fifty nine: 15th April 2010 - 15th April 2011

Katya Grokhovsky, Status Update, 2011

"As a woman I have no country. As a woman I have the whole world", Virginia Woolf

I must, must I?
CONTRACTUALLY BOUND to my body of work:
this body I own,
Body I bend this way, diagonally and that way, perpendicular, LOOK: it has been a joy,

Bound:
and to enjoy freedom, I shall control myself:
Bound:
by own self-made system and manufactured love of writing,
auto-criticized fictionalized prose and bedtime art story,

let me release you:

If I could Turn Back Time
Time shall be ours
Ours once again: I'll do it all again
over again

oh, painfully and sentimentally aware:

where does this fall
which side do you take?
Where do you stand, shaking violently from all fears?
Perhaps a certain hopelessness falls on my shoulders,
perhaps one more spoon of the deliciously sweet dark honey of art instruction,
one more
one more
perhaps, once more

what have you re-learned?

I touch the keyboard:
another fleeting thought, another crowded day, another limitless life, another limit I mistake for a hat:

Remember:
A contract has been made
A year ago,

Approaching =

Oh, let it be a lyrical journey,
a poetic world of my microtopia
As an alien in a magical land of stars:

No love can Match the Beauty of Their faces
Carry away with my Love Song

OH, Amore

Whisper so sweetly, softly, whisper, whisper a half and half, word, word to me, no words
Come color , come all colors
Come to me: baby blue

OH, do not ever keep me waiting
It is between us
all
There is no her place
No world
This and That and Art and I conceptualize and idealize
stagnating ever so slightly, sometimes, on purpose

Let me grow my Universal from My personal,

And towards passion! Yes, passion! Remember?
This passion I buy into.
Oh, boy! Feminist I am after all, and angry and hungry and all there is, to it:

I stand and slowly DANCE to it and let's get Faster, yell and laugh out loud and let us get loud and
rejoin the living and the memory of this!

keep at it: love me, love my art

What's in a year?
the numbered days, the short hours, the lengthy minutes, the prolonged seconds, the split hairs of time of my time, time forgotten, time lost , time gained, time gone, time found

Time has been Money
Money Time
Timed Perfectly and arranged in rows

trickling: slowing down and speeding my pulse
blood of stones
short, brief, and fictional, factual, actual
closing, opening, flying south
North, I haven't yet

The thoughts, the ideas, the monumental, the minimal, post-critical
I am exhausted, my mind is swollen, my eyes flicker
I, a machine, Oh, my Machine, keep at it, keep working hard
Working Hard

And She has dealt the blows
And she has been given All
Heaven and Hell, she made her own
And then there were many more

Many more of her of them of what

Art: Once MORE !

and kindly words of gratitude:

THANK YOU TO MY FELLOW GRADUATE FAMILY AT SAIC
THANK YOU TO ALL MY ADVISERS, VISITING ARTISTS , INSTRUCTORS AND PROFESSORS AT SAIC
THANK YOU TO MY PARENTS
THANK YOU TO MY READERS

SAIC 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition:
Opening: 29th April, 2011, 6-10pm
30th April-21st May 2011, Sullivan Galleries, SAIC, Chicago

Book Signing Performance
MFA Sculpture Group Exhibition
May 6th-11th, 2011
Zhou B Art Centre, Chicago

SAIC 2011 Graduation ceremony:
21st May 2011, Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millenium Park, Chicago
Commencement Speaker: Patti Smith

"NOTHING HAS REALLY HAPPENED UNTIL IT HAS BEEN RECORDED"
Virginia Woolf


THANK YOU......
............................

fifty six: untitled (bed)

Katya Grokhovsky, 2011

Response to "Sprawl", by Danielle Dutton


Bed

There was an orange in her bed. Yes, an orange fruit. Citrus. Also, Leonard's cookies and a cup of coffee. Take out coffee. Still warm. In a white paper cup, with a black, plastic lid: shiny. I saw a ketchup bottle there too. Half used. Under all the blankets she uses to warm herself up on cold, unexpected nights. Count them: one, two, three, four. The one acting as a cover is the softest, laying on top of the others. Soft, pastel green, satin piping. It is very large and covers the whole bed, lingering beyond it's borders. Sometimes, I act as If I don't know and hide under all those covers. I hide and act normal.

Orange peels everywhere, dried up and dark brown at the curled, stiff edges: vitamin bottles, nearly empty. Olive leaf extract: it helps with her frequent common colds. Take two capsules, upon immediate discovery of first symptoms, also take for general immune care. She likes to read these long, instructional, small print labels on those bottles. It is reassuring. Two lighters from 7 /11. She buys new lighter every two weeks, and then forgets about the ones she bought. She smokes on occasion. Occasion being stress, lack of sleep and general discomfort.

A paper cup, party cup. Dried inside: black ink and two brushes. Three white paper take away containers. The ones in which you get those Thai noodles or rice with your curry. The rice is dried and is stuck to the bottom of the container. Used chopsticks, stained, wooden.

