Houston Performance Art in Germany

Last year Galerie KUB, in Leipzig, Germany contacted me about having Houston Performance Artists come to perform at their Performance Art Festival entitled Blauverschiebung No. 3. So in September John Zambrano and I hopped on a flight to Germany. It ended up being one of the best experiences of my life! We got to meet some amazing artists, some inspiring organizers, and some REALLY awesome bartenders.

Leipzig, Germany is a wonderful city, it is actually Houston's sister city. It was amazing to see how much their government and their businesses support the arts. JEALOUS!!! They hooked us up with flight money, food and a hotel room.

The festival was fascinating. Although Performance Art is definitely still considered a bit strange to the normal folk in the same way it is here, the audience seemed to me to be much more open to the time consumingness and strangeness that is so often performance. It was refreshing to be with a decent sized group of people who didn't seem to think twice about watching someone twitch on stage for 30 minutes or rub raw meat on their naked body. It definitely inspired me to push towards more of this acceptance from my audiences.

LOS TORREZNOS from Madrid did one of my favorite performances, they reminded me of our very own Art Guys.

Los Torreznos / Madrid Blauverschiebung No3 / die naTo / 2010 Leipzig from galerie KUB on Vimeo.

They were super nice too!


Here is the piece that I created for the festival.

Julia Claire Wallace / Houston Blauverschiebung No3 2010 Leipzig from galerie KUB on Vimeo.

And here is John Zambrano's piece:

John Zambrano / Houston Blauverschiebung No3 2010 Leipzig from galerie KUB on Vimeo.

The two artists that reminded me the most of what is going on here is Marcel Spurman (check out his blog!) and Elizabeth Wurst.
Does this remind you of anything HOUSTON?

Ohne Titel, Videoperformance, HD, 20 Min, 2010 from Elizabeth Wurst Performance on Vimeo.

And this artist reminded me alot of our Smitty Regula. This was definitely the most exciting performance of the festival-

Jan Rieve, Elias Macke, Harri Heine / Leipzig Blauverschiebung No3 2010 Leipzig from galerie KUB on Vimeo.

Check out videos from the entire festival HERE. There are some really amazing performances!

And if anyone has any desire to try and create a Performance Art Festival here in Houston, let me know! I am so down.

The Galerie KUB was AWESOME, if anyone is passing through Germany any time soon, make sure and stop by.