Gazira Babeli's One Year Retrospective Exhibition!

I arrived just in time with my adopted daughter Fwwixli Swindlehurst and my two personal bodyguards to attend Gazira Babeli's gala opening event for her one-year retrospective exhibition at Odyssey Island's main gallery. This special media event was intended for European press, media and SLebrity VIPs/friends (such as myself).

Hey performance art and retrospective fans,

Finally, I have sobered up enough to post what I recall from attending Gazira Babeli's one-year retrospective at the main gallery on Odyssey Island with my two bodyguards and my foster daughter, Fwwixli Swindlehurst...

As some of you may know, Gaz is a colleague of mine and co-performer in Second Front.

In RL, it takes 10 years for an artist to have their first major retrospective in a gallery and/or museum but in SL, time works so fast, one year is enough to become totally recognized, collected, historicized, archived, institutionalized and reflected upon! I am waiting for my turn to have the exact same experience in a few more months :-)

This retrospective called "Collateral Damage" was curated by Sugar Seville and Beavis Palowakski. Palowakski was also the main architect for this gallery space.

Ok, I had better show you the rest of the photos I took of the event before my brain blanks out and I will have to wait another year to remember what the last retrospective looked like ;-) So, here we go...

Here is my entourage about to head back to give my personal compliments and congrats to Gaz after literally just checking out Gaz's "Nudes Descending the Staircase" (2007). One of my bodyguards, Bear Brooks was ensuring that his automatic machine gun was cocked and on high alert...As for me, I was simply high! ;-) Yes, it is true, when SLebrities get wasted, they require a pair of dark tinted shades...I got mine from Chanel.

Here we are near the front reception desk of the gallery having a glass of complimentary (and obligatory) red wine. The guards of course, were on the job so I did not expect them to drink at the opening... mind altering drugs, however, is a totally different matter! ;-) I was so elegantly wasted at the time, I am still not sure if I signed Gaz's guestbook correctly... Signing the guestbook at the time this snapshot was taken is the Oslo-based artist/curator, Plurabelle Posthorn. I am glad she was around for Gaz's one-year retrospective because I do not think I remember enough from the show (I am still sobering up) to reflect on it properly...Fortunately for me, Plurabelle did a fantastic job of articulating the wide range of classic Gazjects on display via her related blog posting for the Virtual Artists Alliance.


It was not until we decided to mingle with the crowd in the middle of the gallery that things started to get a bit rowdy. Within minutes, a bunch of Italians appeared and began to do some crazy Lambada type dirty-dancing in what looked like a deserted fire-pit! Oh ok, this must have been one of Gaz's performance scripts....oh wait! Did I pass out during the last time I witnessed and participated Gaz's "Come Together" masterpiece also from 2007? Geez, my excesses must be catching up to me since I am starting to forget where I have seen these pieces before? Oh wait! This is a retrospective...duh! Hmmmm...and where have I seen avatars like Fwwixli mutate before? Whoa! Uh.....I am sure The Ava-Star has been taking notice of my habitual drug use lately...my bodyguards can only protect my body and not my constitution nor my integrity!


Here is a quick snapshot showing SL-Newspaper reporter Bryan Dix checking out Gaz's kinetic concrete slabs with my entourage.


Apparently, one of my guards was having "ruthing" problems... Ruthing is when there is a glitch in RL (on other words, a regular day) and you log-in as a default avatar that looks like...well...Ruth...you know? The butchy type of gal that prefers platonic discussions about sex and sports a trashy mullet ;-) Well, maybe a can or two of Mama Gaz's homemade Second Soup oughtta calm my guards' nervers down from their recurring bouts of chronic Ruthitis.

Here is a gratuitous and pointless close-up of me posing with my guard Sturdus Goldblatt next to an original and authentic (yet still unsigned) Gazira Babeli exhibition sign. I took this pic because sturdy Sturdus was about to go off shift. I also decided to take a break from all this sobering up and schmoozing and left with my daughter, Fwwixli. We did not return until 6 PM SL time for the official exhibition opening....Replacing Sturdus was his company's boss, Nick Kelly...


Ok, here we are at the 6 PM opening... I just took this snapshot to show off my heart-shaped earring by Scarlett Johansson's signature 3sRBK line from Reebok. Do you like it? Can you see it? Should I have made a tiff file of a cropped image where I would zoom in to get a closer look at my ear? I think the Gaz impersonator in the background is Second Front co-performer, Man Michinaga. It is amazing who you can look like for a total of L$1! If you are wondering what those paintings in the background are doing with those "3D" chairs installed right in the middle of them, lets just say that I gotta be Frank with you, this isn't Canadian Bacon. In fact, this is where Fwwixli mutated herself for awhile!

Here is a pic that shows my new bodyguard Nick Kelly for the first time (well, she was in the previous pic but you could see her because she was buried underneath Fwwixli...Yes, Nick is actually a "she" and not a "he". As for me, my gender is also often confused especially when Fwwixli calls me "Daddy". I gotta admit though, I am actually what is known as a SLemale! I hope I will not be marginalized for saying this...hmmm...then again in the realm of performance art, marginalization and tokenism might work to my advantage! Then again, living on the margins might spoil my hard-earned SLebrity status.


Here is an aerial view of Gaz's retrospective exhibition...


...and here is yet another aerial view.



"Vino?" exclaimed Pei May (Franco Mattes) of the amazing duet with Pei Twang (Eva Mattes) called 0100101110101101.org Yes Pei and Pei, I will have some Italian red vino and I think both of you should get yourself your own bodyguards as 2007 has been a very risky year for us artists wrapped up in the SLarts Renaissance period. As soon as SL's Mannerist phase enters the scene (probably with the arrival of voice-chat in June), we will all be victims of our own fame....oh! Doomsday Idol! ;-) Seriously though, I told Pei and Pei that they really need to protect themselves soon. The price for becoming famous (even virtually famous) is that eventually, people like ourselves become unwitting victims of potential stalking (I like stalking sometimes, in moderation) and griefing (I like griefing sometimes, when it is called "performance art").

I took this pic to show how Italian things have become in SL lately...I am guessing it was the Italians all along who imported their flourishing artistic Renaissance into Second Life. Speaking of Italians, I was pleased to see that the in-world photographer Marco Manray was able to attend Gaz's opening.

Here I am in the middle of conversing with my good friend Lior Humphreys about my foster daughter while Gaz and Dancoyote Antonelli are duking it out with their superprims in the aestheticized "orgy" pit...

...different snapshot, same ol' situation ;-)

This pic was taken towards the end of my evening where I invited the CEO of the SLenquirer, Lanai Jarrico to the event...Looks like she was not the only one who brought along some personal protection so I do not feel so alone anymore in my choice to hire bodyguards....You may also notice in the chat history that Second Front co-members, Tran Spire and Lizsolo Mathilde attended the event. My partner and co-member Tea Chenille also attended this event...the pictures of her are on my blog all about Fwwixli...