Yellow Year Installation

Each year at the end of the year, we do a gallery exhibit of the year’s projects. Here is our yellow year exhibit, which we did at Femina Potens gallery in San Francisco. Click on the photos to see the full images

Who’s Zooming Who?

Photographs by Elizabeth Stephens and Diane Bonder Featuring Annie Sprinkle with Elizabeth Stephens Shot in 1992 Re-created as ready-mades in 2007 More photos coming soon.

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Portrait By Lincoln Schatz of Elizabeth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle and Bob with Yellow Ball

When we were invited by artist Lincoln Schatz to “sit” for one of his amazing “cube portraits,” we were delighted. We loved his project, and besides part of the Love Art Laboratory’s mission is to collaborate with other artists. (Lincoln Schatz portrait of Beth and Annie courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery Note: there is no sound.)

Schatz has built a Plexiglas cube-room outfitted with 24 video cameras. So we went into the cube room with our performance artist dog Bob, a YELLOW ball, and wore cuddly outfits. For one hour we made beautiful love as Bob played with his yellow ball. Take a look at a sample of our portrait.

Our portrait is now an edition of three and available from the Catharine Clark Gallery (cclarkgallery.com) Or commission a portrait of your own. We highly recommend the experience.

Shatz on his project: “CUBE, a 10’ x 10’ translucent architectural structure, extends from the artist’s formal background as a sculptor and draws on his more recent practice in generative video memory artworks. CUBE is designed with 24 video cameras mounted at varying heights within the structure. During a one-hour sitting, digital capture from each video camera is streamed to a computer that houses the artist’s specially designed software. The resulting portrait is compiled from thousands of randomly selected video files; these infinitely reconfiguring images are presented on a plasma screen powered by a computer. Acknowledging the tradition of portraits as biographical, CUBE subjects are encouraged to represent their personalities, interests and values in whatever capacity they choose. The artist collaborates with the participants to help them develop their own conceptual approach to an hour in the CUBE.” (From lincolnschatz.com)

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Extreme Kiss Workshop

We facilitated Extreme Kissing; The Pleasures, Politics and Art of the Kiss, a four hour workshop, as part of the International Workshop Festival in London. Click Here to see the video of the workshop. Click Here to view the workshop hand-out.

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The description read:

“Stephens and Sprinkle will lead this unique workshop exploring kissing as conversation, as political intervention, as altered state, as erotic meditation and as performance art. Bring a buddy to kiss for two hours straight–a friend, lover, or any willing collaborator. OR come solo and take a chance that you will find such a person at the workshop, or even out on King’s Road. (Clothing stays on.)

The first hour of the workshop will be in the Chelsea theater where you’ll receive instruction, and we’ll set intentions. Then Stephens, Sprinkle, and all participants will emerge onto the Kings Road for a two-hour-long public Kiss-in. The last hour will be back at the theater for feedback and closing. This can make you feel highly euphoric, so don’t plan to drive right after the kiss. Noon until 4:00 PM.”

Thirty people attended. Mostly these were couples, however ten people came solo and luckily they were easy to pair up. We had eight monitors to keep on eye on things. After ten minutes of extreme kissing outside in a Kings Road plaza, several neighborhood mothers with children in their arms and angry husbands backing them up, found our extreme kissing offensive and raised hell. It was only kissing! However the Chelsea theater folks wanted to maintain good relations with their neighbors so we unanimously decided to move the kissing inside. A perfect example of how kissing can be political.

We, along with the thirty participants, kissed for two hours straight without stopping. When the two hours was up, everyone excitedly shared about their experience. Participants were amazed at how much they enjoyed the extreme kissing, and how euphoric they got. We discovered, that two single people we had paired up who had a great time kissing for the two full hours, that one was from Israel and one was from Lebanon. Another example of how kissing can be political.

Hairotica Français

This is a new version of our Hairotica installation, (see Red Year) featuring photos taken by David Steinberg. It is the documentation of a love making ritual where we shaved each other’s heads and made love to mark the beginning of Annie’s chemotherapy.

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Roll The Dice And Make Love Not War

We were gifted a pair of beautiful lovers’ dice. One die instructed, “kiss, lick, touch, tickle, scratch…” and the other instructed “neck, thighs, lips, buttocks, belly…” We placed the lovers’ dice on top of a beautiful map of the world, and invited art patrons to feel free to roll the dice. Their only other instruction was to ‘make love not war.’ A large-scale projection of the dice and map appeared on the wall across the space so that everyone could see what the dice said. People could follow the instructions if do desired.

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Séance

We held a séance in order to commune with the spirit of Marcel Duchamp. We asked him some questions, and exchanged erotic energy with him. Dutch artist, European chairman of Fluxus, and Annie’s ex-boyfriend Willem De Ridder, was our perfect medium. The public was invited, and about 80 people participated. The séance took place in Bourges, France at Transpalette, and was produced by Emmetrop.

First we sat in a circle holding hands around the bed where William laid, and then we did an invocation. We waited for a sign. When Kabul, a bulldog puppy started snoring loudly, we knew Marcel was in the room. Anyone that wanted to could ask a question, and Willem channeled the answers. At a certain point, the spirit of Andy Warhol showed up too and tickled Marcel. We then had a wonderful group erotic energy exchange with Marcel’s spirit, which brought the séance to a climax, and together we all basked in the afterglow for quite some time. The séance ended with three deep breaths and three claps. Then everyone took refreshments and mingled.

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