As part of Xquisite Corpse Act One I wore a white canvas dress on the streets of Manhattan and asked New Yorkers from all walks of life to write me a message. From the delivery guy on East 51st street, people waiting to be seated for lunch on the Upper East side, the doormen of Radio City hall, patrons waiting for their limousines at the Art Fairs, to the amazing person who literally dragged me inside the Armory Show, to visitors of Scope - New York, to a bar on 6th ave, to the cashier at Trader Joe's on 23rd street.. In 15 languages and almost 200 messages, we wrote the poem of our collective subconscious and I called it Today. Thus, the Xquisite Corpse Poem was written and Xquisite Corpse Act One was complete.
Roadside Attraction is an installation I thought of several years ago as an all American, amusement park type of work, a show on the side of the road or a trailer that could be part of a country art fair. Could be even setup on a remote country road, away from traffic or even in a field. Without and far removed from formal art experiences but using the materials and methods that belong in an artist's studio, and, of course, the provocation. Roadside Attraction was conceived as a spectacle at a truck stop. I have always been fascinated by American truckers, hauling large trailers on American highways. Last year I drove solo 3000 miles from Florida's Space Coast to the Silicon Valley in California where I spent a large portion of my life in a not so distant past. While on the road I had plenty of time to think, especially driving through West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. I am convinced that at that moment I had the tiniest car in all of Texas, In one small dusty town I suddenly feared that cowboys, who were prowling the nearby hills hunting boar, may actually decide to shoot my tires for fun.
So Roadside Attraction has probably lingered on the back of my head ever since I started moving across the Untied States - I once crossed the States along highway 80 ( Kansas, Colorado, etc) and once along 10 ( Mississippi, Texas, etc ), of course not counting flying. Mississippi had absolutely the worst roads I had ever come across as far as Federal Highways go. I thought I had broken an axel - my little Hyundai was shaking so bad and I was in the middle of nowhere in the deep south with a tiny car full of stuff.
Here you can see the dress from Memory Replacement - an amazing result from an incredible New York experience.
Memory Replacement world trade center performance with public participation - dress by Mirena Rhee
And Happy New Year from Memory Replacement !!
Happy New year, thanks to ever amazing adventures and most of all people who helped me create - hope to be ever more unknowledgeable, ignorant and unsuspecting of things in 2019
We don't want to be replaced but we want to be changed.
The soft touch of a wing, The light touch of a brush and a light stroke. The word of a friend, the whisper of a soft fold on a wing. A nod to a future with beauty, a reflection on color and gesture of goodness and friendship. A soft stand against violence. We draw brushes and our holsters hold paints.
Happy Thanksgiving!! I am thankful for all of you who painted and for all of you who will paint on the 200x.
I had a bit of a calm this thanksgiving to think and plan and as always reflect on what was and what is coming. One of the greatest insights I had in the Silicon Valley is that reproducible work, even work of the highest quality, diminishes in value very quickly. One of this things I wanted to do is work that is highly irreproducible. A mix of materials, quality, process, ideas, actions and results that may not be easily reproduced. Even work of ephemeral nature which requires a special set of circumstances rises in value owing to its rare nature. I am very grateful for that insight, as well as for being able to follow up on these ideas, and which I have been able to further with the graceful and generous participation from all of you. Thank you.
Memory Replacement - Roaming Installation and Performance with Public Participation at the World Trade Center Memorial site in New York city. Making of Leftovers.
Memory Replacement - Roaming Installation and Performance with Public Participation at the World Trade Center Memorial site in New York city - Final look of the Dress
Memory Replacement Roaming Installation with Public Participation, Sunday, November 4th, at the World Trade Center site ! The best day of my life, I was humbled and touched !! Thank you!
x200 soon
A journey into zen - a year after I returned from Japan I left my six figures job and the beautiful apartment by Golden Gate bridge, donated my car & sold my possessions and moved to New York. It is not that I decided, upon returning to America, to throw away everything out of the windows, instead the ideas and images of zen reverberated and made me ask questions.
I started asking what it is to have? Which became part of the I have everything project and questions.
You are not going to find Nirvana if you get rid of your possessions. But you are going to find out everything about yourself and the people around you. Guaranteed. I personally did not want to find Nirvana, the best things can’t be said, can’t be had - but I sure didn’t want to spend the precious moments given to me by whatever process is responsible for self-awareness, I didn’t want to spend these moments worrying about particle board.
So here's me getting rid of the rest of the particle board I own, in the dumpsters somewhere in central Florida.
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I have been working on my Japanese Garden book on the train and someone asked me if I am into horticulture. I am not into horticulture, I have had plants in the past but never really invested my time into the care and observation of plants. I like people, and that area I find extremely interesting. I realized that in Japanese gardens there is the absence of horticulture, there all seems to have been carefully arranged to invoke a natural feeling.
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You are not going to discover yourself if you sell your couch, but you will discover yourself if everything you have is yourself. It all ties back to Thoreau and goes all the way back to ancient times. You don’t sit on the couch for Nirvana, it is human nature to seek comfort from the unknown in possessions.
This is not a recipe for happiness and often is the recipe for all kinds of disasters, but is the recipe for truth.
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I have always been fascinated with objects, they are to me artifacts and I study them like an archaeologist would.
Objects are like little octopus, it holds strings that reach back to the very moment it was made. The strings wrap around various objects and spaces and hold tightly onto the owner. Then they create memories and experiences for the owner and grow more attachment strings. The octopus can move between owners and spaces and its filaments reach further and wide. Until discarded. The lives of objects are fascinating to me, I imagine that in the grand scheme of things in the universe each object we humans create is quite special. An artifact of a civilized existence. I realized that my I have everything project is not really about getting rid of objects per se but rather about the fascinating lives of objects and their termination and conversion into other matter.
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I highly recommend poverty for a little while.
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You have to remember that there are very few people that would understand, there is one thing you need to know and that is that you will need to take the journey alone, very few people would be willing to willingly come along. Don't force them.
My dad never really forgave me, leaving behind everything anyone ever really wanted, six figure salary, beautiful home, great job, beautiful area to live in. All this on the surface sounded great but
I was oppressed by possessions and the bourgeois way of life.
Inspired by the NYC subway, where various characters perform various routines, from simple getting from point A to point B - to the theater of the Absurd. There are all kind of objects, and hands.
A performance I created over four hours, without a script and working spontaneously with various objects, including paint, ink, food and found objects:
1. Strings
2. Brushes and paint
3. Old singing clock
4. Apple peels ( I love apples, usually consume a tall bag of it daily )
5. Spinach
6. Juice
7. Juicer
8. Toy Cars
9. Ball
10. Coins
11. Wood shavings
12. Walmart Flipflops
13. Staple gun
14. Belt
15. Umbrella and many other objects
The installation room and wearables were created over several days using a drawing of the same name, re-arranged and transferred on paper.
Memory Replacement The Armory Show was a success!! We had our memory replaced. Over 200 art lovers from all walks of life painted. Check out the brilliant photographs by Kenneth James.
