Re: NEED FOR MORAL SUPPORT

[jduncan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>in the interest of keeping this a fully informed discussion, here is an
>excerpt from a lecture at the Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in
>1997, on the subject of Duncan's "controversial" work, "BLIND DATE".

To this I'd like to add that a fully informed discussion would have to
include the actual issue involved.

BLIND DATE is simply a catalyst that's exposed one organisation's cowardice
toward the possibility of adverse publicity, dictating what is and is not
'acceptable' according to imagined scenarios that may or may not actually
happen.  Organisations that demand conformity from the artists they support
are actually shaping the artists' work, stifling it.  Artists who adapt
their work to conform to such demands are accepting this, permitting others
to tell them what to do and think, allowing themselves to be stifled.

In legal terms, the IASPIS board has arbitrarily and arrogantly violated
their contract, based on their own negligence in researching the artists
they choose to support.  They actually admit this, in the subsequent press
coverage that they tried to desperately to avoid, that their actions have
in fact guaranteed.  In practical terms they've caused me to suffer for
their acts, including the press coverage, and now appear intent on
continuing to do so in order to establish some sort of ethical or moral
'foundation' to justify them.

In a single phrase the issue is this:
	This can happen to you, if it hasn't already, more easily than you
may like to think.

Artists, curators and critics in Sweden confirm daily that they are
outraged by this episode, shocked at what their flagship art support
institution has evolved into.  They're continuing to coordinate actions to
defy IASPIS' actions as publicly as possible, with a sense of restrained
focus and dignity that is frankly humbling.

Whether or not this topic is worth further discussion is up to you to decide.

For your information, the compete documentation on BLIND DATE, including a
link to the text by Kristine Stiles for the 'Out of Actions' catalogue, is
available at http://www.johnduncan.org/blind_date.html.  Documentation on
all events including recent work is available at
http://www.johnduncan.org/eventmenu.html

John Duncan


>------------
>"... I wanted to punish myself as thoroughly as I could. I decided to have a
>vasectomy, but that wasn?t enough: I wanted my last potent seed to be spent
>in a dead body. I made arrangements to have sex with a cadaver. I was bodily
>thrown out of several sex shops before meeting a man who set me up mith a
>mortician?s assistant in a Mexican border town..."
>
>BLIND DATE was performed in order to torture myself, physically and
>psychically. The sound recording of the session in Mexico was made public to
>respond to what I saw as a general situation created by social conditions,
>and to render any further self-torture of this kind, especially psychic
>self-torture, unnecessary for anyone to perform as a creative act.
>
>These experiences -- the acts themselves, the shame that inspired them,
>isolation in Japan soon afterward, suddenly in a completely alien culture
>unable to read, understand or communicate with anyone -- all taught me far
>more than I could possibly have anticipated. As a result, my perception of
>all existence, including my own, has permanently and fundamentally changed.
>
>These experiences have shown life in all forms to be an incredibly rich,
>timeless, continuous cycle, with death and corporeal existence interwoven as
>part of the process. I've come to see myself as a microscopic and
>insignificant part of that proeess, while at the same time the very
>embodiment and center of it. I've come to understand the act and experience
>of learning as sensual, as a form of beauty.
>
>Since BLIND DATE, all forms of my work are created to raise questions, to
>find out everything I can about who I am without fear or judgement, and to
>encourage you to do the same.
>
>Think of me as you will.
>John Duncan 1997
>
>(source: http://www.kapelica.org/duncan/# )
>


John Duncan
Fraz. Scrutto 48
33040 San Leonardo (UD)
ITALIA
Phone: +39.0432.723041
Fax: +39.0432.723936
Cell: +39.338.982.4326
http://www.johnduncan.org