The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts Projects

hG, Spare Parts is a 3-year cycle of projects commissioned and produced by Director Eloisa Haudenschild and Commissioning Editor Steve Fagin from 2006 – 2009 that encouraged the juxtaposition of the crucial, the trivial, and the arcane. The projects included Decolonizing Architecture, selected for the 2009 Architectural Venice Biennale, A Crime has Many Stories that premiered at MALBA in Buenos Aires in November 2008 and The Last Book which launched in April 2009 at the MAK Center, Schindler House in Los Angeles.

Decolonizing Architecture

Selected by ARTFORUM in January of 2010 as one of the top ten projects of the decade, Decolonizing Architecture was originally conceptualized and its pilot stage produced in dialogue with Eloisa Haudenschild and Steve Fagin, partners in the haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts projects.

Decolonizing Architecture is a collaboration between the haudenschildGarage and London-based architect and theorist Eyal Weizman and Bethlehem-based architects Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti. Decolonizing Architecture is a multi-pronged project that addresses the possibilities of understanding and redesigning Palestine in preparation for a post-evacuation time and context through two case studies, the former military base, Oush Grab, and the settlement of P’sagot. A scale model, architectural plans and public events, including an exhibition and symposium with Eloisa Haudenschild, Steve Fagin, Sandi Hilal, Eyal Weizman, Alessandro Petti and Lieven de Cauter at the Bozar Center for Fine Art in Brussels (10/31 – 1/4/09), were produced around plans for turning the fabric of the case studies into Palestinian public institutions.

The Manual of Decolonization is the result of a residency that Salottobuono (www.salottobuono.net) made in August 2008 in Beit Sahour (Bethlehem) at Decolonizing Architecture. The manual is a choral work where different approaches stood out at the same time. The production of the manual was supported by the haudenschildGarage and based upon a series of meetings with the “stakeholders” in this process. It includes representatives of various organizations and individuals, the local community, members of various NGOs, government and municipal bodies, academic and cultural institutions, local residents and resident associations. Click here to view the manual.

The manual and scale model will be on view in Los Angeles at SUPERFRONT as part of the exhibtion UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale (3/25/10 – 7/2/10).

In 2009, the project was presented at the Venice Biennale and in 2008 it was selected for the 11th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Decolonizing Architecture has also been exhibited at COAC in Barcelona (2009) and at the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam (2009-2010).

Click here to visit the Decolonizing Architecture website.

A Crime Has Many Stories

A Crime Has Many Stories, is an exquisite corpse project commissioned and produced by Eloisa Haudenschild and Steve Fagin of the haudenschildGarage, based on Argentine writer Ricardo Piglia’s short story, La Loca y el Relato del Crimen (Madwoman and the Story of a Crime, 1975) set in Buenos Aires and plotted with co-conspirators Judi Werthein, Sonia Becce and Alejandro Ruiz. Piglia’s text generated two site-specific pieces and a commissioned story by Argentine writer Washington Cucurto.

In May of 2008, the haudenschildGarage traveled to Buenos Aires to meet with its advisory curatorial committee. Argentine curator Sonia Becce and Argentine artist Judi Werthein selected a short list of artists for the project, working in installation, photo and video. From this short list, Eloisa Haudenschild, Steve Fagin, and Alejandro Ruiz selected artists Roberto Jacoby, Fernanda Laguna and Rosalba Mirabella for the two site-specific pieces. Monica Jovanovich coordinated the project in San Diego and Buenos Aires.

On November 29, 2008 a multidisciplinary, one-day extravaganza organized by Argentine producer Alejandro Ruiz began with a video of Ricardo Piglia’s elegant interpretation of his own text performed especially for our event and premiered at Malba – Fundación Costantini (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). We traveled from the opening of the project at Malba – Fundación Costantini to the closing celebration in La Boca by way of the projects by Jacoby, Laguna and Mirabella in a movable feast of culture and repast. The climax of our extravaganza was the inaugural performance of Washington Cucurto’s savagely brilliant short story, El Hijo, commissioned by the haudenschildGarage in response to Piglia’s La Loca y el Relato del Crimen. Cucurto and the literary collective Eloisa Cartonera performed an ensemble reading of the story in La Boca. A catalog of the entire project and a limited edition Survival Kit was provided to the participants at Malba to facilitate their journey. Both were produced in collaboration with Eloisa Cartonera.

