{"id":12949,"date":"2014-03-05T02:15:28","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T07:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/?page_id=12949"},"modified":"2014-03-05T02:18:23","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T07:18:23","slug":"12949-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/?page_id=12949","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday March 10, 7pm<\/span><\/strong>
\nMyth Mash<\/span><\/strong>
\nVideos by Katie Cercone<\/span>
\nadmission $6 – artist in person<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n

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\nStill from “Queen Candy Bile” (Katie Cercone, 2010)\u00a0\u00a9 courtesy of the artist<\/span>
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\nWe are very pleased to welcome New York-based artist Katie Cercone for a solo screening of new and recent video works. Microscope has previously shown two of Cercone’s videos on different occasions as part of curated group screenings. Through her performative videos – always involving complex, glittering mixed-media sculptures that become actual film sets – Cercone explores feminism and the spirituality of hip hop, intended as the embodiment of the free expression of power, symbolism, dance and song as metalanguage.
\nKatie Cercone will be available for Q&A after the screening.<\/span>
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\n“Through bodily expression and digital collage overlay of hip hop gliteratti scavenged from the internet, my videos explore where the pictorial motifs and symbols of contemporary popular culture interface with the 5D cosmic archetypal realm of Gods and Goddesses.” – KC<\/span>
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\nKatie Cercone was born 1984 in Santa Rosa, CA. She has shown her performative video sculpture and collaborative work throughout the United States and abroad including at the Brooklyn Museum, Bronx Museum, DODGEgallery, C24 Gallery, Kunsthalle Galapagos and Momenta Art. She has been twice nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Visual Arts Grant, and recently received with her collective\u00a0Go! Push Pops\u00a0a Brooklyn Arts Council Grant and the Culture Push Fellowship for Utopian Practice. Her work has been featured in\u00a0Hyperallergic<\/em>, Paper Magazine<\/em>, Art Fag City<\/em>, Washington Post<\/em>, Art Net TV<\/em>, Bushwick Daily<\/em>, Societe Perrier<\/em>,\u00a0 BronxNet TV<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Calyx Journal<\/em>\u00a0among other publications. She is also a yoga instructor, curator and adjunct faculty at the School of Visual Art, having curated shows for Momenta Art, Cue Art Foundation and NurtureArt. She has published critical writing in\u00a0Bitch Magazine<\/em>,\u00a0REVOLT Magazine<\/em>,\u00a0Utne Reader<\/em>, ART PAPERS<\/em>, Girls Against God<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0N. Paradoxa<\/em>.\u00a0
\nCercone is a founding member of the queer transnational feminist collective\u00a0Go! Push Pops<\/span><\/a><\/span>. <\/span>
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\nPROGRAM includes:<\/span><\/strong>
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\nAthena Originoo (Scopped + Chrewed)<\/strong>,\u00a02012<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 6:58 min<\/span>
\nA ferocious and implacable fighter, Athena the Warrior Goddess is the daughter of Zeus, who during Athena\u2019s gestation deceived his pregnant wife with cunning words against the warnings of Mother Earth and Father Sky and assimilated Athena into his own body.\u00a0 On Athena\u2019s birthday she leaped from the head of Zeus, already adult, dressed with her armor.\u00a0\u00a0Athena Originoo (Scopped + Chrewed)<\/em>\u00a0is a Don Trip cover of the Drake hit \u2018I\u2019m On One\u2019 performed by\u00a0Athena Originoo<\/em>, a suburban-bred pregnant hermaphrodite pie high in the rapper scry of an Africanizing griot gorge. This work recalls the early 90s transfunctionalization of Hip Hop that saw corporate America aggressively coopt and market the culture to white adolescents of the artist\u2019s generation through randomly applying its signs and codes to items like snack foods, Barbie Dolls and breakfast cereal. Fuck you, Europe, I ain\u2019t sprung from no man\u2019s head. This is ancestor worship of an incipient warrior nature. And yo, I said\u00a0wigg<\/em>a,\u00a0not\u00a0**gga<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nBabysitter in Furs<\/strong>, 2010<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 3:29 min<\/span>
\nBabysitter in Furs<\/em>\u00a0is a short video about black popular culture and the American musical fetish. A mash up of internet-scavenged audiovisual material, this film includes footage of Lil Wayne\u2019s daughter, her birthday party, Wayne\u2019s prison release automated message and Cercone\u2019s own voiceover of excerpts from Theodor Adorno\u2019s seminal theory \u201cCulinary Listening.\u201d Poop on cake is a reoccurring visual motif to illustrate Adorno\u2019s point that popular music forces listeners into a passive sensual and emotional acceptance of predigested yet disconnected qualities.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nDretish<\/strong>,\u00a02014<\/span>
