Art & Combat Sports

[threeoaks]

Kevin kindly invited me to post this press release for my upcoming NYC art show here.  I am a visual artist by profession, and I managed to squeeze my main love, combat sports, into the mold of art as you will see below (I shoot photos but not fight ones per se; I also do live events in the name of art).  Some of you will find the language pretentious and that's ok   Opens next Thursday in case anyone is local.  Will be a sanctioned Ladies MT fight night with 6 amateur fights for July 12.  Its same-day weigh-ins, geared especially for the higher weight classes.  This is free and open to the public (as is the show), but space is limited so if you are around come early!  Thanks Kevin!  p.s. I am with you. I think Muay Thai is one of the World's great art forms (I believe you wrote "the greatest" and I love it).

 

Dana Hoey, Alicia and Navajo Blanket, 2019, Lightbox, 20 x 65 inches, (Detail). DANA HOEY Dana Hoey Presents June 27 – August 2, 2019 Opening Reception: Thursday, June 27th, 5–8pm  456 West 18th Street Petzel Gallery is pleased to announce Dana Hoey Presents, a para fictional exhibition conceptualized, produced and directed by Hoey, in which the artist will show her own photographic work, the performance and sculpture work of Marcela Torres, and a live ladies Muay Thai fight night that will take place in a 20’ x 20’ boxing ring installed inside the gallery. The show, which challenges and confronts preconceived ideas and realities of feminism, combat, violence, self defense and the martial arts, will be on view from June 27 until August 2 at the gallery’s Chelsea location and will feature an opening night performance by Torres. “During the run of Dana Hoey Presents, my role will be that of Svengali,” Hoey says. “Although I make work as a single subjective, expressive artist, I prefer to emphasize my position as a participant in a larger social construct.” For her own work, Hoey will present Ghost Stories, highly subjective, surreal lightbox collages, made from images shot by Hoey, and a logo designed by David Knowles, which will recur elsewhere in the show. The people featured in these photographs will also be presented in a separate room as poster-style portraits featuring their names and occupations. In the labeled posters Hoey’s aim is to surface the power dynamic of portraiture, particularly as it relates to a white artist taking the image of non-white people. Hoey will also present a 14’ tall stop-action photograph of the great boxing World Champion Alicia “Slick” Ashley shadowboxing. Ashley, a fighter as seasoned and skilled as Mohammed Ali, holds 3 Guinness World records and many World Titles, yet she remains unknown to most Americans. “I invited Marcela Torres to be in this show because her work intersects with mine in dynamic ways,” Hoey explains. “She is first and foremost a performance artist who directly visualizes and attacks the currents of power acting on her queer brown body.” Torres works with fight training devices (speed bags, heavy bags), that have been mic’ed and the sound amplified and remixed. For Dana Hoey Presents Torres will present Agentic Mode, a 40 minute performance that employs audial soundscapes, martial arts movement and spoken word to contemplate contemporary violence as a lived war zone. The instruments she uses for the performance and the recorded sound will live on in the heart of the show after the live performance. Exhibition programs include: Thursday, July 11 Violence and Victimhood, a panel discussion moderated by Dana Hoey, featuring Nona Faustine Simmons, Emma Sulkowicz and Sarah Schulman. This panel is intended to frame the question of violence and historical, personal and cultural victimhood from viewpoints other than Hoey’s. Friday, July 12 Ladies Muay Thai Fight Night, emceed by artist JJ Chan and featuring 5 amateur fights. Doors open at 7pm and entrance is free and open to the public although space is limited. Thursday July 18 Multi-disciplinary Fight Clinic, taught by Tang Soo Do World Title holder Jo-Anne Falanga. Clinic is open to all levels including beginner, and all styles are also welcome. Dana Hoey is a feminist artist working in photography, video and social practice. She most recently exhibited Five Rings at the Detroit Museum of Contemporary Art, which featured self-defense classes for young women from the Police Athletic League and the local community. Three books are available on her work: The Phantom Sex, with essay by Johanna Burton; Experiments in Primitive Living, with essay by Maurice Berger; and Profane Waste, in collaboration with the writer Gretchen Rubin. Her persistent interests are conflict and the possibility of political art. Marcela Torres brings into action performance, objects, workshops, and sound installations that investigate the interpellation of our diaspora. Petzel Gallery is located at 456 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011. Gallery hours: please note that the gallery will be open on Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM.  Thereafter, our summer hours begin Monday, July 8th, and we are open from Monday to Friday from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM. For press inquires, please contact Ricky Lee at ricky@petzel.com, or call (212) 680-9467.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

3 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

Hoey’s aim is to surface the power dynamic of portraiture, particularly as it relates to a white artist taking the image of non-white people.

