http://www.adressa.no/kultur/scene/article1532317.ece

check out that link.
if you can read norweigen please let us know what it says!


xoxo
sherry.

this is our earring tree on our merch table in norway.
soon we'll have earrings up for sale on the site!
check back. annlivyoung.com

xoxo

these by the way are reviews (translated by a norweigen woman from norweigen to english) of the shows in bergen, norway. (Ann Liv Young does Sherry at Landmark gallery presented by bit teatregarden) please read. BergensAvisa A man to hold (reference to a Norwegian song called “a hand to hold”) Norwegian females: submissive, according to performance artist - Could someone help me to hold this? Ann Liv Young asked. Hilde Jørgensen took the challenge. Even if “this” was a penis. - It was a nice and interesting performance that brought out the feministic perspective, says audience Hilde Jørgensen, who was assigned an unexpected part in yesterdays show at Landmark. She was brought onto the stage when the controversial “Sherry Show” took place. - I went to see the play because this is an interesting, recognized artist. Yes, she uses powerful means of expression, but maybe that’s necessary in today’s society, Jørgensen asks, and elaborates: - There are many more provoking cases in the media than this. - What do you have in mind? - For example that FrP (right wing political party) can win the next election. Or wait - journalism in general. Sold out The American performance artist Ann Liv Young is known to shock her audiences with sexuality, improvisation and statements. Yesterday’s performance at Landmark was sold out and people opened up more than what is usual among strangers. Still, few of the 80 who were present wanted to tell BA why they were there. - It is interesting to feel the anxiety and tension, says student of psychology Andreas Rimala Jensen (29) to BA. Fellow student Endre Vistedt (27) hopes to be provoked during the evening. - I’ve heard she’s weird and controversial, he sayd when BA talked to him before the show. Wanted to be provoked Hans Christian Van Nijkerk (28) also hopes to experience something out of the ordinary this evening. - Do you think you will be provoked? - That is what I hope. When Ann Liv entered the stage just after 1900 as her alter ego Sherry, she started to yell at the sound technician because the microphone wasn’t on. Then she wanted the audience to ask her questions. - Did you think you could just walk in here, see me rub myself everywhere - and then leave? Blueberries in the vagina After some persuasion people started to talk, and Sherry had several personal conversations with members of the audience. A young man was given a condom and was told to see a doctor about his penis after many questions about his love life. - How much do you weigh? - Do you masturbate? - Are you gay? - Have you ever tried a dildo? - Do you have a boyfriend? No? I could tell. You are a bit condescending., she said to a woman in the audience. After a song, Sherry pulled up her dress and picked blueberries out of her vagina. Then she threw them at the audience. - Hang on! I’m sorry, I couldn’t get more of them in, she said before she asked if anyone wanted to taste them. - They are your national berries, aren’t they? Do you want a blueberry? I have more! Review: Orgy in honesty Dice: 6 American artist Ann Liv Young provoked strong feelings in the audience during yesterday’s performance at Landmark. But it was not sex or nudity that shocked people the most. Many probably didn’t know what was waiting them when they went to see the performance “Sherry Show” yesterday. The American artist is known for her extreme effects on stage. Sex, both with herself and others, indelicate use of urine and feces is part of her performances. It still wasn’t body fluids that had the biggest effect on the audience who came for the premier. It didn’t take long before Youngs alter ego Sherry had all of the audience in the palm of her hand by asking them direct questions about their sex life, ethnicity and sexual orientation – issues usually discussed in private rooms or under the quilt. When she in addition to this had no fear what so ever that she would be perceived as unpleasant, all fake politeness disappeared as dew to the sun. She started by calling the audience a bunch of idiots, but still obtained an almost surreal frankness that made young boys tell about visits to the gynecologist, their father’s alcoholism, and women in their 40’s to talk about their feelings about masturbation. Ann Liv Young is impressively clever in dealing with the shock headlines that are usually preceding her, and uses them for all they are worth in conversation with her audience – with all the contemplation it leads to. Even if Young’s attitude could be perceived as threatening to some of her spectators, there was no doubt that most of them found it redemptive to drop the usual detours one meets in everyday life before one gets to the questions that matter. Young sold merchandise before, during and after the show, among other items used tampons and a Plexiglas sculpture of her own feces covered in glitter.