How personal would you like me to be with you? Tomorrow you will know what I mean in general. Five Postcards. Black and white, seem vintage, but it's Cindy Sherman's "Film stills". Also some newspaper clippings: photographs of recent rebels and revolutions and heroism. Failed all. I was born like this. Consumed, assimilated, burned down. Repeating body gestures I have seen in all of her eighty five years here, I beg her to start dancing and get out of that bed. She enjoys it and complies with my demands. Orange and red hardback covers of books beckon me. What about Cosmo magazine, September 1987? Were you there? "How to look good naked": I read aloud and twirl a little, slightly to the left of her center.

I wash my face with icy cold water and raise both my arms. My pleasure is all yours. Pastel lavender to dusty rose pink flannel bed sheets and plenty of scarves. Worn and Feminine. She has hundreds of scarves tied to the poles of the bed. All colors, imagine: silky red, yellow chiffon, green grass and murky burgundy, white, pastel sky blue, sultry orange and violet. Plenty of blacks. All sorts.

It is the best bed I have ever slept on, she exclaims, and jumps onto it. I am having a ball she said, smirking. I walked away fast, stepping lightly. Don't forget the dress, I yell into her ear. Cotton dress, circa 1981. I put it on, metal zipper, sometimes, I even do it up and walk around my apartment, thinking about sleep. It happens so often I am wishing to sleep in this dress. Bill Viola, how about Bill Viola? Silence, sudden outburst: no, Cosmo, circa 1992: " How to have gorgeous skin in under 2 minutes". OK, I answer and keep walking around, raising my glass of red Australian Shiraz towards the ceiling. It is not good wine at all. It is bitter and leaves a strange, tangy aftertaste. I'd like to see it stain this cotton dress. What a lovely, wine color it would make. The dress is pink. Reddish pink. I do not make a stain and go back to bed. It is four in the afternoon. I read Cosmo, 2000: "Stoned to death by her brothers".

Sometimes, there are other fruits in bed. Like that time, I found a rotten apple, once green and juicy. The acid smell of decay didn't bother her either, she likes the perfume of rotting apple flesh. Brown and green still. It tasted bitter. I threw it away and she cried for a long time. Another time, one afternoon, it was sunny and hot, dust in the air, she found a peach there and ate it, it was warm and fleshy, fire red with yellow specks . Very pretty , I said and found an "I love NY" T-shirt between the third and forth blanket. Who's? His? It's small. Its tiny. I put it on my head and stood up. I could see rooftops and red bricks in the window, standing like that on her bed, in my underwear, blue pastel, some torn lace. Old pillows. That time I ate a stake, bloody and raw. I like raw meat. Ancestors call out, as I google blood type diet. Her blood type is O.

How about Andy Warhol? Silence and a passing - by truck shakes my apartment. I live on the 3rd floor, we have rooftop access. In winter, the view is gloomy and snow covers our rooftop, it is very cold, I cannot feel my face, but I go there and stand still. Sometimes, it takes two hours total. Sometimes, I don't do it and I put on my Adidas hoodie and red tights and Australian UGG boots made from Australian sheep and I sit in her bed and listen to iTunes and watch strange things happen. Fruits appear and I imagine gluttony and NYC bagels and Intelligentsia coffee.

I liked the smell of freshly brewed coffee. She shakes her head and finds a cat at our feet. The cat is a kitten, soft, maybe colored pink, sometimes it is lavender, baby blue also, perhaps even beige and creamy, like coffee and milk, it looks like a little tiger. We cuddle it and pet it, until it sleeps. The bed is warm and between fifth and sixth blanket, I find courage and understanding.

Sometimes, I even find a small pine tree in there and winter Christmas lights. Sometimes, it even smells of stale smoke, and I manage to remember and embrace her. Gordon Matta- Clark even? Cosmo, 1999: " How to be a genuinely beautiful, irresistibly fashionable, stay- at- home mum". My nails seem chipped, I paint them dark brown. Better perhaps.

I simply indulge. There is her stance and a helping of generosity and my mild headache. Freshly squeezed Orange juice for breakfast: two glasses. Carefully constructed lies. I beg of her, do not reveal my secrets and illusions of grandeur. Sometimes, I sip my juice and forgive her indiscretions. Old Vodka bottle, nearly empty and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, brand new. Frozen face skin and luscious intellectually stimulating conversation, I am going to live here. Perhaps tomorrow.

fifty four: a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Gertrude Stein

Katya Grokhovsky, Untitled 2011

"What you have to play with is yours". Gertrude Stein.

In one month this project will end, and in a little more than two months I will graduate.
Is it time? what is time?
Loosing myself and looping in the loop of Stein's writing, I dust the roses of my labors and sniff the moody Chicago icy sunshine of a brand new tired, sleepless day.
Perhaps, there I reside, in the never attained horizons of new and born super human knowledge. What do you mean what do I know?
I know that and I know this and perhaps nothing and does it matter after all.

