Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
Louise Bourgeois
Contemporary Works from the Monsen Family Collection
Vortexhibition Polyphonica
Richard C. Elliott: Cycle of the Sun
Light Reign, James Turrell SkyspaceHenry Art Gallery Adaptation YouTube Challenge
Other Location
November 22, 2008 – March 22, 2009
While adaptation is a common practice in popular culture — familiar to moviegoers and booklovers who debate endlessly whether the film version is superior to the novel — it is less well known in contemporary art. Our current exhibition in the Stroum Gallery looks at the use of adaptation in the recent work of major contemporary artists Guy Ben-Ner, Arturo Herrera, Catherine Sullivan, and Eve Sussman & the Rufus Corporation whose source materials range from classic painting and literature to film and even e-mail.
YouTube, the vast repository of online videos that focuses on the user-generated experience, is quickly becoming the place where anything, and everything, is up for interpretation. In the spirit of the exhibition Adaptation, Henry Art Gallery staff members have plumbed the depths of the YouTube universe to curate a short list of videos that adapt a piece of music, literature, film, animation, dance, or other material. Each playlist appears below and on the Henry Art Gallery YouTube Channel.
Click Here to Vote! Click on the link to vote for your favorite playlist and help determine the Viewer’s Choice winner of the Adaptation YouTube Challenge!
Café Society
Total Running Time: 15:43
Curated by Betsey Brock
Henry Art Gallery Associate Director for Communications & Outreach
- Playlist Selections
- cafe scene | 3:46
- A Souljaboy Aparte | 4:16
- It’s Madison Time! (Hairspray – John Waters – 1988) | 2:51
- Band of Walk It Out-siders | 0:35
- Dancing at the cafe – Bande à Part (AKA Band of Outsiders) | 4:15
Brought to France by Harold Nicholas of the tap-dancing Nicholas brothers, the Madison is a non-partnered line dance done to a syncopated beat. As performed by Brasseur, Frey, and especially Karina, it’s reminiscent of a piece of Trisha Brown choreography that isolates parts of the body and makes them work against each other. Everything that the film does not tell us in words or actions about these three people is encapsulated in the dance—that although they move in sync, they’re each in a separate world, and that this absence of connection is what makes them both poignant and ever so cool.—Amy Taubin in her article “Prime Movers” for the Village Voice
Something about the Madison, the papa of line dances, inspires viewers, dancers, artists and cinematographers to adapt the dance’s simple choreography for new uses. The most notable are Jean-Luc Godard’s (who created a famous scene based on the Madison in his 1964 film Bande à Part), and John Waters’ use of the Madison in Hairspray. This dance was a perfect vehicle to suspend the plotline of their films and delve into the psyches of their characters.
Godard’s and Waters’ Madison sequences are part of this playlist, are innovative adaptations from Martin Hynes’ 2008 film The Go-Getter; what looks like a three-channel video, Café Scene from YouTube poster sullivanhannah; and the original Godard scene re-set to two contemporary popular songs in the videos Band of Walk it Out-siders and A Souljaboy Aparte.
According to Wikipedia, the Madison developed in Columbus, Ohio in 1957. It was popularized by Count Basie in 1959, and quickly spread as he toured across the US and Europe. Dance historians say Waters’ depiction of the dance is accurate, and Godard’s is not (although he never calls the dance by name in the film). Nevertheless, it is clear that this dance has a certain something special that can change a situation or scene into something pretty exciting. Maybe it’s the dances ability to unify a motley cast of characters, or maybe it’s just because its awfully fun to do and to watch.
Music Videos
Total Running Time: 20:19
Curated by Hannah Hong
Henry Art Gallery Attendant- Playlist Selections
- Body Moviin | 5.34
- The Notorious B.I.G. – Sky’s the Limit | 4:53
- Björk – Bachelorette | 5:26
- Thriller (original upload) – CPDRC | 4:26
Growing up on the heels of Generation X, my favorite adaptations have been and probably always will be MUSIC VIDEOS. A popular art medium since the 1980s, music videos employ aspects of the fine arts – - music, lyrics, and dance (remember Christopher Walken in Fat Boy Slims Weapon of Choice anyone?) as a starting point.