The Last Book

For this project, the haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin wished to resuscitate the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. Perhaps electronic technology could be used, not to leave the book on the dustbin of history, but to reconstitute a forgotten past where words and images danced in each other’s arms.

To this end the haudenschildGarage constructed a one of a kind book that included text, drawings, moving images and sounds. Its construction in the medieval, supersized tradition consisted of three illuminated folios each eighteen and a half inches high, thirteen inches wide and three inches deep.

To make this more than a dirge for the dead, a proper Joycian Wake, we incorporated into our project the live and kicking writing skills of Mary Gaitskill (Two Girls Fat and Thin), the macabre visual lyricism of Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred in Hell) and YouTube, the MySpace-with-a-twist drawings of Davina Semo, the retro-futurist music mix of Greg Landau, and as the piece de resistance, Shanghai’s notorious and ever so talented bad girl author Mian Mian as one of our readers with Monica Jovanovich and the Kindle. This bouillabaisse was concocted by Steve Fagin. On April 26, 2009 The Last Book was performed at the Schindler House, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles.

Click here to read the article on BBC News.

About Mian Mian

One of the most important writers from China’s new generation, Mian Mian has lived up to her reputation as China’s best bad girl novelist. She drew wide attention from the literati starting at the age of 17 when she became the first Chinese writer to ever describe a drug related life. Her characteristic flavor of “cruel youth” and her serious attitude towards self-reflection quickly attracted a large following of young readers. Her novels have been translated into 15 different languages and published worldwide. Candy, Mian Mian’s magnum opus, an underground best seller, is regarded as the most remarkable adolescent literature in China. In April 2000, the government officially banned her book and subsequently the rest of her books. However by this time, hundreds of thousands of pirated copies had already been circulated. Mian Mian’s literature had exerted tremendous influence on the Chinese X and Y generations. She has become a cultural icon for a generation of Chinese youth who value the authenticity and honesty of her portrayal of the future of the new Shanghai. In 2009 she published her new novel, Panda Sex, in China and France, soon to be published in English.

We would like to thank Mian Mian for both honoring us with her first ever English language reading, her reading of The Last Book at the Schindler House on April 26, 2009, and this first English language writing effort for our documentation of The Last Book project.
—Eloisa Haudenschild & Steve Fagin, haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts

On April 26, Mian Mian was part of The Last Book performance as one of the readers at the Schindler House in Los Angeles. The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin wished to resuscitate the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. Perhaps electronic technology could be used, not to leave the book on the dustbin of history, but to reconstitute a forgotten past where words and images danced in each other’s arms.

To this end the haudenschildGarage constructed a one of a kind book that included text, drawings, moving images and sounds. Its construction in the medieval, supersized tradition consisted of three illuminated folios each eighteen and a half inches high, thirteen inches wide and three inches deep. To make this more than a dirge for the dead, a proper Joycian Wake, we incorporated into our project the live and kicking writing skills of Mary Gaitskill (Two Girls Fat and Thin), the macabre visual lyricism of Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred in Hell) and YouTube, the MySpace-with-a-twist drawings of Davina Semo, the retro-futurist music mix of Greg Landau, and as the piece de resistance, Shanghai’s notorious and ever so talented bad girl author Mian Mian as one of our readers with Monica Jovanovich and the Kindle. This bouillabaisse was concocted by Steve Fagin.

