t lost it’s luster either).  And cheers to Costas who was showing John’s work before he was picked up by the big players in New York and LA.

And cheers to my old (adopted) hometown.  I miss you Baltimore.  xoxo

Zuzu Fridays z04 (Spain edition)

For this Zuzu Friday, I decided to share some images from an exhibition that I saw in Madrid at a contemporary art space called La Casa Encendida.  This was one of the better contemporary art venues I saw while in Spain.  Apparently they do exhibitions but also have a variety of classes that they host.

One of the exhibitions they had up was called Generation 12.  This was an exhibition of young, emerging artists.  One of my favorite projects from the exhibition was a collaboration between Almudena Lobera and Isabel Martínez Abascal.  Delicate line drawings were made, then tattooed on people.  The original drawings then were destroyed and all that is left is the drawing tattooed on the body.

Portadores.  La imagen en el campo ampliado del cuerpo.  (Carriers.  The image on the expanded field of the body.)

This is an excerpt from an essay written by Fernando Castro Flórez

“…Portadores is a playful modulation of that index-conditioned practice that calls into question both the responsibility as well as the conventional notion of the “owner” of a work of art. Destroyed, the original drawing only remains with a skin tattooed and documents of an action that hybridizes, with tremendous clarity, the drawing, the tattoo, the performative dimension, but also the photograph and documentation, proposing a dynamic that has to do with the relational aesthetic.  The drawings-tattoos of Almudena Lobera and Isabel Martínez Abascal do not produce a “perverse space” in some voyeuristic sense, nor a kind of singular extimacy. Rather, they have “certified” the incarnations (never so well described) of the arte hipertélico6: the tatooed bodies outline another idea of architecture in which desire set adrift is crucial, a kind of longing where anything possessed is an illusion.”

Enjoy the photos – even though they are from my iPhone (not the best quality).  More about the rest of my Spanish adventures will come this Sunday.  Te quiero.  xo

Zuzu Fridays z01*

It’s Friday!  Here is a little visual treat before you start the weekend…

Out of another person’s purge for “it’s-the-new-year-get-rid-of-all-this-shit”, I gained this deck of playing cards designed by South African (Belgium-based) artist Kendell Geers.

Geers is known for his performance at the Venice Biennale in 1993 where he pissed into Duchamp’s Fountain.

Anyone down for Texas Hold ‘Em?

From the Goodman Gallery website:

A provocative figure in the South African art world since the 1990s, Kendell Geers is known for work that stakes out a radical position from which to take aim at both the art establishment and society in general, to interrogate our existing moral codes and to suggest new approaches. Working in a wide variety of media, he uses and subverts familiar signs from art history and pop culture. Famously pissing into Duchamp’s urinal in Venice, he rejects the sanctity of ‘the canon’ and the inviolability of history, insisting on a position that poses its own questions and comes to its own conclusions.

Geers’ work, site-specific by nature, is designed to force a physical confrontation with the viewer, and is concerned with power, its relations, and the manner in which it shapes our experiences. Often described as interventions, the relentless physicality of his work acts to shock and disrupt our perception of the status quo – to map the degree to which individual agency is constrained by the existing establishment, and to attempt to explode those borders.

 

*Look for more Zuzu Fridays…this is the first go at a weekly post about all things weird, pervy, vampy, sexy…or just plain effed up.