I'm really interested in this. As a photographer, in Thailand, it always feels like there is a ethical veil I have to pass through when framing a shot. Most of this feels like it has been conferred upon me, a sum total of all the ways Thais have been captured in photography already, all those motivations. With a camera you are holding a device of control. And everything that comes out of the device enters into the pre-existing narrative stream.

5 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

The show, which challenges and confronts preconceived ideas and realities of feminism, combat, violence, self defense and the martial arts

Is there any way you can open up what those preconceived ideas are in your mind, and how you feel this can be confronted with real, live-staged, but still performed fights?

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I also have to say, this is incredible. I love, love, love that the performed nature of fights is inviting into an artistic space. I think this is something that Thailand already appreciates at a certain level, that the difference between the "real" and the "artifice" is not a logical dividing line.

I also have to say that bringing fighting to art falls in with the things that I was trying to talk about in my metaphysics of Muay Thai. The idea that what fighters are doing is close to what artists are doing.

[threeoaks]

23 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

I'm really interested in this. As a photographer, in Thailand, it always feels like there is a ethical veil I have to pass through when framing a shot. Most of this feels like it has been conferred upon me, a sum total of all the ways Thais have been captured in photography already, all those motivations. With a camera you are holding a device of control. And everything that comes out of the device enters into the pre-existing narrative stream.

I don't find your work exoticizing at all.  I think its because there is almost always text accompanying the photos, that identifies the subject and specifies their occupation as well as what is special about them.  I've got collages like you see above, and this is typical for a visual artist rather than classic photographer - you just take the image of someone and completely separate it from the person.  A former colleague of mine is a most aggregious offender in my opinion.  I love the photos (they are of a Goshkagawa, Japan School Basketball team), but in a NYC, primarily fancy white context they just look like she is using Asians as ciphers and stand-ins for all women.  I did something unusual in this context, which is I made the collages ie; imposed my ego on people, but i also included an introductory room of "posters" (actually high production matte prints but pinned to the wall).  Each poster features name and occupation.  Its just basic courtesy but emphatic in this context and functions just the way your images do on social media - identify and raise up the subject.

23 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

 

Is there any way you can open up what those preconceived ideas are in your mind, and how you feel this can be confronted with real, live-staged, but still performed fights?

Feminism:  I don't like the conventional idea that women are the kind peacekeeper mother earth types who would run the world better if we had a chance.  Blegh.  We are just as flawed and violent as anyone else.  Yes there is something called "toxic masculinity" and yes we need more seats at the table and yes this would change things for the better, but instantly associating us with kindness etc is weakening.  We need strength.

Combat violence:  I didn't write that haha.  Just noticed it.  I guess "violence" is correct but I am just talking here about something everyone here understands, which is that yeah fighting is about the violence, but its more about the love of the form and a kind of love of your opponent, not anger.

Self-defense:  I think self-defense is so much more about attitude.  When you train martial arts you train offense at the same time.  In conventional self defense class there is an assumption the woman will be a victim.  Now, this is true statistically, but there is no real defense without offense which is usually not trained in self-defense context. 

Martial Arts: same deal - people think its about some kind of primitive violence, rather than a refined art form.  I will just show them by having live fights   They probably won't understand, but I will feel better.

[threeoaks]

24 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

I also have to say, this is incredible. I love, love, love that the performed nature of fights is inviting into an artistic space. I think this is something that Thailand already appreciates at a certain level, that the difference between the "real" and the "artifice" is not a logical dividing line.

I also have to say that bringing fighting to art falls in with the things that I was trying to talk about in my metaphysics of Muay Thai. The idea that what fighters are doing is close to what artists are doing.

THANK YOU FOR THE HIGHEST PRAISE and CLEAREST UNDERSTANDING I WILL GET!  I read Metaphysics of Muay Thai and agree 100% its an art form of the highest sort.

 

A big question in academic photography of the 90's was "what happens to truth now that  we have digital photography".  I say the 90's because photography is so far gone from believability now that everyone understands things can be faked.  I made work that straddled that line - below is a picture of two women who used to fight with their sisters as children.  I had them slapping each other etc, grappling in the sand before the picture.  Their emotions (irritation, anger, pleasure at grappling) are "real" but their actions were performed.  This is very helpful you pulled this thread out of the performance/ reality question in Muay Thai.  Thank you.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

9 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

This is very helpful you pulled this thread out of the performance/ reality question in Muay Thai. 