\nVideo Collage, 12 sec<\/span>
\nDretish<\/em> is a short video collage were Cercone overlays a photo of her childhood self over a posse of rappers and sings the loop \u201cAnd who\u2019s gonna be my girlfriend, who\u2019s gonna ride or die with me?\u201d from the B2K Song\u00a0Girlfriend<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\nGangbang ATL<\/strong>,\u00a02012<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 5:39 min<\/span>
\nGangbang ATL<\/em> conflates the black vernacular term for the city of Atlanta \u201cATL,\u201d with the mythical waterworld of Atlantis. In this film, Cercone samples from contemporary hip hop music to tell an old folktale called\u00a0\u2018La Llorona.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0Translated to\u00a0\u2018The Weeping Woman,\u2019\u00a0La Llorona\u00a0\u00a0is a story about the river of life that became a river of death. La Llorona is the grand dame that is the sweet slot between the thighs of the earth, she walks the land in a full swirling skirt of blue and silver making the waters clear again.\u00a0 The River is a metaphor here for creativity, which is meant to be an act of clear consciousness. Working with the metaphor of water, Cercone conflates the erotic gestures of music television with kundalini yoga and kung fu, and begins to play the ancestral secret in her own strong voice.<\/span>
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\nGrind 4 Da Shine (short version)<\/strong>, 2011<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 2:05 min<\/span>
\nGrind 4 Da Shine<\/em>\u00a0is a 2nd chakra flow in which I pose female hip hop stars Ciara and Willow Smith as Contemporary Goddess archetypes. Enhancing the environment with 2nd chakra specific symbols \u2013 water, crystals, fish, sex, money \u2013 dance emerges as a healthy expression of the second chakra. Aping choreography taken from Ciara\u2019s music video\u00a0Ride<\/em>,\u00a0I call attention to the choreography\u2019s near exact replication of the yogic asana known as Goddess, a hip opener deeply connected to creativity. I also conflate the foundational \u2018Downward Dog\u2019 or \u2018Adho Mukha Svasana\u2019 with the popular vernacular dance form pioneered by Louisiana native Big Freedia called\u00a0Sissy Nobby<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0Sissy Bounce<\/em>. The soundtrack culls from artists such as Lil Wayne, Biggie and Snoop Dogg, overlaid with the sound of my \u2018bling\u2019 and several tracks of my own Ujjayi Pranayama, a style of yogic breathe designed to mimic the sound of the ocean waves; ocean or water again being the elemental symbol of the sex chakra.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nQueen Candy Bile<\/strong>,\u00a02010<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 6:27 min<\/span>
\nQueen Candy Bile<\/em>\u00a0is a performative video sculpture illustrating neuroses as a contemporary form of Romanticism. Cercone here defines Romanticism as a constellation of motivations, particularly its fixation with a remote, perfected and pseudo-spiritual ideal. <\/span>Notions of idealized love and the aestheticised \u201cobjectified\u201d other as intimate source of pleasure\/desire\/fear factor into her work in the vein of Slavoj \u017di\u017eek\u2019s\u00a0\u201ctraversing the fantasy\u201d and Theodor Adorno\u2019s \u2018culinary listening.\u2019 Cercone\u2019s image inventory usurps the rhythm of the fetish-commodity: the consumption of products of entertainment which are lined with pre-digested, shining points of sensory stimulation promoting the rejection of physical intimacy in favor of private, proprietary pleasure.\u00a0Queen Candy Bile<\/em>\u00a0records a private act of (trans)aggression acted out against a duo of tween heartthrobs utilizing binge foods \u2013 ice cream, marshmallow cream, whipping cream, frosting, sprinkles and maraschino cherries\u00a0 – as artillery. The work recalls the artist\u2019s tortured bulimic youth and paints a rainbow sherbet bridge between the consumption of sweets, icons, and popular music as prosthetic boyfriend. This is post-capitalist, feminist toil.\u00a0Queen Candy Bile<\/em>\u00a0is moving through the passivity of fantasy into the activity of imagination and intimate revolt. <\/span>
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\nShawty Drippin\u2019<\/strong>,\u00a02010<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 3:57 min<\/span>
