dictation's Diaryland Diary

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PMSsy

This man features prominently in my entry, so read on

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Imagine the pinaccle of your powerful PMS experience coinciding with a perfectly full moon.

WEREWOLF!

All sources of chocolate are non-existent in this city effective tonight, so if you're having a craving and you live here, you're SOL!

It was either chocolate or gunning innocent citizens with my hormonally-induced rage... I opted for chocolate. Of the M&M Easter variety. (I blame this on my boss who filled up his M&M dispenser this week and dared to leave five on my keyboard last night.)

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The repiping project's charm is beginning to wear thin. Imagine. Every morning I have to completely clear my bathroom of all effects (towel, bathmat, soap, shampoo, conditioner, makeup, brushes, etc. and my showerhead) and every evening I have to restore them so I can use them the next morning. It's getting to be a drag.

I phoned the contractor yesterday to make him promise he'd not extend the work beyond the promised timeline and he assured me it will be finished by March 17th. I called because other tenants have told me work is being delayed.

The contractor told me something that proves the property mgmt company is the cheapest outfit EVER. Apparently the owner of this building stipulated that the contractors were to paint/finish only the portions of the walls they replaced. In other words, the walls that were carved out to replace the pipes are to be restored and repainted but the parts of the bathroom that weren't touched are to be left alone. This will result in an uneven and patchwork paint job. The contractor told me he can't stand to leave such an unprofessional result as that and is painting entire bathrooms. Even though he isn't being paid!

The owner has also stipulated the same for the halls which are a frickin' mess. The contractor said this company is the cheapest one he's ever worked for.

I'm telling you, just hearing that set me to dreaming up some dynamite posters for the elevator that mock the "value-added services" (lingo the owner uses to lure new tenants). It will be fun to post these as it will goad the custodian who is SUCH A LOSER. I wish I could post his "marketing" pic. It's a classic. He's literally leering at the camera with the most hideous smile and his brown-tinted glasses. Snake head! Gah...every time I'm in the elevator, I don't know whether to gag or laugh.

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Ok, on a final note, this made my taxpaying blood boil this week. Let's rename this "artist" Kantor Sore. For a pic of this freak, go here. (you know, it's usually the upper middle-classes that get fooled by these fartists, though I'm sure there are plenty of illiterate punks - the ones who celebrate sepia-tinted ugliness who think he's "special." Remember, it was an art's council that decided the two guys who tortured a cat and videotaped it and called it performance art, agreed. They ended up doing some jail time for cruelty to an animal, but oh the outcry. Jailing an abuser becomes unfair as soon as he slaps the label "artist" on himself. That's some transparent con job.)

And Adrienne Clarkson? The woman who handed Kantor the award? Who said she thinks he deserves it? Your days as Canada's faux Queen are finally numbered. Thank frickin Cripes. This gal spent $5 million touring Northern Europe for a couple of weeks with her rich friends (none of whom paid their own way) courtesy of the taxpaying public. The tour was of dubious benefit to Canada...clearly, if Clarkson just wants to schmooze with artists of other nations, she should do it on her own time. She was once a second rate CBC journalist and now she's overpaid, even more pretentious, and completely out of touch with common reality. We've got a health care system in utter chaos and crisis, a government convicted of stealing money and she's dining on caviar at the same government's trough. Getting rid of her won't happen a moment too soon.

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Controversial performance artist wins $15,000 government prize

Paul Gessell
The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, March 04, 2004

OTTAWA -- Toronto artist Istvan Kantor has committed acts so repugnant that you should exercise caution before reading any further. But you should know that he will receive a $15,000 award from the governor-general for his bizarre antics.

Kantor has been known to mark a large "X" on walls with his own blood. On other occasions, he uses his blood and various bodily orifices in some decidedly non-traditional ways. Human blood also plays a role in a kind of culinary performance art.