Only a Mirror Can Dream of a Mirror or Only a Mirror Dreams of…
When I first read about the idea of Last Book project and the project invited me to be the reader…I was doing a concert at a place UFOs had once appeared…the light was too bright so I had to wear sunglasses all the time…I liked the concept of the project…it was simple but covered quite a few not simple questions … and … the most interesting part for me was to work with Eloisa and Steve these two such different producers but both so super real, creative open minded people. They are full of love and both of them never stopped being a boy and a girl, but at the same time also being professional – serious and very well organized … and … one of them speaks with Chicago accent, very loudly. For the art world they are too clean. They speak that kind of language that simply comes from the future with sunflower love and super talent. For me art is more about the moments…mostly about those super tender moments when those super intense “things” meet together … it is the shape of the joy, the questions, the possibility of love …

But how can I be an English reader? I did not finish high school…I never read an English book…I never read my own book in English when I do promotions all over the world…my English education came mostly at bars, nightclubs in Shanghai when I was young…so how can I read this impossible Mary Gaitskill text? I think this is one of the reasons why the project invited me…they wanted to watch. I’m thinking about the Kindle now (I’m in Beijing) to think of the Kindle is just like thinking about a criminal who has escaped from prison or a serial killer living in a strange small town with a strange voice…middle sex…mostly a woman but if you think he is a boy or man that is more scary still…anyway…the Kindle is a perfect fiction…it’s a mirror of our fears…but the Kindle helped me, a lot…every morning at 6 o’clock I got up and started my day by listening to the Kindle read Mary Gaitskill’s impossible to read text…the writing of the text is very intense. I never understood the writing because there were so many new and difficult words for me. So I tried to catch the chance and energy of the story by just studying those Mary Gaitskill words…although I had no idea what she wrote I eventually found a perfect way to feel her writing I listened to it breathe. I sensed Mary Gaitskill is a great writer who tries very hard to be a great writer…she is not a mirror but a broken glass…most of time she is cutting herself…thinking about this made me love her so much…but I never would want to be a writer like her…to wish to be like her would be like dancing with a vampire.

In fact, this is first time I’ve done a book reading in English and my reading is a perfect mirror between the Kindle and Mary Gaitskill’s text, I was being lured into a broken glass. But the Kindle is something more still. It is even more surreal than the plastic fantastic city, Shanghai…the Kindle is thought to be the future…it’s not a future I will return to. And Mary Gaitskill? I imagine she does not care about the future, otherwise, she would not write this way, I guess?

When I arrived in LA, at the Schindler House, the place of the reading, it felt to me like the place that must have had the first communist meeting in LA…it’s like I saw some tall man walk around the house as in old times and communist women dancing. I liked the director of the house…she is like a mirror…

But I was sooo distracted, worrying about my English as I rehearsed for the reading of Mary Gaitskill’s text…I should have not worried sooo much because it’s all about the moment, the performance, when all dances together…but I’m a real Shanghai girl…most of them are superficial…we always want to be the winner when we go to bed with the boy we really love we never be really relax and be really cool…

In this Last Book project there were moments, during different steps of the project that felt like pure art for me…but they were very private…those days staying at Eloisa’s home and seeing the members of the Haudenschild family, seeing how they live together, how they give their love at every moment to each other…it’s really special…it made me less scared of the Kindle, every morning at 6 o’clock when I started to study those words…and every morning at 9 when I saw Monica who always made me think about David Lynch movie.

In closing, give all my love to everybody who worked on the project and those who came to the event…it’s midnight in Beijing where I sit…I know after writing this I will disappear from the mirror…slowly…with Chicago accent that I learned from a genius…

After this project…I will finally be able to be a communist dancer…a tall man’s lover (I was not able to have sex with tall man)…a great S&M writer (it’s about how two people trust each other)…I will make an unbroken mirror become a lesbian mirror, one who does not show us our vanity…marry an Argentine revolutionary leader and finally speak English with a Chicago accent…I just love it sooo much…

…one thousand ideas to be tender…this is The Last Book project made for me.