Yes, these are not "opposites" in Thailand's culture, I think I've come to understand, therefore in fight culture here as well. Westerners are somewhat obsessed with the "real" fight, and paint Thailand sometimes, maybe Phuket fights in particular, as potentially dubious and fake. You have the "tuk-tuk driver fights" and always the fear that if you come here, especially short term you will be caught in a fake fight. Westerners long for the "real" fight. It's part of the fantasy (ironically enough). But, as I said, these are not opposites to Thais. Instead fake (performed, staged, theatricized) and real exist in a kind of continuum. The presence of one does not cancel out or negate the other. A single fight can have both, performed elements and what others might call "real" elements. Is the Ram Muay real? Or is it fake? Well, its performed. Is a fighter's nobility after being hit real? or fake? I think this comes down to that performed elements, for instance public face, are very real things in the culture. Appearances have a weight to them. They aren't just thin veils to be torn down, revealing what is real underneath. People, families, communities work hard to create appearances. Fighters work hard to create them. How could this all be "fake"? It's no more fake than a painting is fake.

(sorry to go off on this, but I find this cultural difference, and the mis-understanding from westerners really interesting)

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

26 minutes ago, threeoaks said:

people think its about some kind of primitive violence, rather than a refined art form.  I will just show them by having live fights   They probably won't understand, but I will feel better.

So, in a sense you are presenting the alter of the motherly, nurturing essence of women (feminism)? But in a more complete picture of, yes, violence. But also in the martial sense of a respectful, bound practice. Does that get close to the kind of message of women fighting in a gallery might have?

[threeoaks]

11 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

Yes, these are not "opposites" in Thailand's culture, I think I've come to understand, therefore in fight culture here as well. Westerners are somewhat obsessed with the "real" fight, and paint Thailand sometimes, maybe Phuket fights in particular, as potentially dubious and fake. You have the "tuk-tuk driver fights" and always the fear that if you come here, especially short term you will be caught in a fake fight. Westerners long for the "real" fight. It's part of the fantasy (ironically enough). But, as I said, these are not opposites to Thais. Instead fake (performed, staged, theatricized) and real exist in a kind of continuum. The presence of one does not cancel out or negate the other. A single fight can have both, performed elements and what others might call "real" elements. Is the Ram Muay real? Or is it fake? Well, its performed. Is a fighter's nobility after being hit real? or fake? I think this comes down to that performed elements, for instance public face, are very real things in the culture. Appearances have a weight to them. They aren't just thin veils to be torn down, revealing what is real underneath. People, families, communities work hard to create appearances. Fighters work hard to create them. How could this all be "fake"? It's no more fake than a painting is fake.

(sorry to go off on this, but I find this cultural difference, and the mis-understanding from westerners really interesting)

Extremely fascinating.

[threeoaks]

6 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

So, in a sense you are presenting the alter of the motherly, nurturing essence of women (feminism)? But in a more complete picture of, yes, violence. But also in the martial sense of a respectful, bound practice. Does that get close to the kind of message of women fighting in a gallery might have?

Yes I am presenting a live visual paradigm.  I am presenting a live form of my belief system and I am grateful to the fighters for showing up.  In return I hope I offer them a good, well run and well supported fight context as well as a chance to fight which is more rare for the bigger women.  Its interesting.  One of the preparators (people who handle artwork professionally) is a returning Army Ranger who trained other Rangers and was also flown abroad to train IDF fighters (he has some politely harsh things to say about Krav Maga lol).  He is currently in the process of trying to learn non-lethal fighting (he's not talkative but I reckon he shares y'all's opinion of spinning kicks in live combat   .  You might say he is coming from the opposite direction that I am in enlisting local female fighters to live this enlivening process of being fighters in public.  He is coming back from lethality to locate an art form.  

[threeoaks]

16 minutes ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

Yes, these are not "opposites" in Thailand's culture

So many boring opposites in Western culture.  Language forces this and I like to play with presenting supposed opposites (a fight is two "opposites" but I play with them to show their dynamic interaction and lack of separateness).

[threeoaks]

3 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

So, in a sense you are presenting the alter of the motherly, nurturing essence of women (feminism)? But in a more complete picture of, yes, violence. But also in the martial sense of a respectful, bound practice. Does that get close to the kind of message of women fighting in a gallery might have?

Yes.  It does.  Its a demonstration of rarified conflict.  Your average American white woman is well-versed in passive aggression which, while effective, is not a dominant way to go.  I want access to dominance.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

3 hours ago, threeoaks said:

 (a fight is two "opposites" but I play with them to show their dynamic interaction and lack of separateness).

Sylvie has long talked about forming a single thing with her opponent, Spinoza - my favorite philosopher - would advocate for that.

[threeoaks]

2 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

Sylvie has long talked about forming a single thing with her opponent, Spinoza - my favorite philosopher - would advocate for that.

And I express this single thing here: (custom ring canvas on gallery floor, awaiting ring delivery.  wall is 14' mural of Alicia "Slick" Ashley shadowboxing).