The Beastie Boys’ Body Movin’ re-enacts the film Danger Diabolik (1968, based on a comic book itself), retaining the original film’s bright hues and basic plot, while injecting some hyper-violence and humor. What I love about Spike Jonze’s Sky’s the Limit, possibly taking cues from Bugsy Malone (1976) and serving as a counterpart to Gillian Wearing’s 10-16, (dating from the same year) is its inclusion of other wonderful music videos such as Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems and Woo-Hah! Got You All in Check (featuring a lovely mini-Busta Rhymes). In Bachelorette, Michel Gondry retains his trademark blurring of reality: Björk’s life is transcribed into a magic book and adapted into a stage production. And while it’s not perfect, Byron Garcia’s version of Thriller will endure as a classic for its utterly-spirited, jumpsuit-clad dancers portraying zombies.
Kitsch or not, I will continue to cherish music videos as a mass media art form and defining moment in visual culture.
Please see us. Please understand.
Total Running Time: 8:13
Curated by Gabriel Stromberg
Henry Art Gallery Graphic Designer
Some videos on this playlist may not be appropriate for all audiences.- Playlist Selections
- JLO –I’m Glad | Link To Video Here | 4:27
- Sondra Prill – NASTY | 3:46
In both selections, female performers channel the identities of popular media icons. Jennifer Lopez’s I’m Glad,directed by David Lachapelle, appropriates frame for frame the eighties Jennifer Beale dance epic Flashdance. Sondra Prill’s NASTY is a low budget video karaoke performance of the Janet Jackson dance classic.
Culturally and financially, Lopez and Prill operate within vastly different circumstances. Lopez’s fame affords her the luxury of flattering lighting and professional choreography, yet her status also limits her ability to take risks and do anything really interesting.
Visually, I’m Glad has the the retro-pop sensibility that Lachapelle is known for and seeing Lopez strike the exact pose from the Flashdance movie poster while donning an identical off the shoulder sweatshirt is unexplainably thrilling and unsettling. Yet, in the end, the epic concept is set to a mid-tempo dance track that does little justice to the source.
Sondra Prill, an obscure public access celebrity from Tampa, Florida, creates DIY video performances with a sexual aggressiveness that is more punk than Playboy.
Reformat
Total Running Time: 20:59
Curated by Carlos Esparza
Henry Art Gallery Production/Graphic Design Assistant- Playlist Selections
- travel/l’année dernière à marienbad | 3:09
- Big Ideas: Don’t get any – Radiohead cover by James Houston | 3:55
- glas(s) | 3:32
- a WHITE NOISE interpretation | 7:53
- The Dumb Waiter | 2:30
These five YouTube selections represent work that has been important to my evolution as an artist. My personal goal in mining YouTube was to enhance my relationship to the original work in question by seeing how it has inspired others, and to be inspired in turn by those doing the adaptations: A portion of a 1961 French film by Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet, as dance; a hi-tech / lo-tech “cover” of Radiohead’s Nude; variations on a theme by Philip Glass; White Noise by Don Delillo as interpretive video; and The Dumb Waiter, a one act play from 1957 by Harold Pinter.
The Rite of Spring
Total Running Time: 16:35
Curated by Mike Pham
Henry Art Gallery Communications Assistant
Some videos on this playlist may not be appropriate for all audiences.- Playlist Selections
- Kate Moss dances Stravinsky | 3:09
- the Little Burning | 3:49
- Stravinsky – Adoration of the Earth Pt.2 Rite of Spring | 6:42
- Marie Chouinard – Le Sacre du Printemps | 2:56
In the exhibition Adaptation, Arturo Herrera’s Les Noces (2007) began with Igor Stravinsky’s lesser known score of the same name. This quartet of YouTube videos sources Stravinsky’s more well-known ballet score, The Rite of Spring (or Le Sacre du Printemps), widely regarded as one of the most famous and reproduced musical compositions in the 20th century. Assymetrical in rhythm, dissonant in sound, and untraditional in content, this avant garde piece caused much controversy at its Ballet Russes premiere in Paris in 1913 (with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky) complete with boos, walkouts, and fistfights. The Rite of Spring is set within a wild pagan ritual, in which a young girl dances herself to death. This remarkable musical score continues to inspire dancers, filmmakers, and musicians today, who translate the music to movement and images, record to video, and post to YouTube.
