R/Evolution Part II

R/EvolutionPart II

MagazineYoYo

Editors Notes

Nance Klemm An Idea Older than Dirt

Mae Rice Six Pieces of Highly Autobiographical Bereavement Advice

Sara Black and John Preus Object Repair

Regina Frank Island

Oto Hudec Nomadia and More

Tom McDade The Well-Cleaned Room

Bonnie MacAllister Images

Contributors

Editors NotesWhen the inspiration for our first R/Evolution issue of YoYo struck, political tumult was raging in Tunisia and Egypt, the US presidential campaign brought up gender and class issues on an almost daily basis, and we were sowing seeds in our gardens during a peculiarly warm spring. Now, while getting ready to launch the R/Evolution Part II issue, we are still awaiting warmth after a brutal winter. Egypt is in crisis and Syria is at war; violence and oppression of women, exploitation of people of color and disdain for people without money are again (still) front page news. Still, again, still, again, it just keeps coming.

But in the midst of an onslaught of bleakness, this issue offers comfort, humor and ideas. Not with panaceas or shallow, anodynic feel good articles, but with creative projects and stories of people acting with an eye to alterative futures and compassion.

Nance Klehm takes recycling to its extremes by not only returning nitrogen to the soil but reminding us of our primary, animal connection to earth. Sara Black and John Preus reinvigorate and find new meanings in the humble idea of repair, making use of that which is broken and rediscovering worth in those things we have thrown away. Mae Rice writes of loss with the dark humor that people can find even during the worst tragedies. Regina Frank returns to the pages of YoYoMagazine with images of a performance during which she wore a voluminous dress covered with data from Google Earth, ranging from global tragedy to the personal. Oto Hudec, who hails from the Czech Republic, begins his whimsical piece with the question, Can art be a motor of change? Can it be a first stimulus? and proceeds to answer the query with inventiveness and creativity, while Tom Mcdades poem The Well Cleaned Room shows us in microcosm how choices reverberate through lives and war. And last but not least, Bonnie McCalisters photographs reframe destruction, capture growth and regrowth, and remind us that the past moves with us into the future.

An Idea Older than DirtNance Klehm

Soil is a body that supports plant growth. It is a structural mantle, supportingmany other things while simultaneously transmitting water. It is the living spongethat filters our water and air, cleaning them both in the process. Soil is both adecomposition engine and support network for all living things. It stabilizes ourconstructions, prevents flooding, protects our landscapes against drought, ensuresthe health of our food, water and air. Soil is not a thing. It is an aggregate ofrelationships that stands in a certain state in a certain time. Compost is this too, butin a higher state of agitation. Chaos.

Organic things have both carbon and nitrogen, but often more of one than the otherand in some cases, a whole lot more of one than the other. The chaos of compostingis strangely ordered. A simple marriage of carbon to nitrogen ignites the process.Most of the time your compost pile is neither entirely structurally food or soil butsomehow belonging to both. 'Doneness' is rarely measured by the eye or thecalendar, but instead by its ability to nourish life. A living soil teems.

Everything comes into this world hungry.

Here is a short list of materials generally understood to contain significant amountsof 'carbon' or 'nitrogen'.

CARBON NITROGEN Newsprint Veggie and fruit scrapsBones Fish scrapsCorrugated cardboard Coffee grounds and tea bagsUncoated, unbleached/dyed carton Bread and grainsDried leaves EggshellsWoodchips Grass clippings and other greenyard waste Hair and woolSawdust and urine and fecal matter

Remember the elegant equation:

CARBON + NITROGEN = DECOMPOSITION

Embracing our bodies as soilmakers.Or creating collective resources with our natural capital.

Our bodies do a pretty good job breaking down and absorbing the substances wefeed ourselves. An average of 3-4 pounds a day are transformed into energy, leavingaround 1.5 - 3 lb. of solid waste and 1-2 liters of urine daily. Our bowel movementsare composed of 35% dead cells, undigested fiber, fats, salts, mucus, and bacteria.The remaining 65% is water. Urine is something like 95% water with the remaining5% being salts and proteins.

All biological flows are towards soil. Raw poop is definitely full of bacteria: infact close to a trillion or so in each delivery. As soon as it hits the air it begins todegrade, becoming soil as soon as it leaves our bodies. All soil comes out of thebehinds of some sort of critter, be it fish, fowl, mammal, reptile, bacteriaetc!

Let me get this out of the way: pooping is unremarkable. Poop itself can contaminateor cultivate. So it is with our treatment of our poop. Cultivating it through compostingforever removes that label of 'waste'. Composting our poop reconnects and redirectsourselves towards fertility.

