Hamlet work in progress

A review about White Cubicle Show

Monday, 2 November 2009

I Love To See You Pissing For Me - Esther Planas

The White Cubicle
Monday 12th October

By Joseph Nockles

Too many exhibition launches consist of trays of champagne, a clipboarded hostess with her hair on top of her head telling you where the art is (on the walls, surely?) and a gaggle of society types searching the recesses of their minds for something intelligent to say. Esther Planas’s I Love To See You Pissing For Me wasn’t your typical exhibition launch.

Around the corner from the Hoxton White Cube, in the men’s urinal of cult queer watering hole, The George and the Dragon, lies the marvellously punned White Cubicle…Ok, so it’s a dank toilet with sheets of A4 lining the walls. But how else would one display such scatologically themed art?

"I’ve always said that what The National
Gallery really lacks is water sports"

The images depict the artist (a stunning woman who effortlessly pulls off that Karen-O/Angelica Houston look; perfectly bridging terrifying and incredibly cool) and a male model (his legs and crotch anyway) in a series of compromising positions. The highlight: a drenched Plana pressed against a urinal with a stream of liquid aimed at her face. I’ve always said that what The National Gallery really lacks is water sports.

When the artist attempted to photograph her installation officially opened, she discovered a number of patrons had failed to take note of the “Toilet Not In Use – Please Use Disabled” sign. The previous generation of YBA’s, who have since been normalised (Hirst, Emin), might be furious if one were to urinate on their heavily concept bound offerings. Planas revelled in it! She went into a mad photographic frenzy and started forcing unwilling gentlemen to model for her sans zipper. Pure class.

"As erotic as they were abusive"

Overall it was a refreshing change from the woman with the clipboard. The images were as erotic as they were abusive, but they lacked commitment by being printed on A4. Definitely worth a visit, especially if you’re more partial to a pint of Stout than you are a flute of Veuve Cliquot.

(NB:- Image courtesy of Esther Planas' personal blog. Thank you)

I was offering roses of Love

The amazing offering time in the memory of Jean Genet


Some great artist and curators Octavio Zaya, Stefan Bruggemann , Aldo Chaparro and Pablo Leon de la Barra.

And finally the show at White Cubicle

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

ESTHER PLANAS AND ALDO CHAPARRO DOUBLE WHITE CUBICLE!!!

Aldo Chaparro's 'Too Drunk to Fuck' in the ladies toilet


Vanesa Fernandez cutting the ribbon





Esther Plana's '‘I Love To See You Pissing For Me…’ in the men's toilet


Mauro Durant baptising Esther!


Esther's offering of roses in the urinal


Richard, Lili and Pablo preparing guacamole!


guacamole revival


Aldo's take away posters and Esther's fanzine 'My Journal of a Thief'


guest star dj Craig Garett


Stefan Bruggemann and Aldo Chaparro


Peru, Ecuador and Mexico: Aldo , Elisa Estrada and Stefan


and Filipa Ramos


Octavio Zaya, Esther Planas and Agustin Perez Rubio


David Waddington and Henrik Olesen


Simon Popper and Ellen Cantor


Eglantina Zingg and Esther Planas


Sylvia Kouvalis


homofobic bangladeshi young men ready to attack the George's customer's with stick


Javier Peres trying to enter the George which has been taken hostage by the young bengalis!


Esther's flower offering

White Cubicle is honoured to present a double exhibition during London Art Week:
Esther Planas: ‘I Love To See You Pissing For Me…’ (in the men’s urinals)
and
Aldo Chaparro: ‘Too Drunk To Fuck’ (in the ladies’ toilet)
Monday October 12, 2009, from 8:30 PM to midnight.
White Cubicle Toilet Gallery at George and Dragon Public House, 2 Hackney Road, London E2
After party at the Joiners Arms
ribbon cutting by Vanesa Fernandez
special star dj Craig Garett

******************
Esther Planas: ‘I Love To See You Pissing For Me…’
“My Journal as a Thief:
In the men’s urinals I found myself adoring you…
Jean Genet and the pissoirs in Barcelona…
A flower offering for them…
Thoughts stolen from Maurice Blanchot and Michael Focault…
Pictures of myself at the urinals of the George and Dragon…
Stolen and re-framed photos of Viggo Mortensen…
Cut and Paste…
Poems of lost times and abjection…
The ultimate erotic fétiche poem…”