Needless to say, Rideau Hall and the National Gallery of Canada are nervous about Kantor's planned visit to Ottawa March 10 to pick up the country's top art prize for a quarter-century of producing some of the most shocking and demonic (some might say disgusting and repellent) art in the world.

The Hungarian-born Kantor is one of seven artists receiving this year's Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts; each will receive the same stipend. The Governor General actually plays no role in deciding who will receive the awards.

Kantor is the only one of the seven winners who has been permanently banned from entering the National Gallery for decorating a wall there with one of his self-described X-shaped "gifts" of blood in 1991. However, he has been given special dispensation to attend a group exhibition at the gallery, opening March 12, of works by him and the other award recipients.

"They will let me in but I will be under the surveillance of two security guards," the artist said in a recent telephone interview.

The gallery confirmed the arrangements.

Kantor can expect similar treatment at Rideau Hall when Adrienne Clarkson hands him his cheque March 10. Though Kantor says he has no "special plans" to leave a bloody "X" or other "gift" at the Governor General's residence, parliamentary security guards will no doubt also be on alert when Kantor and the other six recipients are presented to the House of Commons March 11.

Kantor estimates he has been arrested at least a dozen times. He is usually charged with public mischief. He says he has been branded a "subversive" by the U.S. government, has several convictions there and, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has had problems entering that country.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York was particularly distressed in 1988 when Kantor splashed some of his blood on a Picasso painting. He claims he was just trying to do one of his "X"s. He was initially charged with causing $10 million in damage. But, after two years of court battles, Kantor was merely fined $1,000.

So, what is Kantor's art really all about?

"My philosophy is based on the equation that life equals art equals life. It's not really a scientific equation but it's useful. Everything is art; everybody is an artist. The greatest art is the people in the streets, the beggars, the prostitutes, the people in the offices, executives and secretaries."

Art lovers will have a chance to experience one of Kantor's videos, Jericho, beginning March 12 at the National Gallery's group exhibition of works by the seven award recipients in Ottawa. Jericho is owned by the National Gallery and, thus, is deemed to be one of Canada's art treasures.

Most of the 17-minute video contains wildly flashing images of Kantor in various costumes, ranging from a prisoner to a Ku Klux Klansman, screaming obscenity-laden, anarchistic slogans. In one segment entitled Testimony, a semi-nude Kantor is seen on his back, his knees to his chest, spinning in circles. A megaphone appears to be inserted into his rectum. "I am nothing; nothing to say," Kantor, or at least his bum, repeatedly screeches.

In announcing the visual arts recipients this year, the Canada Council distributed essays written on each of the winners. The essay on Kantor was prepared by Daniel Baird, art editor of the New York magazine The Brooklyn Rail.

"The intent of Kantor's work has always been to disrupt closed systems of power, political and aesthetic, to lay bare the ways in which technology transforms human bodies and minds into elements of a vast robotic machine and to confront today's deadening systems of technological control," Baird wrote.

Baird described Kantor's 1980 performance piece entitled Liaison Inter-Urbain this way: "He dug a shallow grave, inserted a vial of his blood into his anus, and contorted himself upside-down so that the blood flowed into his mouth." Kantor wants such performances to be seen as part of the cycle of life.

The Governor General's awards honour a body of work or a lifetime of work rather than individual works. The recipients are picked by a jury of artists and art experts selected each year by the Canada Council for the Arts. This year's jury included artists Micheline Beauchemin, Evergon, Edward Poitras, Tom Sherman and Takao Tanabe and arts consultant Ian Lumsden.

Images of Kantor on the Internet and in publications show him, at times, wearing a conservative business suit and, at times, with nothing but a robotic sex device attached to his privates. So, what will he wear to Rideau Hall?

The Governor General's people, he said, suggested he wear a tuxedo. He is considering wearing one that belonged to his grandfather. But, he adds, he loves the element of surprise and so, he might wear something less conventional.

"It's always a performance for me, of course."

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