Siding with fertility to improve public health.

In the past (and in some places currently), human waste products have been valuedas an agricultural resource. Before indoor plumbing was widespread, which in mostcities was up until the early 20th century, "honey wagons" used to move cannedwaste from the city's - commodes back into the country where it was spread intofields to desiccate and solarize, into compost.

Public health systems everywhere are concerned with the elimination of waste bothas a financial expense, and in environmental terms. However, waste could be seenas a resource. The binary way of thinking gets broken down fast when resourcesand waste are redefined. Conventional systems see their task as getting rid of wasteafter they take care of people. I see it like this: compost production of waste in orderto take care of people.

Afterall, a very fine line exists between the fetid and the fecund.

Six Pieces of Highly Autobiographical Bereavement

1. What to Do When Your Moms Death Certificate Incorrectly Lists Her as Chicano

My god, how embarrassing that we would mistake her for Chicano, the lady at the fu-neral home will say, in a way that suggests she either hates Chicano people or thinks you do. You will want to clarify that this is not about Chicano people being famously awful, or famously immortal, but just about accurate government records. Even if you tell her you are a Chicano supremacist, though, she will keep muttering Chicano to herself like a remorseful house elf. Let it go.

2. How to Tell People Your Mom Died

You will sometimes want to minimize the problem by comparing it to more serious problems, as in, She died, but at least apartheid is over. Other times, you will want to downplay the news via hesitant questionsI think my mom is like dead?which can elicit responses such as, Have you tried calling her cell phone? Even when you send a group email to your closest friends, announcing her death, you might sign off with, Thanks for your support during this shitshow, because shitshow is a fun, casual word for a fun, casual death. It is better to tell people in a simple, declarative sentence, though.

3. How to Find an Outfit For Your Moms Service

You will buy a black sheath dress that hits above the knee, and you and your dad will wonder whether it is slutty. Your mom would know, but you are too young to have been to many funerals, and your dad only knows about fashions from the mens department at Costco. You will call your friend Alice for a second opinion, which is actually a first opinion because you and your dad shared the non-opinion of huh. You will eventually return the sheath, to be safe; ideally, you will replace it with a knee-length skirt.

Advice*

Mae Rice

At your moms service, a single-file line of people will hug you and whisper, Im sorry for your loss, until you reach Alices mom. She will instead whisper, You dont look slutty at all! Although you are at a memorial service, you should feel free to high-five her. She is awesome.

4. What to Do With Your Moms Ceramic Birds

Loving your mom and loving the tiny ceramic birds she ordered online from her hospital bed are two separate things. This is especially true of the last one she ordered, which will arrive in the mail after her death. It will be roughly the size of a golf ball, and it will be glued to a hairclip.

Do not incorporate the surprisingly heavy bird into your only hairstyle (a look somewhere in between bedhead and meth user). You can just give the bird to your friends dog with bangs. It will look very festive on the dog.

5. What to Do When You Want to Play the Dead Mom Card

Dont. Playing the dead mom card to win an argumentunless the argument is about what your mom has been up to latelyis like playing the Hitler card. There is always a gentler way. When you want to say omelets were Hitlers favorite food, or my mom liked omelets, and then she died, just say what you mean. You dont want an omelet.

6. What to Do When It is Mothers Day

You will worry that people will approach you on the streetbecause you are not with your mom or on the phone saying, "You are my mom!to heckle you. No mom today, huh? and What day do you think it is, Labor Day? and Cat got your mom? are all questions you will have nightmares about. Luckily, people never say these things. You can go outside on Mothers Day. It will be fine.

*Originally appeared in McSweeneys Internet Tendency, September 2012

Object RepairSara Black and John Preus

In 2009, John Preus and I initiated a series of object investigations oriented around metaphors of repair, recovery and even resurrection. In some cases The Repair is experienced as a retreat. A sense of agency is supported here, through the momentum of small successes and affirmations

Sara Black and John Preus. If It Aint Broke 1. Henry David Thoreaus writing desk. Collection and image credit: Concord Museum. 2. Katherines Table, 2010. Igloo Gallery, Portland OR and Tufts University Gallery, Boston MA 3. Thoreaus Desk Replica. Replica: Wood from Katherines table and paint. Renovating Walden, Tufts University Gallery.

