Fantastic Minxus-Lynxus USA dispatch - from De Villo Sloan

[Marie Wintzer]

Well, the envelope says De Villo but I know that the one who did ALL this work is Dark wall. Dw has been a fervent and very prolific producer of Minxus art over the past months. Until now I had only seen his collection through the pictures uploaded in his gallery, but with this package I am now the very happy owner of several major, authentic and original pieces.
The declaration of content for customs says:

piece of hard plastic w/small metal screw - 1
broken 33 rpm vinyl records - 3
paper item - 1

I understand that self-deprecation is a very Minxus character trait :-)) (De Villo should add this to the Minxus Lexicon).
The envelope does indeed contain pieces of broken Minxus records, along with my favorite piece of Minxus music: Ether music. Music to be played by a bandaged orchestra. I am not quite sure, but I think it is this very record that got Dw into big trouble with a band (he says skinheads but I don't think they are) from the UK who have made Minxus music way before he did. I guess those things sometimes happen in the cruel world of music industry.

Before he digged into music, and aside from his active involvement with the DKULT, Dw was better known for his sharp-humored comics (eg. the Toxis Adventure) and his masterful pieces of vispo epics (eg The Early Adventures of Dark wall). He included two of the best ones in the envelope. From The Early Adventures, Young Cherry Blossom and The Spring Dance of the Mink, superb vispo telling an entire story with the clever use of photo, drawing, collage and asemic stamps. The piece contains several references to earlier work, please check out his gallery if it tickled your interest. 
And then, the official announcement for the First International MinxFest. MinxFest was scheduled to compete with FluxFest Chicago, which might have been a little bit too optimistic from the organizers for a first year. To my knowledge MinxFest did not happen. Hopefully the Minxus people will get a grip and do a better job next year, you can look forward to the karaoke competition and performance scores, keep your calendars ready, genki people!

I told you this was a fat envelope, it really is. Next is one of Dw's most recent work on holism. These days he is very much into contraptions and inventions of all sorts involving holes. Somewhere between art and anti-art, definitely haptic, the piece is entirely interactive. When pulled up (into a circular motion, not a coincidence), the white piece of paper reveals the picture of a bird in its exotic environment, a recurrent element in Dw's vispo. I like it because he never comes up with a piece out of the blue, everything is carefully constructed and referenced, in addition to the self-contained poetry.

Before he sent the package I had asked for leftovers, cuts and bits and trash and rejects and hey, I got them! My cunning plan was to find out the secret of his asemic vispo stamps, because I find them so wonderful and intriguing, very unique. I'm not sure I'm on the right track, I still need to have a closer look at them, maybe the paint will let go of a few secrets. Actually, Dw... I will need more pieces for this :-)) No, seriously, I'll be happy for months with this package, it was WELL worth the wait. Great great work, thank you Dw!
I reckon the difference is spreading...

[Carina]

What a great blog Marie! I hope I'm not rude when I use your blog (I do) but this morning I woke up to this (oh no more snow) but then everything changed! I also got a Holism Manifesto and are now studying everything I can find about holism ...! Big thank you to De Villo Sloan and Marie!

[De Villo Sloan]

Great pic & link - yes, The Bandaged Orchestra came up once before that I can remember. I supposed the bandaged record is a small Dw tribute.

[Marie Wintzer]

Rucola (no, that's a salad) Rocola looks like a good match for the Dw, yes ;-)

The bandaged orchestra came up in an earlier thread and I had no idea it actually existed!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/dec/10/art

fab!

[De Villo Sloan]

Marie, I saw that you mentioned the Bandaged Orchestra in the blog. That has to be one of the great, forgotten Fluxus performances. I think it was at Carnegie Hall and an entire orchestra were all banadaged like mummies. I think it was Yoko Ono thing. That had to have been a sight to behold. You can only imagine what the music must have sounded like. I wonder if they destroyed any pianos with sledge hammers.

 

I agree that She Recola didn't wear actual fur coats. They look like vinyl with that fake fur or something. Those are shots with Minxus. Her hair was very long. A perfect match for a guy with a Kentucky Friend Chicken bucket on his head?

 

The minx slinx.

[De Villo Sloan]

She Rocola will perform my asemic music with the Bandaged Orchestra at the Albert Hall. It will be the Triumph of MinXus! How many holes does it take to fill the Albert Hall?

[De Villo Sloan]

Dw's new obsession is She Rocola - the woman guitar player in Minxus who seems to have always performed in a fur coat. She's still alive!

[Marie Wintzer]

It's true that every time some Grigster thing comes up there is monkey social unrest in Glen Anil. Very funny. I do hope we will see pictures at some point. Khokie is not even found with google search so I'm REALLY curious to hear about it from the SA girl.

[De Villo Sloan]

They are HOLE-O-GRAMS!

[De Villo Sloan]

And the short of it is that GA has appropriated Minxus with the claim it is Minnesota Fluxus. His personal Minxus stamp can be found in Brain Cell. The link below shows an example of that and a fairly classic exchange between the The G Man & Marie Antonette. It call for an Ape-ology:

http://grigori-nojohnrays.blogspot.com/2012/04/ryosuke-cohen-brain-...

[De Villo Sloan]

I second that: What is a khokie? And why does any mention of this stuff spark monkey acitivity in South Africa? It never fails.

 

I start to think of Dw's work here with holes as "contraptions" more than art. He seems to be fascinated with these things where you have to look through holes to see something: hology? holology? The study of Holism.

 

Svenja Wahl & Skybridge also have sizable Minxus collections:http://amtfuerpostkunst.wordpress.com/category/artists/devillo-sloan/