A friend of mine lives just down the block from the most charming community garden I've ever encountered, called Le Petit Versailles. Most weekends in the spring and summer, the garden hosts avant-garde performances by downtown artists working in a variety of mediums. Last Friday evening, we were there for a screening of Play Wit De Churen - and performance - by much buzzed-about video artist Kalup Linzy.
Borrowing inspiration from the soap opera lexicon and our culture's endless appetite for tawdry supermarket-checkout-aisle-style romance and balancing it all effortlessly on the fine line between the scandalous and the mundane, Play Wit De Churen was hysterically funny and so brilliant.
Said critic Holland Cotter of The New York Times recently (in reference to two recent showings at The Studio Museum in Harlem and Taxter & Spengemann): I don't mean to spoil the fun by adding that he laces his work with shrewd home truths about race, class, sex, love, family, and stereotyping. He does, but you can ignore all that if you want. You cannot easily ignore Mr. Linzy,though, and we'll be hearing from him again real soon.
The artist himself made an appearance at the end of the screening and sang briefly before making an exit - he ran off the stage and out the gate - as dramatically effective as his work. Keep an eye out for it.
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