TWENTY TWO: I want to make nothing//

emptyheart, Katya Grokhovsky, 2010

Now, I think and think. Imagine worlds. Imagine art. Imagine openings for my art. Bed and extensive travels of the world. Interviewed on Russian TV about my piece in Moscow Bienalle. Living between My countries, teaching in the world-class art schools, projects, moving every 6 months. America, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, France, Italy, Japan, etc. Being many people through My practice. Learning trades. Learning crafts. Learning disciplines. I don't want to be a professional dancer. I want to dance. I don't want to be an ice-skater, I want to ice skate. I look around. 4 am. Bed. Chicago. Work tomorrow at 9 am. I make nothing. Sometimes I get up and dance. I sing also. Into the emptiness of furniture, plates and books. Internet just exists. I just exist. Ice under my feet. Short Red flowing dress. I swirl on ice to loud Russian music. Heart pounding, sweat slowly trickling down my arched back. Remember? I Produce nothing. Something is wrong or terribly right. Service economy - versus- object economy or no economy at all? People as material. My body as a tool. Carry me through. Emotions as a my tubes of paint. Squeezed out, empty. Faces: craving physicality. Imagining scenarios. Living swiftly through them. Finishing relationships, marriages, love affairs, beginning friendships, taking voyages. Worlds unseen. Waiting. Sometimes I have an incredible compulsion to document every second. What for? My research into the epidemic of narcissism has brought me back to Start. Myself. How to not be a narcissist? Extend and expand? Or - develop into a fully fledged narcissist and self-lover via constant obsessively illogical and systematic self-tracking documentation? Self-portraiture. Describe with words. Paint a picture. Facebook and blogs. Who the hell do you think you are?

openings: What it is, Sara Schnadt

apartment cleaning party
Emptyheart//gathering//action//thing @apartment

DVD's:

Frida,
You and me and everyone we know,
Pedro Almodovar: Volver, Broken Embraces
Red Baloon





emptyheart, 2010, Katya Grokhovsky, Australia

TWENTY ONE: Reality TV reality//Empty Heart

nyc. photo Katya Grokhovsky

Usually. Coffee pot of Illy. espresso. Black with one teaspoon of white crystal sugar. A large cup. Some skim milk. Sunday. sunny outside. Air conditioned bedroom. Mess. A glass of pomegranate juice. Multigrain slice of bread. Avocado and tomato. salted. In bed with Hulu website. Reality TV? Reality. If I can Dream. So you think you can dance. true Beauty. Work of Art. addiction established. why? The present like no other. Unattainable. Where? Reality seems like a long-lost-forgotten concept. we watch it.Unrealistically -realistically inclined. Looking out the window. Is that reality? My body, awake and curious, is that reality? Time frame stretched.read my palm. whatever it holds. Forgive poetic lyrical.

So I feel like I have settled back into it. Blueberry happiness to be here, Chicago, SAIC. home soft blanket cashmere feelings and overwhelmed with some kind of lemon + honey juice love for it all. Rustic Sun helping, grouped feelings divide, let it be for now. ready forever? Standing upright.Ready Always. Run for it wisely. Incredibly attached desire to create it, now. specifically begin. Start at the end. sometimes running steadily on empty. reading much. conscious of time lost and gained due to intervals, time as a tool. waste it. wasting it. Slowly, lazily, awakening broadly. Eyes wide opened to morning. Let's go!

who will make it there first and what will you do and how. who do you know who can you learn to know. race against your clock. fill every hour with things. your career. fame? taking it to the limit of those dreams. what are they made of. be careful what you wish for. being here. feel alive. like it can all happen. too many people in this world would die for this opportunity? do you want this or ...who would die? die? die trying get it drive want it get it die for it go after it...true beauty comes from within, looking good and fake it. make it. success depends on you and hard work. determination, going for what you want, believe in you....pfffft. reality TV words buzzing in the room and in the orbit of my mind. American and achieve. whenever I land here, I feel as if I am at the threshold , knees bent, at the line. Ready to jump...

refresh. restart. Power...... pausing.

