at New Jerseyy
April 29 to May 19, 2012

I don’t know how much a person needs to own to live. No idea. I don’t even know if necessity is the weapon against consumerism and exploitative mechanisms.

Recently, I saw a series of photos from 1974 in a german magazine, that showed all pieces of clothing, that a woman owned, at the time the photos were taken. I have no clue if this woman’s amount of clothing represents a prestigiuos average for 1974 or not. Altogether she owned 72 pieces, including underpants and shoes.

Probably this work was just an attempt to include everyday objects into the production of history, maybe it was meant to criticize (female?) consumerism in 1974. The amount of clothing objects to me seem little on the photos, but large as a number. I didn’t count how many I own, but my guess is, that it is more. Probably significantly more. Quantity. I am not guilt-tripping on quantity but I also have a hard time finding an argument for it.

Pleasure maybe. The romanticization of slavery, reproducing church and family in a purchasable format, horror not pleasure after all, lots of it.

Branding maybe. Free-range grazing, free-range shopping. Maybe a fantasy about how commodities are livestock, that we own, shepherds of our consumer goods, building a stage for our product-life, where knowledge is accredited to the subject of desire. The brand accredits knowledge to us and we accredit it to the brand. A grid. The Left looks too Right. A collaboration with the enemy in times of warfare.

Warfare between the (by now qualitatively emancipated) products that can only be sold and bought through a symbolic or imaginative surplus. A surplus lacking any gothic presence of an uncontrollable sphere. State Property, a subsidary of Rocawear.


Branding re/produces the values of ALL state and market institutions ENTIRELY, that claim cultural responsibility and distribution. The über-teacher. The ultimate didactic experience: my sneaker is my church, my sweater my police, my sunglasses my teacher, my burger my estate, my drink my emotion. My sneaker is your church, my sweater your police, my drink your emotion-and so on and so forth. Don’t chose. We decide by lot what brand to buy. Choice is predictable. The collaborator. ChoiceXCapital.

Finished in 2003, Los Angeles Plays Itself explores the way Los Angeles has been presented in movies. Consisting entirely of clips from other films, it was never released due to rights issues, though can been seen at film festivals and in special presentations by the director. (source Wikipedia)

Adrian Piper, My Calling (Card) #1 , 1989

In Piper‘s 1986-1990 Calling Card performances, she would hand this card to people she encountered in everyday life who made racist comments in front of her at dinners and cocktail parties.

Photos ©PARIS, LA

Photos ©PARIS, LA

Rain Forest Resort Village
Photo ©Paris, LA

KRAZY BALDHEAD — Surabaya Girl [Ed Bangers, 2012] off his up coming’ album “The Noise In the Sky” to be released on April, 9.

The exhibition Millennium Magazines organized by Rachael Morrison and David Senior of the MoMA Library, explores the various ways in which contemporary artists and designers utilize the magazine format as an experimental space for the presentation of artworks and text, since 2000.

Located at the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building til May 14, the works on view represent a broad array of international titles (including PARIS, LA)  within this genre, from community-building newspapers to image-only photography magazines to conceptual design projects. The contents illustrate a diverse range of image-making, editing, design, printing, and distribution practices. There are obvious connections to the past lineage of artists’ magazines and little architecture and design magazines of the 20th century, as well as a clear sense of the application of new techniques of image-editing and printing methods. Assembled together, these contemporary magazines provide a first-hand view into these practices and represents the MoMA Library’s sustained effort to document and collect this medium.

Joshua Tree National Park, California.

Photo ©Paris, LA