Performances

Contact Walt Whitman

It is proposed to create a recessed space within the Fair, of 5' width, approximately 10 ft. deep that is arranged as a 'tableau vivant of a late 19th century room in subdued sepia tones, occupied by an ageing Walt Whitman who appears to be writing at his desk, and, when called, speaking to fair-goers from a 1902 style telephone in the room.

The room and it s occupant can be seen only by peering into stereoscopic visors built into the wall at the visually accessible end of the space; viewers may call Wallt Whitman on the phone ( depending on how the technology aligns) , either through their own cel phones, or preferably, by using a device set into the wall with the stereoscopic viewers, like the apartment building intercoms that can call (building occupants) on their phones, and speak to them via a sqwak box. (Which would allow the conversations to be heard by people standing nearby.

The intent here is to create an interactive event that can function on several levels:
1. To engage fair-goers in an interactive art event that is immediate and spontaneous: literally 'an experience' meant to add some degree of engagement in an event that is mostly made up of booths with objects for sale.
2.To evoque an engagement with a particularly soulful and revolutionary person of the past; and not without intention, a person who became a poet after trying more conventional avenues of social participation.
3. To use the evoquation of this particular poet because of aspects of the era he lived in: one that included revolutionary technological advances, saw the rise of a rapacious class of new wealth alongside a wide gap in wealth distribution, and one that included a divisive even polarized political climate that ended in (the American Civil) war.

Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' considered by many to have been 'obscene' in it s time, represents an early expression of homosexual love in American history, and he was a contemporary of Oscar Wilde, whom he met not long before they both died.

Whitman's well-known work with the wounded soldier's of the Civil War are a testament to his compassionate social conscience, which must be seen as nearly as courageous as his willingness to express his emotional and sexual orientation in those days because it was typically the well-off who devoted themselves to altruistic work of this kind.

Whitman's commitment to the human spirit, and not least in a tumultuously risky time, render him a particularly admirable individual in the modern and contemporary context, and this relevance becomes all the more important in an era when we tend to admire and study captains of industry and corporate innovation, over the artists and poets who set the strongest foundations for the artistic achievements of our culture.

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Video credit: Steven Harris

BEST PERFORMANCE ARTIST, MALE
David Rohn
Artist and Performer David Rohn has developed his diverse original characters through time and perspiration. Whether as a transvestite at an Eighth Street motel, as Katzenjammer, an art collector showing his collection in the Design District,as himself (at a moving performance at the Snitzer Gallery last summer), or more recently as Esperanza, (the tallest and purest bride in history) in his 'Marry Me (Western Union)' series at Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art. Rohn is always intense, unpredictable, and witty. Above all, he's authentic.
Miami Sun Post . The Best Of... July 2 2008.

Miami-based Media and Performance Artist David Rohn, presents 'The Amazing Ultran' , a live simulation of an automatronic fortune teller like the ones that were a fixture of Carnivals, Pier Parks and County Fairs. in the last century, and which were themselves derived from the Seers and Fakhirs who were exotic attractions dating back to Medieval Fairs.

For a dollar, The Amazing Ultran will deliver a written 'fortune' from his booth at the front of the Scope Fair tent.

Rohn's work, which has included 18th century French Aristocrats extolling the glories of force-fed goose liver pate as a metaphor for over-consumption in some economies, to blow-up sex doll art collector-wives, and robotic silver-haired political candidates, typically involves interaction with a live made-up character. The automotronic fortune-teller follows 'Art Dummie' a depiction of a ventriliquist's dummie that, as in the upcoming project, represented a real-life simulation of a simulation of real life human presence.

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"Polivalencia, arrojo, y dificultad de ejecucion de 'Marry Me (Western Union)' hacen de David Rohn el mejor performer de Miami."
-Alfredo Triff en 'Maqueta teatral y extasis beatifico nupcial' Miami Herald May 25 2008.

(On kicking Herb and Kitty Katzenjammer (David Rohn and blow-up wife Kitty) out of the Miami Basel Art Fair in 2002):

"Kicking David Rohn out of the Basel Art Fair is like kicking Saint Francis of Assisi out of the Vatican"
-Francis Einspruch in ARTBLOG.net December 2002.

"...a faintly smarmy, husky woman whose taste runs to clunky Italianate jewelry and an orange cape trimmed i leapord , Gretchen Bender greeted visitors during her performance with a sales pitch for cottages lining an artificial lake in a phantom developement. She gave them a tour through one 'mode cottage' called 'le chateau del pueblo' that s now an annex of Miami s Dorsch Gallery.
rohn s redecoration of this house, with it s sagging florsand quirky architectural details is a tour de force. It blithely comments on the vices of cookie cutter developementsas well as on gender stereotypes and pretentious faux European taste."
Elisa Turner , Brooke Dorsch Gallery Performance by David Rohn Miami Herald Jan 15 2002