Attended: Booze and Bacon @Slow
Attended: Closing @ Sullivan Galleries
Summer Stone Theory Institute public lectures

Attending Coming up:

summer studio event@ Sullivan Galleries
MCA Here Not There opening

Doing:
Conversation @Still Action, Summer Studio, Sullivan Galleries, SAIC
11.30 am 1st August

1st August, EmptyHeart, one night event in the empty lounge room of My Apartment
7pm-12am
Drawing Lab and Fictional Future Palm reading and Sub-conscious Storytelling

TWENTY: Question of Return//graduate summer//Home is where the art is///

photo Katya Grokhovsky, collage Katya Grokhovsky, found on a wall in family friends' house in San Jose, 2010


The Question of Return always returns to a tireless traveler. I'm tired. To return. To visit. To not return. Jet lag. Time. Always limited, seemingly endless. graduate summer. Horizon unknown. Who did you see? Everyone you wanted? And more. Faces, missing each one, families of familiarity around the world. Numbness. Your visit is over, Visiting artist...

Chicago. School. Messy Studio. Home. Messy bedroom. Home, sweet? Clean clothes still in a broken laundry basket, suitcase un-opened, bags dumped, DVD cases stepped on, bottle of red wine, half-empty? Half-full and vinegary. Letters and envelopes scattered about, some dust in corners, Newly bought jars of Illy coffee, books, books on every surface: Sleep and welcome back....change of roommates, anxiety, sleepless sleepy hot nights. Feeling home. Home is where the art is. My art? seen enough? No, never enough. Ideas streaming past eyelids, always slowing down to be caught, let go in the end. Not yet. Not there yet. Closing closing, doors, opening windows. No, no dream journals. Solutions. Insatiability of making art. Replacing love. Watching Internet TV obsessively, insomnia and early mornings. 7 pm siestas. Cold world, let me finish my drink. Going-away parties, again, don't go, don't go. How shall I make more money? What are the chances: You? Apply, apply, apply-the summer of thought. PhD? what future holds. TA. Studio practice. Photography/performance/sculpture/installation/drawing..painting perhaps? What would you like to do ? Nothing and stretching to abrupt infinity. Make some Clothes? You do know how to make them...fashion degree helps? perhaps not. Large format camera, compose and learn.

Everything is at your disposal...and is there such a thing as too much choice and supposedly, freedom? Yes, it imprisons. Inspiration? No, just artist's block ...a buffet of possibilities amounts to zero output. No good. It would've been probably a great idea to have a painting summer, hole up in the middle of nowhere in nature, in some old rustic house, let the hair grow, let the clothes be loose, swim naked in the river/lake/ocean, paint the? nude? landscape? black square? no Internet....2 days, I'm done. Un-achieved, artistic goddess gone and lost in the deep-murky ends of craving of information flow....dissatisfaction and curiosity, marching forth, flags and banners.

ACHIEVE MORE
KNOW MORE
MAKE MORE
READ MORE
WATCH MORE
EXHIBIT MORE
PERFORM MORE
WRITE MORE
THINK MORE
RUN MORE

Assignments to summer:

Read those readings!
Read those books!
go to Video Data Bank: watch those videos
Join Chicago public library
Go to all museums I have not been to yet in Chicago
start that running project
cook/archive mum's/grandma's recipes
start dinner party project
apply to things
research my f u t u r e??
blind dates/project or not/ for the fun of it?
watch reality TV shows as research for thesis work
go to things

NINETEEN: to The Countryside (Victoria state, Australia) //the quiet before the storm

photos Katya Grokhovsky, Victoria, Australia, Winter 2010


State Victoria. Lakes, birds, trees, forests, silence, cold and wet. The eucalyptus filled air slowly refreshing my over-stimulated brain threads, heel heel...Feelings? Done. Home or not, ready or not: here, through and to the future....