-Mian Mian

p.s.
When I finished the project and was at the airport in LA on my way back to Shanghai the plane had problems…so we had to stay in LA overnight, at a small hotel…where I went to a McDonalds at midnight…

One of the most important writers from China’s new generation, Mian Mian has lived up to her reputation as China’s best bad girl novelist. She drew wide attention from the literati starting at the age of 17 when she became the first Chinese writer to ever describe a drug related life. Her characteristic flavor of “cruel youth” and her serious attitude towards self-reflection quickly attracted a large following of young readers. Her novels have been translated into 15 different languages and published worldwide. Candy, Mian Mian’s magnum opus, an underground best seller, is regarded as the most remarkable adolescent literature in China. In April 2000, the government officially banned her book and subsequently the rest of her books. However by this time, hundreds of thousands of pirated copies had already been circulated. Mian Mian’s literature had exerted tremendous influence on the Chinese X and Y generations. She has become a cultural icon for a generation of Chinese youth who value the authenticity and honesty of her portrayal of the future of the new Shanghai. In 2009 she published her new novel, Panda Sex, in China and France, soon to be published in English.

“The Last Book kindles creation-fires of a new kind; it marks the birth of the technological illuminated manuscript. With texts by Mary Gaitskill, drawings by Davina Semo, videos by Leslie Thornton, and sound by Greg Landau, this hybrid folio demands to be man-handled with care, to be rewound and fast-forwarded, to be read and touched. This jeweled and inlaid vellum reveals the book as fetish, book as master controlling and prescribing our movements, book as monster: it inaugurates a novel reading ritual–part riot, part cutting-arcane. The book at last dead? Long Live the Last Book!”
-Gabriela Jauregui, author of Controlled Decay

The Last Book: This Ain’t Your Grandson’s Kindle

On April 26, 2009 The Last Book was performed at the Schindler House, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles. For this project, the haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin wished to resuscitate the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. Perhaps electronic technology could be used, not to leave the book on the dustbin of history, but to reconstitute a forgotten past where words and images danced in each other’s arms.

To this end the haudenschildGarage constructed a one of a kind book that included text, drawings, moving images and sounds. Its construction in the medieval, supersized tradition consisted of three illuminated folios each eighteen and a half inches high, thirteen inches wide and three inches deep.

To make this more than a dirge for the dead, a proper Joycian Wake, we incorporated into our project the live and kicking writing skills of Mary Gaitskill (Two Girls Fat and Thin), the macabre visual lyricism of Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred in Hell) and YouTube, the MySpace-with-a-twist drawings of Davina Semo, the retro-futurist music mix of Greg Landau, and as the piece de resistance, Shanghai’s notorious and ever so talented bad girl author Mian Mian as one of our readers with Monica Jovanovich and the Kindle.  This bouillabaisse was concocted by Steve Fagin.

Other Last Book participants included Eloisa Haudenschild (producer and line producer), Monica Jovanovich (stage manager), John DeMerritt (book binding), Joel Swanson (graphic design), Tad Linfesty (easel and book fabrication), Jim Nisbet (book fabrication), William Brent and Marco Llanos (electronics/technical coordination), Hsiufang Chen and Kate Wall (printing), Alastair Johnston, Teddy Cruz, and Alan Rosenblum (consultants), and Patricia Montoya (video assistant). The Last Book performance photography by Yvonne Venegas and video documentation by Merve Kayan.

The haudenschildGarage wishes to thank Kimberli Meyer, Director of the MAK Center.

On April 23, 2008 the haudenschildGarage held a Garage Talk with Shanghai-based author Mian Mian which included a premiere reading from her forthcoming novel, Panda Sex and a conversation about her infamous novel, Candy. From April 20 – 26, 2009 Mian Mian was an Artist-in-Residence at the haudenschildGarage as part of the hG, Spare Parts project The Last Book.

On April 26, Mian Mian was part of The Last Book performance as one of the readers at the Schindler House in Los Angeles. The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin wished to resuscitate the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. Perhaps electronic technology could be used, not to leave the book on the dustbin of history, but to reconstitute a forgotten past where words and images danced in each other’s arms.

To this end the haudenschildGarage constructed a one of a kind book that included text, drawings, moving images and sounds. Its construction in the medieval, supersized tradition consisted of three illuminated folios each eighteen and a half inches high, thirteen inches wide and three inches deep.