Relational aesthetics and participatory poetry, feminist ideals and my fists into the thin, frozen, air. She said writing into the unknown is the best strategy. Let me gallop there, holding on, just barely onto the rough constraints of my time here.

I do not know how good or good or not I am or great or not , perhaps never reaching the best or the ambitions or the real and realities of it I'll be able to truly fix all of this to the hems of my lacy sexy nightgowns. I do not own any lacy sexy gowns. Black or white?

In high heels I struggle, pain acquiring legs, feet, status of a woman and falling harder and standing once again.Colors flying, clothing I have been given and ultimate reward points I have been able to gather.

Not gaining theory and irrelevance I am able to keep preparing. Color, folding classicism into chaotic struggles. Shifting uncomfortably, yes this iceberg has been there all along.

TWENTY NINE: gestures, power and gender

Invitation to slow dance, 2010, Katya Grokhovsky (dancing with Maya Jeffereis)
photo Andrew Green

Invitation to slow dance , Katya Grokhovsky, 2010 (dancing with Crispin Rosenkranz)
photo Andrew Green

How gendered is slow dance? Am I actually, forgive me, surprised? Possibly? I am. How naive. yes. It is gendered. everything IS. Absolutely is. Maybe perhaps I'm so used to being my own boss , I never re-think my gender until I am of course, rudely reminded. I don't mean on the street or anywhere really, I mean in my own art re-finement and it comes biting me, jolting me. Me. woman. re- a woman. You have ovaries and things and period and things and mood swing and things and breasts and all of it. your body is watery jelly dark unknown, your biology...My biology. Shall we? Dance with my biology? Twirl and spin slower . Slower.

..who's the man...there is no man. let me be the leader- you follow. serenade to me.Rebbecca Horn. extend my body- make it stronger....make it powerful...give me steel..afraid to crumble and die. body landscapes body choreography and gestures....eating lemons pickled juice drinking pickle heaven ...uhhuh...embracing my weakness. Low low lower...paying attention to details...extended eyes...green eyeshadow, foundation. beige softer beige . black dress. I don't wear that. well..stilettos digging into concrete floor. I have strong arms, let me lead you. do you mind? he minds.

He always minds. why do I have to fight you for leadership? I'm a natural born leader or so they say. poor pushy bossy bitch? ahhh don't women have to be be aggressive? aggressively slow dancing I am twirling and being twirled. I am rounding up my thoughts. what if I never fall in love again? what if this it. all I have. this is it. right now. who saw it? who wrote about it? who took notice? who came ? who cares? twirling being twirled. dip me. I'm dipping. dipping. him her. let me teach you, it's easy.

How easy? terribly tired feet now. Stilettos, heavily carrying the burden of my body. testing testing enduring and smiling lovingly. Would you? No. Embarrassed? No. rejected.

Getting up on a chair at 8pm , during my 16th bday party, thanking everyone for coming. I tried to pull all my hair heavy thick hair up into a do. it was falling apart all evening. the dress which never fit me well, cheap black organza, lots of skirts, wide belt and buckle, numerous straps. that doesn't suit you or fit you well. don't slouch. always curving your back. stand up straight. would you dance with him? he's always asking about you. I am always asked about. You know her. yes, I know her. Food overflowing on round tables, pickled tomatoes, my favourite. stop eating them. I can't stop eating them. I eat them. how drunk are you and why do you have two pairs of underwear on? Um, I don't know I feel more protected this way? protected from what? I don't know. I just feel like wearing two pairs when I wear a skirt. that's all. pretty easy to understand I believe. I'm not so sure about that.

Spin slower. Step softly, just shuffle. Do you mind if I lead? I lead naturally, it just happens, that's why I cant find a man, you see.. HA! Apparently. I love to lead, I lead every dance, that is why I can not dance proper couple dance steps, you know, tango, all of it, I just lead and hate being led. In Argentinian tango the woman is just gently supposed to fall into her partner, I can never release the control, the trust is never there. I resist and strongly, it is quite comical actually. maybe there is nothing funny about that, but when it happens, I find myself in hysteria over it. I smell onion breath, did you just eat onions? No well, maybe at lunch I think..well, I can still smell them....step, step, step, step again.

Steps:

1.Find and invite a partner to dance with you. Look into that person’s eyes, when you ask him or her to dance.

2. Escort your partner to the dance floor slowly. Don’t be nervous, there is nothing to worry about.

3. Assume the position, face your partner, standing so that your head is about a foot or two away from his or hers.

4. Begin to move to music together with your partner, as you desire. Traditionally, the man leads, however, there are no rules anymore. Shuffle softly, slowly and smoothly. Follow the beat of the music and the leader.

5. Interact with your partner verbally or via eye contact during the dance.

6. Thank your partner for the dance.

Odessa notes, Katya Grokhovsky, 2008