#kellybugden

«PRISMATIC» Spotify Playlist

As an homage to my recent Prismatic performance, HERE is a playlist of 23 songs that journey from the external world—with its passions and drama—to the inside world of a spiritual forest of repose and beyond.

Prismatic, the performance, was presented within the context of Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat’s Prism show, shown at the Ivy Brown Gallery during the summer of 2018.

For this playlist, I selected songs that would allude to the journeys of both artists, from the Rock-it gallery in Minneapolis—which was founded and run by Van from 1979 to 1982, and was a meeting place for the Minneapolis art tribe that migrated to the East Village in the early 80s—to the B-52s, with whom Kelly would travel with and photograph.

I also wanted to incorporate songs from the classic East Village scene, and also allude to the cowbell, which has a similar sound to the pipe I banged on towards the end of the performance.

I included David Bowie’s “Watch That Man,” which I only recently heard for the first time but means a lot to Van and Kelly, as well as an obscure song by the cult Italian disco group Macho, “Cose There’s Music In the Air,” produced by the legendary Mauro Malavasi. I love the chorus of the song: Where’s there’s action/There’s reaction….”

The Prismatic performance was meant to unleash healing energies into the world via the activating of a Portal. As the avatar of New York, the mission is complete, and great changes and healing are already in motion.

Hapi Phace and I visited the 14th Street Target on its opening week. He encouraged me to buy the t-shirt I’m wearing in the photo, along with Levi’s Engineered Jeans from the aughts, Keen yoga shoes, Sabine Be ‘be happy’ glasses outfitted by Artsee, Camino de Santiago bandanna which Tony Allicino gave me, and a serendipitous Prismatic tote bag by Cavallini & Company, which I found at Random Accessories on 4th Street. Hapi spotted the location near the Peach Mental Palace where he was staying and took the photos you see here.

Pulling a Rabbit Out of the Hat (…and a Spotify Playlist)

Focus is everything. The world is a veritable array of contrast; the human environs based in duality.

The choice is ours. Like the proverbial rose-colored glasses, we focus on aspects we prefer to manifest. Words, thoughts, and feelings generate ‘reality’ in synchronous tandem.

“Pulling a rabbit out of the hat”—magic—is a matter of intention:

As a playlist, I have strung together tunes from the pop landscape, mining notions of magic. Memories of choruses, feelings arising out of melodies, and references to dear performance moments abound. (You can hear the playlist by clicking HERE. Play the songs in order for maximum effect.)

As a photo, I’ve combined Aloysius, a rabbit doll by Scooter LaForge, with a tapr-mâché top hat, by Hapi Phace for KoK. I’m wearing an apron by Kelly Bugden, Hapi’s pearls, and a vintage Brooks Brothers pink Oxford shirt.

Photo by Goor Studio

Activating the Portal

For my recent Prismatic performance at the closing of the Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat show Prism this past 15 August at Ivy Brown Gallery, events and objects aligned to facilitate the activation of a portal.

While being at the studio throughout the making of the pieces, I absorbed the energy of their fabrication—the soul infused into the resulting sculptures.

As the opening of the show neared, chopine bases as counterweights were being made for a sculpture comprising charred wood columns and a water gilt pole. I thought of the gold and black of Egyptian tombs—and the kernel of the performance emerged.

We planned to have the performance on the closing day of the show as a celebration.

Part of the allure of the Prism was the transformation of notions of functional objects into objects of art inhabiting a different area of functionality—both mental and oneiric.

As Rafael Sánchez and I were discussing one day, the one object that could be activated to go between the physical dimension and others is the Portal.

This conversation crystallized the performance for me; it would be a salute to spirit in three parts. Rule of Threes!

After my introductory call to an invisible friend and a salute to an imaginary catalpa tree, I walked past the Ladder towards the Portal holding papier-mâché branches—which Hapi Phace had made for the Karload of Klowns troupe I belong to—and an antique wagon wheel with eight spokes Van procured as a prop. I invoked the Buddhist levels of consciousness, represented by the spokes of the wheel: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mental, awareness, and all-encompassing foundation consciousness.

Then it was on to the Stage Set installation of the show, where I stood in front of its silhouettes of morphed building-shoes and recited poems about my love of New York buildings since childhood. Revealing the poet as an avatar, an age of wellness is ushered in.

From there I went to the altar-like installation of sculpted lambs with crystals and petit fours on the water gilt mirror. I sang an ícaro to the ancestors in Spanish and saluted all those present. I used a piece of pipe Van had found on Bond Street, near the Gene Frankel Theatre, as a cowbell.

For the performance, I wore a papier-mâché hat Joel Handorff made especially for the performance, ‘be happy’ frames by Sabine Be (outfitted by Artsee), military camo cape from Uncle Sam and vintage painter pants by Smith’s—both of which Scooter LaForge turned me on to—and Adidas Stan Smith sneakers hand-painted by Halla Moda/The Old Black.