\nMusic Sampled:\u00a0Candy (Drippin\u2019 Like Water)\u00a0<\/em>by Snoop Dogg,\u00a0Blow<\/em>\u00a0by Project Pat,\u00a0Brown Paper Bag<\/em>\u00a0by Birdman and Lil Wayne,\u00a0Get a Light<\/em>\u00a0by Snoop Dogg,\u00a0Drop It Like Its Hot<\/em> and\u00a0Down and Out Freestyle<\/em>\u00a0by DJ Drama and Lil Wayne,\u00a0Big Momma Thang\u00a0and\u00a0Queen B@#$H<\/em>\u00a0by Lil\u2019 Kim,\u00a0Pussy Poppin<\/em>\u00a0by Ludacris,\u00a0Oh No<\/em>\u00a0by Lil Wayne,\u00a0Wanna Love You Girl<\/em>\u00a0by Robin Thicke,\u00a0What\u2019s My Name<\/em>\u00a0by Rihanna,\u00a0Ride\u00a0(Feat Ludacris)\u00a0<\/em>by Ciara,\u00a0All I Want is You<\/em>\u00a0by Miguel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shawty Drippin\u2019<\/em> illustrates neuroses as a contemporary form of Romanticism. \u2018Your ass is in what you sing,\u2019 wrote Fred Moten, whose work on the radical black tradition sheds light on the role of improvisation and the dispersive sensuality of sound and speech, the \u2018constituting intoxication of that most radical political aesthetic reason.\u2019 Investigating the spiritualism of hip hop and the musical fetish as occultation of thought, Shawty Drippin\u2019<\/em> explores the value of ritual, devotion and dancing as the healthy expression of the 2nd chakra (sex, money, power).<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nTreemonisha Drank Up (Kakey Long Tongue Redux)<\/strong>,\u00a02012<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 4:50 min<\/span>
\nTreemonisha Drank Up (Kakey Long Tongue Redux)<\/em>\u00a0takes its name from ragtime composer Scott Joplin\u2019s early modern folk opera\u00a0Treemonisha<\/em>,\u00a0one of the first Black operas to receive widespread crossover recognition. Characterized by its Modernist rejection of African myth and ritual in favor of Enlightenment style individual determinism,\u00a0Treemonisha<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0poetic armature was the polarization of education and light against superstition and darkness played out in the title character receiving schooling in a white woman\u2019s home. As a foil to its namesake,\u00a0Treemonisha Drank Up<\/em>\u00a0is a yoga hip hop feminist fusion about a white female – educated to the point of neuroses and nervous disorders – balancing out her third chakra as she absorbs the intuitive archetypes, metaphors and ritual of African cultural memory preserved in Hip Hop music. Notable Hip Hop icons appear as spectral God\/Goddess Archetypes conjured via a possession dance: Lil Wayne, Lil B, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.\u00a0Treemonisha Drank Up<\/em>\u00a0also samples and remixes an internet video by\u00a0WorldStarHipHop.com\u00a0porn sensation Kakey Long Tongue, drawing a comparison between the proud display of her tongue as a coveted sexual organ and the use of lion\u2019s breath in yogic practice to relieve tension and roar. <\/span>
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\nTrilluminati Universiddhi<\/strong>,\u00a02013<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 3:10 min<\/span>
\nTrilluminati Universiddhi<\/em>\u00a0is Cercone\u2019s own cover of A$ap Rocky\u2019s track \u201cPurple Swag,\u201d re-conceiving his drug-meme lyrics by anchoring them around the notion of the 3rd eye. Called \u201cAjna\u201d the 3rd eye resonates with the color purple and relates to intuition and out of body experiences. Spliced in with A$ap Rocky videos Cercone narrates visually the opening of her third eye through Kundalini yoga and meditation to cosmic oneness and \u201csiddhis,\u201d special occult powers. Because she believes in Love, in her work she traces its perversions.\u00a0Trilluminati Universiddhi<\/em> is\u00a0yoga hip hop fusion, the nursemaid who musicated blocked passageways, and unburdened unconscious psychic conflicts. The\u00a0Trilluminati<\/em>\u00a0title references the\u00a0Illuminati conspiracy theory, that which\u00a0rapper Bocafloja identifies as a pathology of late capitalism derived from our misshapen relationship to money, power and success. In this work Cercone is exploring the Trilluminati\u00a0mythography as a type of intersubjective e-commerce or collective \u2018exquisite corpse\u2019 incorporating pop cultural and ancient archetypal systems. <\/span>
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\nWomb on My Thuggle<\/strong>,\u00a02011<\/span>
\nPerformative Video Sculpture, 6:10 min<\/span>
\nContemporary remake of the ancient Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris. W.O.M.T. features Goddess Isis, played by an Illuminati inducted Minnie Mouse that watches Basketball Wives, paddling through the Nile scavenging the 14 dismembered body parts of her lover Osiris so that she may bring back to life his seven spirit souls.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\nRunning Time: approximately 45 minutes<\/em><\/span>
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Still from “Athena Originoo (Scopped + Chrewed)” (Katie Cercone, 2012)\u00a0\u00a9 courtesy of the artist<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday March 10, 7pm Myth Mash Videos by Katie Cercone admission $6 – artist in person Still from “Queen Candy Bile” (Katie Cercone, 2010)\u00a0\u00a9 courtesy of the artist We are very pleased to welcome New York-based artist Katie Cercone for a solo screening of new and recent video works. Microscope has previously shown two of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_mc_calendar":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12949","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12949"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12957,"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12949\/revisions\/12957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microscopegallery.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}