Bergens Tidende

Fierce Style

Ann Liv Young makes honest, hard and confronting performance in meeting with the audience.

After “scandal headings” and stories about how Ann Liv Young greases herself in feces and uses
other shocking effects in her shows, many eager spectators had found their way to Landmark. But it
wasn’t urine, used tampons or poop that shocked the viewers. On the contrary it war Ann Liv Young’s
confronting style and questions about why people had come and what they expected of her. The
result was many brutally honest conversations with the audience about alcoholism, homosexuality
and masturbation.

A warning: This is not the performance for you who prefers sitting passively in a dark black box
looking at the stage to be entertained. Liv Young demands a lot of her audience, and before
you go to Landmark tonight you should think through why you want to see this particular show.

The performance gets started when the bravest among the audience ask questions, those who
are twisting on the chairs has to put themselves out there as well in conversation with the harsh,
fascinating, sarcastic and witty Ann Liv Young. The conversations with the audience are sometimes
interrupted by engrossing singing and dancing, but it is the reactions from the audience and Liv
Young’s handling of them which is the interesting part.

The whole show is a sort of long improvisation, where she uses different situations, feelings or
words coming from the audience. One of the highlights is when she asks one of the women in the
audience if she masturbates, and another woman laughs when the answer is yes. Liv Young turns
abruptly and asks why masturbating women is a laughing matter and puts it in a feministic context.

Gender issues are a recurring theme. Liv Young asks a journalist on her way out in the middle
of the show if she’s a feminist, and when she answers “nah”, she shows her apparent disgust.
In conversation with Associate professor of theatre studies Knut Ove Arntzen, she is very
clear when he asks how she feels about burlesque shows and stripping: “Postfeministic SHIT”.

The borders between what is acting and not acting are completely wiped out. Liv Young appears
frightening to many, but that is mainly due to the self-esteem and roughness which we are not
used to see, and especially not so close to us in a performance space. Ann Liv Young wants people
to think for themselves and if they don’t, she at least forces them to form an opinion there and
then. The old parole from the 1970’s “the personal is politics” rarely fit better. Sherry Show
is charmingly uncompromising with tons of gravity and humor in an indefinable borderland.

Oh yes, by the way, for those of you who are concerned with the shock effects in the show: she has
four blueberries in her vagina that the throw at the audience and she colors a penis blue, but that is
only to show us that we have so much to be grateful for.

Charlotte Myrbråten

hello.
this is a photo of a show at landmark in bergen, norway put on by bit teatregarden.
don't forget. facebook sucks but hopefully you don't

xoxo
sherry

hi. we are back on facebook.
we do not support facebooks politics but we realize it is a great tool however we will copy all of our contacts from now on as well as keep duplicates of all photos. if you posted photos on our old wall please re post on our new wall cause sadly we lost everything.

luv ya
and don't forget to check sherry out at santos oct 26th in new york city.

http://jilliancyork.com/2010/04/08/on-facebook-deactivations/

On Facebook Deactivations

Update/note: Since writing this a few hours ago, I’ve been flooded by e-mails from Facebook users who have also experienced this. Those users include gay rights activists, Jewish activists, activists for a free Palestine, and activists against the Venezuelan regime (among others). Clearly this is happening to many users across the board. I will follow up with more “case studies” soon.

Over the course of the past week, I’ve gotten reports from a number of people whose personal Facebook pages have been removed or deleted from the Facebook platform. At first, it was a male friend in Morocco. Then a female, Moroccan friend in Boston. Then an Indian woman in the UK. And then even more.

Once I investigated a bit further and spoke to each of them, I discovered what each of them have in common: All of them are critical of Islam (some are atheists, others ex-Muslims, still others reformers) and post frequently articles and status updates about the religion.