The first video’s origins come from the music video I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself by the White Stripes, directed by Sofia Coppola, and stars supermodel Kate Moss, seductively pole-dancing in lingerie. The YouTube poster freedollinside sets the video to “The Augurs of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls)”, the second scene of The Rite of Spring. The model’s sensual movement invokes the provocative content of Nijinsky’s original choreography, perhaps alluding to the dancers’ “violent movements” within the “barbaric and sexual” pagan ritual. This adaptation demonstrates the ease of making newly interpreted videos by mixing existing video footage and audio. There are additional YouTube videos that contain the same video footage set to the music of Philip Glass, The Knack, and others.
Similarly, as shown in the second video, the music of Stravinsky provides a haunting soundtrack to the video footage of a Kansas prairie on fire, setting the story within a stark, contemporary American landscape as opposed to the pastoral Russian scenery in which The Rite of Spring is historically set.
The third video is by FuzzBach, a Dutch experimental music ensemble who adapt classical music using present day sounds and instruments. This video highlights their sound work on the second part of “The Adoration of the Earth”, the first part of The Rite of Spring, with computer generated visuals that echo Herrera’s computer controlled work in Adaptation as well as “visualizations” that are familiar to us via iTunes and other audio playing software. The visuals move in sync with the orchestration, in a motion that mimics Nijinsky’s original choreography and its mechanical and angular movements.
The last video is an excerpt from the Compagnie Marie Chouinard production Le Sacre du Printemps (1993). Based in Montreal, Marie Chouinard is renowned for her bold and daring choreography, which is wonderfully exhibited in an adaptation that is expressive of its musical source: erotic, sensual, and animalistic. On her adaptation of Stravinsky’s music: “I simply tried to create a form with the body to the musical score, to see how the body transforms when it comes in contact with the music.”
What is Lost
Total Running Time: 17:17
Curated by Sandy Bigley
Henry Art Gallery Database & Membership Manager- Playlist Selections
- The Adventures of Marcel Proust | 3:47
- The Last Days of the Suicide Kid by Charles Bukowski | 2:58
- Los Espejos. Jorge Luis Borges | 3:28
- The Crying of Lot 49 | 7:03
A memorable work of literature will elicit a powerful visceral response in its audience, an intimate kind of dialog between writer and reader. But when a book is published, it is meant not just for an audience of one. Great writing offers rich source material for public forms of interpretation and adaptation. Some adaptations are literal, others simply evocative of a feeling or mood.
The short videos assembled in this playlist vary wildly in their approach to adaptation (from Jack Feldstein’s neon interpretation of Proust’s quest to the unlikely backdrop of Bukowski’s The Last Days of the Suicide Kid), but each presents an homage to one of four pivotal writers of the 20th century (Marcel Proust, Charles Bukowski, Jorge Luis Borges, and Thomas Pynchon) and each adeptly conveys the universal human sensation of loss. What is lost is not always clear but is incessantly palpable.
At the heart of Marcel Proust’s greatest work À la recherche du temps perdu is the passage of time and memory.
In The Last Days of the Suicide Kid, Charles Bukowski’s loss is laid bare: anticipating a time when he no longer feels virile or consequential, as life continues to go on around him, without him.
An obsessive fear of mirrors led to their presence in much of Jorge Luis Borges’s work. For Borges, mirrors (los espejos) break down illusions we create around ourselves that we are ultimately incapable of sustaining. They see us for who we are, and remind us that we are mortal; the mirror will still be standing when we are no longer there to be reflected.
To lose one’s self, to lose one’s grasp of what is real and what is not, has rarely been conveyed more compellingly than in Thomas Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49.
Finally, as a viewer of these works (which are, in turn, interpretations of original works) we must wonder: what is lost in translation between the author’s intent and the audience’s interpretation?
Click Here to Vote! _Click on the link to vote for your favorite playlist and help determine the Viewer’s Choice winner of the Adaptation YouTube Challenge!
The Adaptation YouTube Challenge was conceived by Henry Art Gallery Associate Curator Sara Krajewski and curated by members of the Henry Staff. Special thanks to Mike Pham, Communications Assistant, and Whitney Ford-Terry for their technical expertise.