This participatory project engaged a primary audience member, Katherine, the owner of a broken table. Unfolding in multiple phases this narrative-driven project resulted in a poetic exchange between Katherine (a young artist and curator) and Mark Dion (who was both in need of a replica of Thoreaus writing desk and the catalyst for the table breaking). We fashioned Thoreaus desk solely out of the material from Katherines table, and artists Mark Dion and J. Morgan Puett, in turn, offered a residency session at Mildreds Lane for Katherine.

of creative capacity. In this simple sense, repair links itself to the world of base-ment tinkerers, weekend craftspeople, and even Do-It-Yourselfers, but proposes that the rubric of tinkering be applied to a broader array of social, ethical, ecological, etc. problems or instances of brokenness.

Sara Black and John Preus. Repair Shop, Lamp, 2009. CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Original Lamp: glass, aluminum and brass. Replica: Dyed cotton fabric, fabric hardener and paint.

This inquiries took place in collaboration with the artist group InCUBATE, in Buffalo New York, for a participatory event called Repair Shop. The lamp repair was realized through the creation of a visual counterpart, in which the glass and metal of the original was mimicked using fabric and hardener. With the company of the counterpart, we found the nature of our originals brokenness significantly changed.

Return: re-approximate the state prior to brokenness. This is our typical understand-ing of repair:, bringing the object back to its intended function. Concession: landfill, death, surrender. At this point, we relinquish control to biology, the gods, the non-human forces. We relin-quish responsibility for the object.

Transformation: material and/or function-al qualities are diverted. We seek or uncov-er an objects novel capacities. Examples might include recycling, adaptive reuse, or museological appropriation, amongst countless others.

Three options are available with each in-stance of brokenness:

Sara Black. Object Recovery, 2011. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL.

This performance-based project addresses ideas of loss, repair, or renewal through the conceptual transformation of a broken object. Working together with visitors who bring bro-ken objects to the museum, Black and the visi-tor consult to diagnose the objects condition and together make the appropriate repairs. At first glance, the responses to brokenness are either a return to an objects functional quali-ties through an investigation of the complex relationship between humans and things.

determinate set of capacities, something as well suited as a functioning hammer? The aforementioned repair projects undertake a kind of watchfulness, that in this moment of rupture, we might intuit what the broken thing might become.

Just as a hammer hanging from its place on the pegboard promises a capacity, might a hammerhead alone on the table point to-ward other possible forms or worlds? If a things essential ontological status is ob-servable in this moment of rupture, might it also give birth to an up-to-this-point-in-

1.Installation View, 2011. 2.Desire and the Big Other. Broken clamp: Plastic, rubber and steel. Repair: Plastic, rubber, steel, plaster, paint, and gold leaf. 3. Pencil. Broken object: Lip liner pencil. Repair: Lip liner pencil, paint.

I-LandRegina Frank

I-Land: Mapping my homeland, Searching for a-dress

Silently seated, surrounded by a large round dress like an island in public space. The dress is a textile collage depicting aerial images of major catastrophes and is the result of an investigation that looked at the visual impact on landscapes of the most pressing envi-ronmental issues of today.

The landscape on the dress is created based on real satellite images but Fukushima can be next to Frankfurt, New Orleans next to Nice. No matter how big the illusion of safety, it can hit any of us any time we are only a few winds away from destruction. I used a scale 1:1010, which refers with this scale to binary information consisting of ones and zeros 101010.

I-Land was first presented at the 2011 Venice Biennale in an exhibition called Map-Art. Later it was presented as a per- formance in Chicago and as an installation and perfor-mance in Munich Haus der Kunst

60 WRD/MIN ART CRITIC // Documenta (13) KASSEL // 039

Data accumulates everywhere in everything, but precious little of it is understood or re-corded.

This is by no means simply the Xs and Os of the Internet, though it is that too. Data lodges in the pearls hand-sewn on a dress by a woman in Indonesia paid just 20 cents an hour. It illuminates a solar-powered string of lights. It feeds the mysterious organic growth of mushrooms. It determines the geographical pattern of recent global disasters. Regina Frank takes this information and wears it on her sleeve, or rather on her entire body and beyond, in the shape of immense circular dresses that spread out around her sculptural torso, active with the labor of stitching, transcribing, brushing, eating or knead-ing, depending on the performance.None of this data is unknown or inaccessible, but amid the escalating onslaught of political, ethical, geological and clima-tological information that comprises our universe, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember just how real and present are its effects. Draped on her own insistently present body, Regina Franks dresses make this palpably visible. Written by and reproduced here with permission by Lori Waxman 6/18/12 5:15 PM

Nomadia and MoreOto Hudec

Can art be a motor of change? Can it be a first stimulus?

