Fritz Haeg Lecture

Fritz Haeg started out his lecture showing footage from a dance project he did in New York in January 2007 and right away I thought, "I wonder if bodycity know this guy?"

I liked that he used the term Project to talk about his various work and used the phrase, "My practice involves..."

His website, fritzhaeg.com, is fully a part of his world. It's a means of documentation and announcements and also organization.

He lives in this amazing geodesic house which seemed to be a very important part of his work. He moved to LA from NYC and when he got into the geodesic house he got really into gardening and stopped thinking of himself as an "artist" (painted in NY, background in architecture) and started hosting events at his house.

Institutions now ask him to do the things he did when he stopped doing "art." Of course living in a geodesic home you are going to be into Buckminster Fuller, and Fritz talked about how Buckminster worked to be an active agent going out and making changes and solving problems. He paralleled this to an artist, who gets to go out and make whatever they want, as opposed to an architect, who is hired to build within strict parameters.

He is interested in art that the "art world" doesn't take seriously because it can't be (or isn't) commodified. Like dance.

He has small geodesic tents for installation projects. There is a built in intimacy with tents and they work as satellite versions of his home. He turned his house into a schoolhouse. Is looking to sell the house and buy land to build a "Capitalist Commune." Has done projects on Alternative Utopian Communities (more Buckminster Fuller influence).

Society compartmentalizes our lives so that art happens in museums, spirituality happens in churches, play happens in theme parks, learning happens in school. It becomes so ingrained that we stop thinking of being able to learn outside of school or enjoy art outside of institutions.