And then someone told me that a group was created on Facebook (in Arabic) for the sole purpose of reporting, and thus having removed, Facebook profiles of atheist Arabs. The group, which appears to have also been removed, was entitled “Facebook pesticide” and its sole purpose was to “identity Atheists / Agnostic / anti-religion in the Arab world and specifically in Tunisia …” Once identified, the group members would then attempt to report such users.

Of course it’s problematic that there’s a group of people seeking to destroy the online identities of users of a certain group, but that’s not the issue I’m going to address in this blog post. Instead, I will address why Facebook’s strategy toward dealing with situations like this is so problematic:

1. The Facebook platform makes it all too easy for users to get other users’ accounts removed. Any user can report another user by the simple click of a button. Facebook has not spoken publicly about how this process works, but my suspicion is that when a number of users report the same user, their profile is automatically disabled. What happens next I can only speculate about, but from accounts I’ve received, Facebook does not contact users, rather, users may write to “disabled@facebook.com” to request their account be reinstated. Sometimes it happens, other times it doesn’t.

our facebook pages have been disabled. both. so we are going to attempt to use our blog pages (there are 2) to communicate with all you people. ps. we luv you and have some wonderful photos from norway to share with you. here is a nice review of our cinderella show at issue project room.
I saw Ann Liv Young for the first time on Saturday night in Cinderella, and here are a few reflections:- For me, the best part of Cinderella was how Cinderella/Sherry/Ann's provocations managed to make the audience the source of the performance's content and mythology. This was more true of her verbal interactions with individual audience members than the well-publicized poop, which in the end became (again, for me) part of the background. That's not to say it was gratuitous, far from it - it actually succeeded in creating a special bond between the audience. I'd suggest this falls in the category of performance events that are impossible to understand unless you were there, and open to the experience (as soon as you try and describe them, they become laughable, which isn't at all the effect they have in real time).- the most affecting part of the performance for me was later on when Cinderella/Sherry/Ann, after a rough early verbal encounter, re-engaged with a man who had been somewhat critical of the performance, and managed to draw out his inner quest to emerge from the shadow of his father - a dramatic situation that has resonated with us since the time of Oedipus and before. Then, a female friend who had crossed the space to comfort the man who was bravely opening up before us was then confronted by Cinderella/Sherry/Ann in her turn. It turned out that the woman friend was shortly to be married in circumstances which, under the laser sharp scrutiny of our hostess, she appeared to be alternately ecstatic and defensive about. In these two quests - the man in a mortal struggle to break free of his father, the woman blanching at the enormity of her pending sacred union - I found more mythological resonance than in dozens of performances I've seen previously.- If I were to hazard a guess at the message of the performance I saw, it was "work hard to be yourself, freedom must be earned but you must be free." Which I found rather refreshing in a time when so many around us seem intent on telling us what to think, and there's a real danger of losing ourselves if we listen without questioning. It's also quintessentially American.@ Diane from Santa Fe- The New York Times is not the best place to look if you want to understand what she's about. The paper made an editorial decision years ago to concentrate its available resources on an uptown and film/media centric point of view. As a result, the NYT now lacks a viable context for truly throwing light on downtown artists like Ann Liv Young - who, moreover, makes the affirmation of the power of the individual over the power of institutions like the New York Times an essential element of her performance. While I understand why the Times did this - and continue to appreciate and enjoy insights from the likes of Tommassini and Kimmelman - Macauley really does not strike me as the right choice of reviewer for this artist.

EMAIL I JUST RECEIVED.

anyone care to respond???

Dear Ann:

Hey there – I’m writing a news column about the upcoming performance at PS1 and the controversy surrounding the “Brooklyn is Burning” event. Basically, a number of people have contacted me with the complaint that the voice of the other artist involved in the dispute, Georgia Sagri, has been completely left out of the coverage. It is actually quite baffling that Claudia La Rocco has written at least twice about the “Brooklyn is Burning” performance, both times interviewing you, but not attempted to interview Sagri.