I grappled with these questions when presenting my piece Plant a Tree in Your

Truck, an action in San Francisco and Los Angeles that consisted of spreading screen printed posters with humorous mes-sage about the advantages of planting a tree in the back space of the truck. My intention was to leave a present for the truck drivers the poster was an original artwork from unknown stranger. In 2012, I prepared a work entitled If I Had a River, a vessel inspired by river boats in Africa. With its live plants, this became a symbolic survival craft for times of envi-ronmental and economic crises. The boat was a model designed for a single family. In it, I chose to grow small plants such as herbs, chillies, cherry tomatoes, berries, and miniature lemon trees. During the opening, some tangerines and dried fruits from the boat were consumed, and we prepared a dinner using beans, chilies and oregano from the boat. As a related event, I organized a workshop-conference in the gallery, where I invited a leading permaculturist in Slovakia, Patrcia ernkova. Due to organizational mistake, only a small group of people attended, and another group waited outside another build-ing with identical name out in the rain. The desire of people to learn about some-thing new that kept them waiting for more than thirty minutes in the rain could not leave us.

We learn to learn from our mistakes. And sometimes, the biggest mistakes lead us to the best results in the future we evolve toward our revolution. In todays society, we feel the pressure to be perfect. We hide our failures. I am learning to honor my mis-takes for the future they bring me toward.

My last work, Nomadia, is inspired by the Occupy movements in Spain and Portugal, where I lived. I decided to create an instal-lation of miniature tents suspended in air, as if they were flying. The installation was meant as nontraditional museum of nomad-ic nations that live and travel in tents

from all around the world: Bedouins, North American Indians, Mongolians, together with tents of Occupy, Aboriginal embassy (Australia), or Resurrection City (USA). Most of these groups face extinction or eviction. In the installation, the air above cities represents a public space that belongs to all. This space received its own name: Nomadia.

I created postcards from Nomadia with a question now asked not just of artists and intellectuals but of a general audience: Do you believe that a different world is pos-sible? If so, how would you imagine it? If not, why not?

I would like to invite everybody to write me their own answer, whether its utopic, idealistic, real, ironic, critical, deep, skepti-cal, or hopefulwhatever comes to mind. My mail address is: [email protected], and I look and I hope to hearing from you.

Mornings at sevenMary would start cleaningjust for spitein the sixteen dollar roomwhere the young manstayed up to all hours

But then he helped her upwhen she felloff a chair changinglight bulbs--so she granted himan extra shut-eye,cleaned his room wellafter noon.

Then his benefitsran out.He decided to join the Navy.Mary offered a roomwith a better viewsame rentbut his mind was set.

Now, she picks poemsout of the trash--the ones with words X-edout like the markher son witnesses.She imagines the sailorboy cherishing her rentreceipts.

The Well-Cleaned RoomTom McDade

Three ImagesBonnie MacAllister

MiddlingsPresbyterian Hospital, West Philadelphia, mid-teardownImages printed on metal using a four jet dye process infused with gloss

And in the Endings

PlanetaryIndoor garden hothouse grown, New York Botanical Gardens

ContributorBiographies

Nance Klehm Nance Klehm is a steward of the earth. For over two decades she has designed landscape, taught ecological systems and built food systems in collaboration with others. Her approach is one of instigation and activa-tion of already existent communities, and her work demonstrates her commitment to redefining the way human populations coexist with plant and animal systems on this planet.

Nance has worked on projects locally and abroad for: the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Annenberg Foundation, Heifer Project Interna-tional, The Center of Land Interpretation (Los Angeles), Pixxe (Warsaw), LearningSite (Copenhagen), Pixelache (Helsinki), GiveLove Haiti (Port au Prince) and other private, public, and institutional clients.

She has lectured/taught courses at UCLA, Northwestern University, The Hammer Mu-seum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Canadian Centre for Architecture (Montreal), The Graham Foundation, Archeworks, MICA, The Art Institute of Chicago, Dartington College of Arts (UK), Jutland Kunstakademi (Arhus, DK), The American Embassy (War-saw), Global Soil Conference (Berlin), City Repair (Portland) and much more. Her work has been covered by a wide range of media and she was named an Utne Visionary for 2012. spontaenousvegetation.net socialecologies.net

Mae Rice

Mae Rice has written for Mc-Sweeneys Internet Tendency, The Morning News, The Hair-pin and The Stranger.

She lives in Chicago and loves Starbucks way beyond reason.

Sara Black

Sara Black has worked broadly as an artist, artist-teacher, arts organizer and curator. In 2005 Sara was a founder of the artist group Material Exchange active in Chicago until 2010, in which she worked closely with artists John Preus and David Wolf. In 2011 Sara began a collaboration with artist Jillian Soto with whom she is currently working. Her artworks use carpentry, wood-working,

and repair as a time-based method, inherited wood or other haunted objects as a material, and imagine building as a physical means of articulating lived relationships in a constant state of renegotiation.

