So here’s a recent few.

JFK Birthday Gala Rehearsal

Golden Globes

It's Brandon Walsh!

Click on the GIF if it doesn’t seem to be moving.

We know the basics of the story.  Jackie Kennedy (& that Bostonian husband of hers) changed the face of the White House and America’s image in the early 1960s.  In 1962, Jackie’s infamous televised broadcast A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F Kennedy aired internationally…and impacted  generations globally within their very own homes.  With it’s initial airing, 56 million American’s tuned in to see the stylish First Lady give a public tour of her private/public home/museum.   In addition, the tour was then syndicated to over 50 countries.  Jackie revamped how we see our country,our history, the role of First Lady, as well as the changing role of women in the private and public spheres.

In 2008, “A Tour of the White House” came back into the homes and TVs of Americans once more,…. as well as through computers, dvd players and probably some ipods.  This time is wasn’t the full hour-long broadcast, but clips via the characters’ TVs of AMC’s hit series Mad Men.  We see Sal, closet gay ad artman, watching the tour with his wife while quietly sitting on their couch.  Meanwhile Joan, the saucy Monroe-Jackie combo, is attempting to watch the tour while engaging in a steamy make-out session with her beau.  The show’s main couple, Betty & Don have a failed lovemaking attempt on Valentines day. After they give up, they order room service and watch the Kennedy White House tour from the bed of their hotel room. We see these various couples’ degrees of sex and lack there of, intertwined together by the fact that Jacqueline Kennedy is giving a tour of the White House on all of their TV sets.

Sal & His Wife, Mad Men Season 2

If 3/4 of the country was watching this broadcast in 62, then Mad Men is pretty dead on with the fact that Joan, Betty & Don, Sal & his wife all probably would have been watching Ms Kennedy.  Sure, we’ve got that other 1/4…but those were probably just the characters we didn’t see.  Now thanks to Mad Men, the broadcast familiar once more, but with younger generations.  Folks who didn’t get to watch the original broadcast when it aired (for whatever reasons, such as…not being born) now watched the characters watch and react to this iconic broadcast.  Folks who did watch the original broadcast, now relived a moment in ’62 that they all connected to.

The Drapers

Joan & Her New Beau

In 2010, it’s impossible for one form of media to have as a great impact as specific televised broadcasts had when Mrs. Kennedy was First Lady.    Three damn quarters of the country…using the same appliance, at the same time, watching the same formal televised broadcast.  It wasn’t because it was a national state of emergency, or the end of a pivotal presidential election.  It also wasn’t a scandalous interview with one of the worlds most iconic and reclusive pop stars.   It was a beautiful yet quirky, elegant yet mechanical well-bred woman from the New England/New York social circles, giving the interviewer, the camera, and the country a formal tour of her home/museum/ideal image.

I did a couple of performances recently for the first time in ages. I  am getting my Beverly Hills, 90210 body of work rolling, and along with it comes a cultural fascination with TV.  I really haven’t done much performance in a gallery type setting, and finally had some opportunities to try it out.  Q: Why the media of performance? A: Because other medias aren’t as applicable for conveying the desired result.  The Kennedy White House Tour, as it existed in 1962 is clearly impossible almost 40 years later. We have too many forms of media, outlets, and accessible information as a whole.  So why not just avoid the media battle, and give the White House Tour as Jackie herself?  Maybe by having an interactive, one-on-one personal encounter with the Mrs. Kennedy and her tour of the White House….Mrs. Kennedy’s White House tour can still make a lasting impact on people’s cluttered memories.

@ the Cannytrophic Design Expo 2010, courtesy of Stripy Cat

At the Cannytrophic Design Expo earlier this year, I tried to put this into practice. I was Jackie.  I had my Mid-restoration White House.  I had my objects to show.  Sometimes I had tours. A lot of the time people kept walking. …and then after 6 hours Jackie got tired.   Clearly, it is not 1962…but at least these folks will probably remember that quirky Jackie trying to give some Whitehouse Tours in the corner of a gallery.

