On An Iron Post
Courtesy of Simone Forti and The Box LA. Photography © Fredrik Nilsen Studio
Press Release
SIMONE FORTI
ON AN IRON POST
NOVEMBER 14, 2015 - JANUARY 9, 2016
OPENING RECEPTION SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 6-9 PM.
PERFORMANCE AT 8 PM.
Dear Father,
If you were alive you’d be 119. I’m drinking a very good wine made right here in California. I wish I could share it with you. I’m writing to tell you that I’m having an exhibit of my work in an art gallery here in LA where I live. The Box LA Gallery. It’s downtown.
The show’s got lots of parts, like a day of experiences with different energies, lyrical, abrasive, adding up to something complex but without closing in on any particular meaning.
There are videos, objects, there’s even a small oil painting of a sink. In one video I wrestle with a big pile of newspapers at Zuma Beach, with the surf soaking the paper and me and sea weeds all wrestling together. * You were a great swimmer and a great reader of the news. I think you’d like it.
The name of the show is “On An Iron Post”. I found it by opening at random a book of collected poems by William Carlos Williams. I quickly pointed to a line: On An Iron Post. I like it. It balances the more lyrical parts of the show. Like a video of “Touch”, a group performance on a grassy hill, which I did when I was in my forties. Charlemagne Palestine was doing the music, with speakers up in a tree. And I’m having a small sculpture built out of steel. I had sketched the idea in my notebook way back in 1961 and written “I have an idea for a sculpture. It might even be fun to make, but what would I do with it? I’d hate to have it.” So now we’re making it. There are parts that pull in on parts that push out. It’s the tension; like a dance. Yes, I still dance. I’m going to do a News Animation at the show’s opening. Wish you could be there.
Love,
Simone
* Zuma News, from NONFICTIONS - Gorbachev Lives / Zuma News / Questions - a joint work by Jeremiah Day / Simone Forti / Fred Dewey, 2014.
