APPROX. 13 HOURS
MARTIN BECK
Nov. 14, 2014 – Jan. 17, 2015
“Once you walked into the Loft you were cut off from the outside world… You got into a timeless, mindless state. There was …a clock in the back room but it only had one hand. It was made out of wood and after a short while it stopped working.”
— David Mancuso quoted in Tim Lawrence, Loves Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-79, Duke University Press, 2004
“Everytime i hear this a try to imagine a sweaty new yorkloft aprtment full of amazing dancers,with this dropped at 4am first light, sun starting to stream through the smoke and sweat, wow this really takes me there.”
— fradajail, 3 weeks ago, comment on YouTube on Los Conquistadores Chocolates by Johnny Hammond
On June 2nd, 1984, David Mancuso hosted the last party at the 99 Prince Street location of the Loft in New York. The party lasted approximately thirteen hours.
Martin Beck’s “Approx. 13 Hours” takes this ‘last’ party as its subject in order to propose an investigation on the use and an experience of the ‘records’ of a different era. The research, that started with the compiling the songs’ information and production data of the 118 records played by Mancuso in the form of the book: Last Night, published earlier this year by White Columns in New York, unfolds as a broader exploration of the temporal and spatial paradoxes of clubbing. What defines a club night and how does the temporary community that it forms come into being? How can the exuberant affect generated therein be represented (or exhibited) in ways other than nostalgic remembrance and blurry photographs of ecstatic dancers? Is affect something that can be displayed in the realm of abstraction? How can a document speak to that abstraction?
“Approx. 13 Hours” follows earlier projects by Beck, that deal with specific moments in recent history when individual impulses and collective energies, ideologies and (sub)cultures are reveal their often paradoxical tensions. The exhibition conceived for castillo/corrales will further develop into a set of publications and a series of events, starting with an artist talk the day after the opening, on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 8 pm. Screenings, book releases, and, last but not least, an integral listening session / dance party with the records in the playlist will follow. Wait for more…
Avec le soutien du/With the support of
