WELCOME to the JAMES BALDWIN INSTITUTE, HARLEM
James Baldwin, is regarded as one of the most important and pertinent American critics, thinkers and intelligible minds not only of his era but also of the present. Born in Harlem, his "Notes of a Native Son," "Nobody Knows my Name," "No Name in the Street," "The Devil Finds Work" and other writings never lost their symptomatic qualities and voice and actually regain and surpass their original power over and over again while racism, capitalism, gentrification, socio-economic politics and gender related shifts are occurring. Only as a self-discribed "transatlantic commuter" was he able to survive his friends and peers like Luther King, Malcolm X and others brutally murdered.
Aware of the politics of representation, I initiate The James Institute not as an African American but as an Austrian American naturalized citizen based in Harlem for 20 years who definitively can be looked at as a gentrifier. I was growing up with Goethe as "Weltliteratur" which translates as "world literature." Thus, Goethe and his friends from Weimar "self-described" their own writing which has been celebrated for centuries and builds one of the core elements of the German national consciousness. Germany who has been formed as a country only in 1871 needed the cultural, artistic and academic complex as a justification and driving force for unification of different political entities as one nation. Thus it is no wonder that the assigned network of official German cultural representations outside Germany bare the name Goethe Institute thought their programming and directing is partially exemplary for a post-national discourse since they do not require curators and artists benefiting from their institutions to be citizens or even based in Germany.
Therefore, The James Baldwin Institute should honor not only this great African American writer who spent considerable time in southern France but also re-articulate the idea of a national cultural platform as they have been informing my cultural background though I am not even German. This has been inspired by my housemate Saim Demircan, who is a British citizen of British Turkish descent and director of the Mini-Goethe, Ludlow 38, for 2017. This is currently the operative arm of the Goethe Institute New York, who's main building opposite the Metropolitan Museum has been under renovation. Given the latest controversy with one of Dana Schutz's paintings at the Whitney Biennial, I do embrace also questions of who is entitled to address, depict, or reiterate who. Before, I am here myself confronted with accusations of cultural appropriations I want to modestly point out that this Institute not only serves as an art project but also as a podium for readings and discussions of James Baldwin to which anybody of any background and gender is invited. Last but not least, juxtaposing Baldwin on top of Goethe should keep the dialog of representation and identity, and of racial, gender, educational and economic differences open.
The James Baldwin Institute is located at THE SCHLOSS, a poorly renovated former 'haunted house," also referred as a Crack house on one of the "worst blocks" that still lines ruin next to ruin for quite a long stretch of the block . Reading and musical events - Jazz in particular - should animate a dialog of common and mutual learning and un-learning and should also generate fun and a sense of complex social belong. All events are photographed by me and part of my art work.
RAINER GANAHL, APRIL 2017
( unedited version)
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update coming by September 31st , 2019
but come to see me perform
near the coca cola sign Saturday , 5 pm on september 21st at off ps1 moma picknick during the new york times book fair.ps1 moma
TRYTO SEEMY LITTLE DADAIST BUT NONTHELESS TRAGIC UPDATE CONCERNING THE DISFUNCTIONING OF THE NYC CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, ABOUT RESTRAININGS ORDER ETC
AND WHAT A WHITE GUY IS DONG WHEN ..... traumatized by some kind of .... TOO MUCH LOVE .. ANYHOW
see the film on YOUTUBE ... IN HTE MAKING BUT BY the same title ZAMBONI IS A MACHINE by Rainer Ganahl, 202ß
//////////////..........<<<<<<<< >>>>>>> .......??????? .... #wtf_. #wtf_ #wtf_ $$$$$......333333.......666_666... we don t traffic in god_&_guns
James Baldwin Insitute Membership
It is free and comes with no obligation. Here are the first five Initial members are in alphabetical order:
Rachel Corbett, Saim Demircan, Peter Duhon, Rainer Ganahll, Kai Matsumiya, Kayode Ojo, Susanne Neubauer. New comers will be listed as they appear.
How to become a member
wirte me an email and I think about it ... LOL: no IG required but better if give me your @ ... mine is @rainerganahl @marxangelsdust but in the meantime SHOOT ME an email: myl name no space or paint @ yahoo.com.
How to be removed from this listing and lose membership:
y
ou need to send an email between April 1sl and may 1st ( if American you can also take more time till labor tdaz ( nd or the other way around, send me a handwritten note of cancelation and do lose membershipt
JAZZ :
Waltz --- for 131st street
A LOVE IS SUPREME on 131st
READING JAMES BALDWIN
No preior knowlege is required for Reading James Baldwin
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SOIREE JAMES BALDWIN
- a PROPOSED EVENING TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON
(I m still waiting for the OK of participants)
DEATH IN HARLEM
Rainer Ganahl
introducing theJames Baldwin institute
death - a master in America
why we don t need a james baldwin stamp !
some Goethe bashing with a one-slide slide show presenting the dead rat stuck in the grid of the Schloss
why are always the wrong people murdered ?
why do we sometimes feel we should do it ourselves - the dying and the killing .
death - a master in America !
rage and outrage matter as well !!
Willmick Hill
the most non-irreversible separation
drama of a human life is not free of charge
the funeral home manager of the next door funeral hall on Adam Clayton will present the economics and business of death and morning.
Rachel Corbett
a killing in harlem
the best seller author of " A killing in Iowa" will re-narrate the life of a person recently killed in the public housing. project facing The Schloss
. the account will be based on some police reports. some interviews and accounts found in the streets and in the public domain
Saim Demircan
curatorial suicide prevention
curating as the curing and caring for artists serves as suicide prevention.
the curator of ludlow 38 will present a slide show of his recent mental health clinch installed in form of a cardboard lebkuchen house at mini-goethe
saim was said to have life-neutered not only the .schloss cat but also castrated his landlord to avoid rent collection
Kayode Ojo
death by sniffing nail polish
the artist and society photographer will give a presentation of his art work with his real art works, slides and words
Martha Schwendener
the octopus as theoretical survival machine
preview of a 60 mini lecture to come in preparation
martha just finished her PhD on Villem Flusser. a Nazi survivor who emigrated from German speaking Prague to Brasil
Kai Matsumiya
partout la nausée James Baldwin
disgust everywhere
it was my Frantz Fanon student kai matsumiya , the japanese american art dealer- intellectual from stanton street, boston , and columbia university who ironically enough introduced me to james baldwin s writing. This is interesting as Baldwin himself embodied some kind of frantz Fanon who was championed by jean paul sartre. Sartre himself was copied by Sagawa, a rich handsome super refined japanese murderer of his european girl friend who was chopped up, frozen and eaten piece by piece to the typecwriter tunes of a book project, a best selling novel in japan . the family wealth of this canibal killer freed him from a french prison. after some short institutionalizations in japan he became a media star and elegant talk show celebrity in japan displaying himself as the existentialist sartre-japan of La nausė,/ disgust. . My former art dealer tim blum - also a japanese speaker like me and kai - could first hand experience this macabre spectacle in a tokyo nightclub some time ago.
details to be announced
this is a Rainer Ganahl website