So, I’m putting together a news piece that involves Georgia’s account, and I wanted to get your response to some of the things that she, and others, say about the debate that has grown out of it:

1) One complaint is that your account has consistently exaggerated and sensationalized the charge of “censorship.” Since the performance was deliberately about created an unpredictable situation, and no one was informed in advance about what was going to occur, it really seems that PS1 simply had no idea what was going on. Doesn’t it cheapen the notion of “censorship” to claim that an un-premeditated freak-out in a potentially volatile situation that literally involved splashing blood and urine is “censorship”?

2) The other complaint, of course, has to do with your treatment of the other artist. Do you feel any responsibility to Georgia Sagri? It really does seem that her voice has been lost in the sensation provoked by your piece, which, after all, is inseparable from publicly insulting and ridiculing her art, in the context of a supposedly safe space. Here are some samples of what people have written to me along these lines:

“Between consenting adults, anything is permissible, but in this particular case it wasn't fair play, Georgia hadn't been warned, she was cornered and made vulnerable in a public situation.”

And

“To insult a fellow artist who's unaware of your intention as a way to levy an attack against an institution is a cowardly strategy and furthermore has nothing to do with institutional critique. It doesn't really directly attack the person or institution in power does it? To then take that attack after the fact and create a body of work out of it is just exploitative.”

Finally, a question about the upcoming Steiner performance. Sagri forwarded me the invitation you had sent her – which she was actually quite mad about in itself. The fact that you are offering that she participate in an event moderated by the “persona” that attacked her seems like a provocation, and also rather insensitive to the damage that the negative press surrounding the “Brooklyn is Burning” event might have to done her career. How can it be taken as anything other than an invitation to be once again ridiculed in public?

Thanks for any thoughts!

Ben Davis

Associate Editor

Artnet Magazine ^®

don't forget. this friday and saturday here in new york city i will be gracing the public with my fabulous presence. june 4 and 5 8pm 10$ donation 177 livingston street. downtown brooklyn at triple canopy. order your tickets at canopycanopycanopy.com WE LUV YOU. there will be music, food, (candy), tee shirts, me, all to buy!

good day young ones!

hi. this is sherry here. we're doing some construction on this site so please forgive us and please remember that we all need a little reconstruction sometimes.
take this time now, to look in the mirror and see how you can re construct.
can you take off some of that foundation?
can you clean under those nails?
can you take some padding out of your bra. wait a minute. this sounds more like de constructing.
so let's do this. let's deconstruct together. go ahead. try it.
take sometime to notice if you've wiped well enough, if you eaten enough, if you've had that daily dose of sex you need EVERYDAY!


today is de construct day. do you have one wall in your house you can tear down? rip apart?
great! now, time to put it back together! lets get creative here.
let's do this together! put on some great loud music and let's get to it.
let's use some bright, vivid, bold colors and RE DO. re make.


love to you all.
sherry.

oh my. i feel so bad i have not written in so long that i must write again only 3 min. after my other post. so here it goes. i'm actually just finishing up a mini research tour with gloria today and we're out here on bedford avenue surveying people to see if they have any idea what sexual performative therapy even is. we're having some great luck. here are some photos of some people we've been surveying.
and of course you can tell the difference between us and those hipsters.

hi. i'm sorry for the long silence but i have been in sweden promoting my "Cinderella" show. do you realize that i, Sherry play cinderella in MY version of cinderella. here i am trying out different costumes. i am totally convinced that cinderella was jewish. in my final (never final) version i did in sweden i opted to make her un jewish i lost the head piece but it will probably return in the premier in jersey city. how have all of ya'll been? good. i'm glad. i've been great. i've been doing a lot of spring cleaning and getting ready for my fundraiser "Sherry tries on Cinderella" at 177 Livingston street in downtown brooklyn june 5 and 6. we are super excited. we are even going to have a merchandise booth where we will be selling cinderella watches. we love you and we have lots of new posts coming up so BEWARE!!!!!!!!! love the sherryxoxoxxokisses