Das Hund – Alternative Living Tour
November 5, 2016
8:00-9:00pm
Performance starts promptly at 8:30
Actual Size Los Angeles is pleased to host Das Hund – Alternative Living Tour. This performance is one in two culminating events for a journey that UK based Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski have taken through the desert landscape of Joshua Tree and the city of Los Angeles.
The Alternative Living Tour is inspired by activist Nicholas Saunders’s counterculture guidebook ‘Alternative England and Wales’ (1975). The tour began with a two-week residency at artist, Andrea Zittel’s high desert experiment in outdoor living, Wagon Station Encampment. There, Levack and Lewandowski shot footage for their new film and wrote poetry and lyrics for their band, Das Hund’s debut record, due for vinyl release in 2017. In Los Angeles Das Hund are joined by writer Ellen Mara De Wachter, who is creating the script for their film. De Wachter will contextualize their journey against the backdrop of the concurrent US presidential election. Das Hund will also feature guest musicians: guitarist Nicholas Pankhurst and musical director Bryan Mills for performances at Actual Size Los Angeles and Hauser Wirth & Schimmel (on November 10).
Das Hund’s performances feature spoken poetry and songs. Their performance elements include live instruments and looped drumbeats that are remixed using analogue tape delays, in combination with artists’ projected films. Das Hund re-imagine radical ideas and reflect on concerns about the place of art in a contemporary society that increasingly seeks to commodify creativity. Amidst the growing political turmoil in the world today, Das Hund present a visionary exploration of the modern world.
Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski’s collaborative practice includes performance, installation, music, poetry, video, painting and sculpture. Their work has been shown across the UK, in Europe and the USA. Current and recent exhibitions include East Wing Biennale, Courtauld Institute, London, 2016-7; Wysing Polyphonic, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK, 2016; and Now Age, Garage Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2015. Their ongoing artist commission in ArtReview continues in the October issue of the magazine. Das Hund is a performance project by artists Levack and Lewandowski and a changing line-up of guest musicians. Recent performances include Somerset House, London, 2016; Serpentine Galleries, London, 2015; and Whitstable Biennale, UK, 2014. Levack and Lewandowski also collaboratively run French Riviera, a gallery in Bethanal Green, east London that offers a platform to artists who are currently without commercial gallery representation in the UK.
Ellen Mara De Wachter is a writer and curator based in London. Her book ‘Co-Art: Artists on Creative Collaboration’ will be published by Phaidon in spring 2017.
Wagon Station Encampment is part of A-Z West. zittel.org/work/a-z-west
The Alternative Living Tour was developed with curatorial duo Hi Barbara – Kay Watson and Helen Nisbet. hibarbara.co.uk
This project is supported by the Artists’ International Development Fund, a British Council and Arts Council England award.