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'I went. The physical space and the art that occupies it are both impressive. Inkymole re-inserts meaning into the word arts and craft. She obviously constructs each piece meticulously, detailing details, refining refinements. Sometimes such painstaking attention to detail is a mask for the uninspired, an attempt to pass complexity off as significance, like when you cover a page in your school notebook with recursively patterned doodles which look "trippy" but don't do much else. With Inkymole's stuff though, each nuance and embellishment heightens the overall effect of the work, instead of detracting from it. It also avoids the obvious pitfall of coming off as idolatry by treating Sage's lyrics as an impetus for a piece, rather than the subject of the piece. His words become the springboard for her own original musings and concerns.
Sage's performance was great. Every time I see sage live I'm newly impressed by his onstage charisma, which exists in stark contrast to his unstriking, somewhat awkward, conversational presence. When he first stepped onto the stage (a beautifully constructed stage by the way), his discomfort was palpable, which, to be fair, was not surprising given the quiet, seated, overly attentive crowd in front of him. Even given these circumstances though, his nerves seemed to contradict what I already knew: that he kills it onstage. His first few minutes in the lime light were filled with half-hearted quips, tangential musings, and abrupt throat clearing suggestive of the quirks of a performative amateur still getting used to all those eyes, instead of the behavior of a road-tested showman like Sage. Once he gets through the first few bars out though, it's over. Whatever awkwardness is apparent early on is transformed into its polar opposite: a confident, passionate, animated presence. You get the distinct impression that he feels most comfortable in his sack of muscles and bones when he's worked himself into the frenzy of a song, gesticulating madly and turning his clunky body into a thing of grace and beauty, like a fat ballerina. I loved hearing narcissist melded into "Hey Bobby". Anyway, the show looks greeeat. Highly recommend checking this stuff out in person. I think my favorite pieces are the side-by-side boy vs. girl Write Off The World comparisons...would love to see pictures of those up here so other people can check out how genius that setup was (see opposite). Great to see Sage perform in an intimate environment, though I'm sure the space was hard to command the way it was set up; very different feel from a hip hop show but I loved hearing the transitions to between the familiar songs, performed as spoken word.' |
'That art is pretty tops, but does anyone else get the feeling that the artist might to be just a teensy bit obsessed?'
"OM3N' |
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