From the release:
“Studio 11 – A Retrospective” is a group exhibit featuring works by current and former inhabitants of the famed and fabled five-story loft which anchors the northeast tip of The Distillery. Show runs from April 29th – June 1, 2010. Opening reception April 29th, 6-9pm, free & open to the public.

Exhibiting artists include: Dara Backaler, Fiona Bank, Tony Bevilacqua, H. Boney, Gregory Crist, Michael Dacey, Robert daVies, Jon Demiglio, Nicole Deponte, Alex Feinstein, Elizabeth Grammaticas, Mary Walker Graham, Tricia Gray, Mary Fay Holt, Dynamo Jenkins, Maria LaCreta, Nick Rodrigues, Tyler Rowland, Necole Schmitz, Nick Ward, James Weinberg, and more TBA…

http://www.gallery.distilleryboston.com

More information to follow...

I have recently come to realize that I am a bit captivated by Marilyn’s trip to Japan in 1954.  The basics of the trip are fairly well-known, mostly as a chapter in the book of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio marital drama.  The story goes, M & J went to Japan as an unofficial ‘honeymoon’.  Joe had a baseball related gig in Japan, Marilyn…who had never left the continent came along to spend time with Joe away from Hollywood.  Simultaneously.. the US had troops stationed in Korea, and Marilyn was invited to entertain the troops.  Joe was hesitant about his wife on display..(which brings us to a giant ‘Huh??!’ because after all, he did marry Marilyn Monroe).  He told her to not pack the purple  dress.  She packed the purple dress.

Joe was also hesitant because Marilyn didn’t have an act, little did he realize that she was the act.  She came in helicopter in fatigues and made the pilot swoop down so she could wave to the soldiers.  It is freezing cold.  She performed.   She was brilliant. She comes out onto the stage  in only the slinky purple dress and heels.  She is Marilyn, She sings. she is stunning. she has no studio behind her. no fear. all confidence. the crowd roars.  Marilyn has been quoted on saying it was the greatest moment of her life.

Until Japan, Marilyn Monroe was never officially regarded as an act. Sure, folks knew this peroxide blonde didn’t crawl out of the womb the way she is.  She also already had plenty of  studio appearances as “Marilyn Monroe” for various events…but this was the time she was the full-on Marilyn Monroe for a huge events, without the studio.  I think in Japan, Miss Monroe truly realized what a fantastical creation she managed to pull of, and in spades.

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I don’t  know why I keep acting like my adoration for Gossip Girl is unexpected.  Who am I kidding, I love overanalyzing teen shows.   I don’t like to overanalyze (or even watch) all teen shows, but ones I find that are personally and culturally significant… hence my currently-in-the-works series on the decade-long iconic Beverly Hills 90210.

The cultural significance is easy to spot in Gossip Girl with its scheming hand on the pulse of our media technology frenzied and digital networked culture.

Yet Gossip Girl doesn’t just focus on the fast-changing nature of contemporary digital media, fashion trends, or teenage gossip.  It touches base on the oldest social systems and scandal….the offspring of America’s industrial moguls.  Gossip isn’t a new tradition, especially when you get to the uppity uppity scale of Van Der Bilts and Waldorfs…..but what is new is seeing these iconic American empires intertwined with our current rapid technology world of blackberrys and blogs.

The Henry Clay Fricks, and Andrew Carnegies had to create epic philanthropic institutions and monuments to overpower their scandalous pasts.  How will these 20-something heiresses, moguls and socialites compensate for their scandals when their deepest secrets can be caught by the click of a camera phone and the send button on a smartphone?

I would like to go all Gossip Girl on you all, and say that’s one secret I’ll never tell…

…..except I know I will keep blogging on Gossip Girl to attempt to tell, and tackle, the richness of this teen drama.

Smartphone & a Waldorf

Until next time, xoxo.

Anyway, the good news is I officially booked a show in September at The Distillery Gallery. It’s for my Beverly Hills, 90210 series that I’ve recently started on. Some of my loftmates are most likely going to collaborate.

The best part is, the opening will be on September, 2, 2010.

or……9/02/10.

Also, there should be a studio 11 show coming up in a couple of months too. It’s for anyone that’s live in our studio in the past 25 years. It should be interested.

Stay tuned for updates…closer to the actual dates.