Sara Black received her MFA from the University of Chicago in 2006 and recently relo-cated to Yellow Springs, Ohio to re-opened Antioch College as an Assistant Professor of Studio Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally in a variety of spaces including Chi-cagos Museum of Contemporary Art, The Smart Museum of Art, Gallery 400, Hyde Park Art Center, ThreewallsSOLO; Portlands Museum of Contemporary Craft; New Yorks Park Avenue Armory, and Eyebeam: Bostons Tuft University Gallery, and more.

John Preus

Preus (rhymes with choice) currently works as an artist, build-er, musician, amateur writer, collaborator, and occasional cura-tor. Preus founded Dilettante Studios in 2010 which designs and builds furniture, and residential and commercial spaces, predominantly using 2nd-hand materials. He co-founded Ma-terial Exchange in 2005, and until 2010 collaborated with Sara Black. Preus is currently co-curator with Laura Shaeffer at SHOP.

Preus holds an MFA from the University of Chicago (2005). Exhibitions of his work include the the Huguenot House in Kassel, Germany, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Heilbronn Kunstver-ein, the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft, the Hyde Park Art Center, the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, and the Devos Museum of Art in Marquette, Michigan. Preus lives with his wife and 3 children in West Rogers Park on the north side of Chicago.

Regina Frank

Regina Frank has been exhibiting her installations and performing internationally since 1989 under the title The Artist is Present in windows, museums, and public spaces. She has created solo projects for different renowned museums, biennales and festivals around the world. Franks work has been published in many Magazines, Newspapers and history books such as the New York Times, Japan Times, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and in the most important art papers.

Regina Frank has had solo exhibitions and performances at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Serpentine Gallery, London; the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta; the 1999 Venice Biennial; EXPO 2000, Hannover; EXIT 2001, Helsinki; Intermediale, Mainz; Muffathalle, Munich; 2003 San Diego Museum of Art; Sapporo Museum of Modern Art; and the 2006 Polytech Universities of Valencia, Spain, and Chuanghua, Taiwan. Her new piece iLand was presented at Haus der Kunst Munich and Rapid Pulse Performance Festival in Chicago and will be in Malaysia shortly. Publications include Franks monograph The Artist Is Present in 1999, as well as Parade, Harpers, the New York Times, Sculpture, Rethinking Marxism, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Frankfurter Rundschau, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Japan Times, Contemporary Art,

Oto Hudec Slovak multi-media artist Oto Hudec created his recent work in USA, Portugal and Slovakia. His paintings, drawings and prints explore social and environmental themes through personal perspective. He also creates video and work for public spaces about immigration, refugees and the impact of glo-balization on the environment.

In his last works he became interested in ecologi-cal living, food production and sustainability. But instead of researching new scientific achievements,

he is more interested in indigenous and nomadic communities that discovered sustainabil-ity in simplicity. The utopia becomes possible, although threatened. Oto Hudecs artwork tries to serve as an amplifier that makes louder the voice of these and other communities. It aims to be an instrument, a part of a movement as well as a personal expression.

In 2012 Hudecs work was selected for the finalists exhibition of the Oskr epan prize, a Young Visual Artist Award in Slovakia, 2012. He is currently a PhD student at the Acad-emy of Fine Arts and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia. He is represented by Gandy Gallery (Bratislava).

Tom McDade Thomas Michael McDade is a former computer programmer residing in Monroe, CT with his wife, no kids, no pets.

He is a graduate of Fairfield University and has served two tours of duty in the U.S. Navy.

Bonnie MacAllister

Bonnie MacAllister is a multimedia performance artist. I render moments through a variety of media. Often pieces are multi-genre, fusing painting, photography, slide installations, spoken word, video, and performance.

Recent exhibitions include Provacateur, Riverside Library at Lincoln Center, New York, NY, SPECTACLE, Imperfect Gallery, Philadelphia, Et Al Projects, New York, NY, Making Herstory 7, Center for Green Urbanism, Washington, DC. Daily Acts of Feminism, Death By Audio, Brooklyn, NY, Wings of Peace Juried Show, Galeria 6, Guanajuato, Mexico, Turn of the Century: South Street Artists 1990-2010, Reflection Gallery, Finlandia University, Hancock, MI, Coptic: Ethiopian Mysticism, GERM Books, Jennifer Bates Memorial Gallery, Philadelphia, PA, Soundoffka Vol 2., VWVOFFKA, Philadelphia, PA, Delaplaine Visual Arts Center, Frederick, MD, Many Entendres, Midwives Collective, Philadelphia, PA.