To make this more than a dirge for the dead, a proper Joycian Wake, we incorporated into our project the live and kicking writing skills of Mary Gaitskill (Two Girls Fat and Thin), the macabre visual lyricism of Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred in Hell) and YouTube, the MySpace-with-a-twist drawings of Davina Semo, the retro-futurist music mix of Greg Landau, and as the piece de resistance, Shanghai’s notorious and ever so talented bad girl author Mian Mian as one of our readers with Monica Jovanovich and the Kindle. This bouillabaisse was concocted by Steve Fagin.

About Mian Mian

One of the most important writers from China’s new generation, Mian Mian has lived up to her reputation as China’s best bad girl novelist. She drew wide attention from the literati starting at the age of 17 when she became the first Chinese writer to ever describe a drug related life. Her characteristic flavor of “cruel youth” and her serious attitude towards self-reflection quickly attracted a large following of young readers. Her novels have been translated into 15 different languages and published worldwide. Candy, Mian Mian’s magnum opus, an underground best seller, is regarded as the most remarkable adolescent literature in China. In April 2000, the government officially banned her book and subsequently the rest of her books. However by this time, hundreds of thousands of pirated copies had already been circulated. Mian Mian’s literature had exerted tremendous influence on the Chinese X and Y generations. She has become a cultural icon for a generation of Chinese youth who value the authenticity and honesty of her portrayal of the future of the new Shanghai. In 2009 she published her new novel, Panda Sex, in China and France, soon to be published in English.
Click here to visit Mian Mian’s website

From April 20 – 26, 2009 Shanghai-based author Mian Mian was an Artist-in-Residence at the haudenschildGarage as part of the hG, Spare Parts project The Last Book. On April 23, 2008 the haudenschildGarage held a Garage Talk with Mian Mian which included a premiere reading from her forthcoming novel, Panda Sex and a conversation about her infamous, banned novel, Candy.

On April 26, Mian Mian was part of The Last Book performance as one of the readers at the Schindler House in Los Angeles. The haudenschildGarage, Spare Parts produced an homage to “the book” in the age of the conquest of the Kindle. Steve Fagin wished to resuscitate the magnificence of the illuminated manuscript as the world turned toward darkness. Perhaps electronic technology could be used, not to leave the book on the dustbin of history, but to reconstitute a forgotten past where words and images danced in each other’s arms.

To this end the haudenschildGarage constructed a one of a kind book that included text, drawings, moving images and sounds. Its construction in the medieval, supersized tradition consisted of three illuminated folios each eighteen and a half inches high, thirteen inches wide and three inches deep.

To make this more than a dirge for the dead, a proper Joycian Wake, we incorporated into our project the live and kicking writing skills of Mary Gaitskill (Two Girls Fat and Thin), the macabre visual lyricism of Leslie Thornton (Peggy and Fred in Hell) and YouTube, the MySpace-with-a-twist drawings of Davina Semo, the retro-futurist music mix of Greg Landau, and as the piece de resistance, Shanghai’s notorious and ever so talented bad girl author Mian Mian as one of our readers with Monica Jovanovich and the Kindle. This bouillabaisse was concocted by Steve Fagin.

About Mian Mian

One of the most important writers from China’s new generation, Mian Mian has lived up to her reputation as China’s best bad girl novelist. She drew wide attention from the literati starting at the age of 17 when she became the first Chinese writer to ever describe a drug related life. Her characteristic flavor of “cruel youth” and her serious attitude towards self-reflection quickly attracted a large following of young readers. Her novels have been translated into 15 different languages and published worldwide. Candy, Mian Mian’s magnum opus, an underground best seller, is regarded as the most remarkable adolescent literature in China. In April 2000, the government officially banned her book and subsequently the rest of her books. However by this time, hundreds of thousands of pirated copies had already been circulated. Mian Mian’s literature had exerted tremendous influence on the Chinese X and Y generations. She has become a cultural icon for a generation of Chinese youth who value the authenticity and honesty of her portrayal of the future of the new Shanghai. In 2009 she published her new novel, Panda Sex, in China and France, soon to be published in English.
Click here to visit Mian Mian’s website