Home > [an error occurred while processing this directive]

Cruising for Art at The Basement

By Michael Hootman
Dec 11, 2011 - 9:04:38 AM
Arts Feed
Printer friendly page
Bookmark and Share
DSCF4078_1.jpg
"Keanu Reeves"
Funny, illuminating, disgusting, brilliant and of questionable legality, Cruising for Art was one of the best nights out Brighton's seen this year.

Curated by Brian Lobel (everyone's favourite New York Jewish Warholian) and bearded sex bomb Aaron Wright, Cruising for Art presented the audience with a number of one-on-one encounters with a variety of performance artists. Every now and then Wright would shrilly interrupt the proceedings with a peremptory cry of "PERFORMANCE!" and then the club as a whole would witness - or be subjected to - something challenging.

My first encounter was with a masked man who led me up some stairs at the back of the building. He explained that he'd start to touch me and, if he touched me in a place I wasn't comfortable, I had to slap him. In my naivety I thought "yeah, like you'll go anywhere below the belt". But, dear reader, he did go below the belt. And not just a light accidentally-on-purpose brushing against my gentlemen's parts. No, this was a full grab-and-pull. After a while the artist paused and awkwardly asked why I hadn't slapped him yet. He then said he felt the performance should end there. Bizarrely, even though he'd been fiddling with me, I felt like I was the pervert as I hadn't slapped him soon enough.

Boogaloo Stu helped me build my ideal sock-puppet lover, Keanu Reeves. He offered me sage advice about love and relationships. Then it was on to Baby Warhol, a terrifying - and rather sweet - moving plastic reincarnation of the artist. He gave me some very, very bad advice about love and relationships.

Then Wright screams at us that it's time for a group performance. The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein boredly lip-syncs some songs. She then takes all her clothes off, inserts a lipstick into herself, and uses it to draw a heart on some paper. Her set finishes with her wearing a strap-on inflatable penis as an equally naked fellow band member – there's no easy way to put this – wees on her. It's not CGI or done with mirrors, it's horribly happening there in front of you.

Slightly traumatised, I visit another woman who takes my hand print, and then draws round my hand. She then overlays this image with her hand print. It's a bit Playschool - but a welcome relief after the horrors of Ms Holstein.

There's also a filmed playlet in which two people discuss a house totally immersed in human waste.

The only thing slightly amiss in the evening (apart from the weeing) was the paucity of the crowd with the performers easily outnumbering the punters. Where were all the queer intellectuals, freaks, artists and gender terrorists? At home watching the bleeding X Factor final.


Can't find what you're looking for?
Take a look in the Arts archive.
Amsterdam