Esther Planas (born in 1960 in Sant Gervasi de Cassoles, Barcelona, Catalunya; lives and works in London and Barcelona)
Esther Planas is a visual artist and performer based in London since 1999 where she has become a cult figure and created her own clandestine scene. Planas publishes her own magazine ‘Dark Star’, is a musician and has her own band ‘Dirty Snow’, every now and then she also runs her own night ‘Club Esther’. A poetic visionary, Planas collages her own demons without making any distinction between her art and her life.
http://www.clubesther.biz
http://estherdeplanas.blogspot.com

******************
Aldo Chaparro - ‘Too Drunk To Fuck’
“...I have to take a pee, the music from the bar is really loud, even with the door closed. On the loo walls, tons of bad drawings, dicks, tits, vaginas and impossible anatomies, next to insults, telephones and self-promotional phrases praising personal skills and attributes.
That ad with green ink... is it your number?”

Aldo Chaparro Winder (born in 1965 in Lima, Perú; lives and works in Mexico City)
Aldo Chaparro is known for expanding the boundaries that separate art from other disciplines, making of this frontier his central theme. Through different mediums, Chaparro remixes and edits references from the mediatic world pushing aside the notions of past and future to offer a present where simultaneousness co-exists. He is also the publisher of Celeste Magazine and editorial director of Celeste Editorial Group one of the most influential contemporary culture publishers from Latin America.
http://www.aldochaparro.com/
http://www.celeste.com.mx/

******************
On a personal note, Pablo Leon de la Barra would like to thank Esther Planas for being the first person to invite him in 2002 to exhibit in London, and Aldo Chaparro for always supporting the White Cubicle Gallery in the pages of Celeste, the magazine he co-publishes with his wife Vanesa Fernandez.

THE WHITE CUBICLE TOILET GALLERY measures 1.40 by 1.40 metres, is located within the Ladies Toilet of the George and Dragon, and works with no budget, staff or boundaries. White Cubicle presents a discerning programme of local and international manifestations as an antidote to London’s sometimes extremely commercial art scene. Past exhibitions have included the work of Deborah Castillo, Gregorio Magnani, Butt Magazine, Federico Herrero, Terence Koh, i-Cabin, Steven Gontarski, Pixis Fanzine/Princess Julia and Hanah, General Idea and avaf, Basso Magazin, Carl Hopgood, Giles Round, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Superm, (Brian Kenny and Slava Mogutin), Elkin Calderon, Wolfgang Tillmans, Calvin Holbrook/Hate Magazine, Husam el Odeh, Simon Popper, Fur, Dik Fagazine, Rick Castro/Abravanation, Jean Michel Wicker, Noki, Ellen Cantor, Karl Holmqvist, Julie Verhoeven...
http://www.whitecubicle.org
http://www.myspace.com/georgeanddragon

My Journal of a Thief : On Viggo Mortensen

I am guilty of
having a dream
using this
images
of this
unknown being
of this
Other
Pictures
in which
I dwell
A fragmented
desire
a truth
that is
unveiled:
My loneliness
My death
A void
depleted
of echoes
Mirrors
that clash
at this you
that I can't
grasp
I am a thief
of your semblance
In this
times
when all
is dying
when all
is meaningless
I am guilty
of daring
to look
just
at a ghost
at some one
so strange
and silent
so unrelated
and far
It maybe an hero
It maybe a reflection
A shadow
of what once
so so long ago
I had learned
to love

My Journal of a Thief

This is the place
where I meet you
a Temple
where we were
once sacred
The deepest
of holes
draining
golden drops
where the skin
learned the softness
of the cold tiles
This is the place
where the scent
is strong
profound
and wild
It would happen
again
an again
An always here
in that place
this lost and damp
territoire
And us

I Love to see you pissing for me ........

Drinking from The Art Fountain




And the more low I go
so down
and lost
I have to recognize
that the only one
I am searching for
is you
You that hid
in the darkest
shades
there
where my soul
can't find you
There where
we can only
bite the heart
of the beasts
And yes
The lust again
under the stars
that we can't see
from the city
A lust
that appears
at any face
at any touch
Kisses so deep
and fingers
that taste
our wetness
Liquids
of what so many
had called Hell
A Heaven
That only lasts
a bit
while we go down
Down down down
Down on to this
that seems like
Oblivion
Flesh, skin and bones
tied to this present
Again