What was Colette Justine's first art installation?
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Colette's first performance/photo work took place in 1970 when she had herself photographed as "Liberty Leading the People" after Delacroix. She presented this work to the public in 1972. In an installation, composed of white parachute silk, embedded lighting, [lightboxes, lavender-painted floors inscribed with her personal code and audios, she posed as Liberté. This tableau vivant could also be viewed from the windows of the gallery. Fred McDarrah photographed it for "The Village Voice" in January 1973.
Colette Justine
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In 1978 Colette staged a mock death in an installation/performance at the Downtown Whitney titled "The Last Stitch" part of the "Out of the House" exhibition. She performed her resurrection at PS1 now part of MOMA a few days later as "Justine and the Victorian Punks" (the first in a series of living personas). Justine armed with Colette's vision posed as a recording star, fashion designer, inventor & conceptualizer of products - "The Beautiful Dreamer" (Colette) doll, perfume, beautiful dreamer bed, fashions, lps etc... And was the head of the Colette's estate.
Colette Justine
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Other public installation/performances putting closure to a period before Colette's departure for Berlin, were Justine's thrift shop on West Broadway (her beautiful dreamer uniforms and gowns were offered for sale to the public with a window work of that theme), and "Art on Stage" a multimedia event held at Danceteria.
Colette Justine
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In 1997 the "Salon de la Refusee" at the Gerswirn Hotel was viewed both by an art audience as well as random passers-by. Through its windows a Colette mannequin sculpture was installed in the gallery space, along with Colette's new works and objects, that incorporated her life's costumes. Simultaneously, In a show titled Art?fashion, another Colette mannequin sculpture dressed in one of her rushed gowns worn in live performances during her"Nightclubbing"days of the early 1980s was featured at the downtown Guggenheim Museum. Nightclubs continued to be a place of celebration after her opening exhibitions as well as a and showcase for her art. ex; The Palladium 1992, Life Club in 1997 after the opening of Le Salon de La Refusee, The Limelight in 1990, and in 1998 a multimedia production with art work, video installations, and a tableau appearance for the opening to songs co-written with Jacob Engel. 1990& 1998-., Club U.S.A "to celebrate chivalry and good manners".
Colette Justine
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Other shows and highlights of that period concentrated on reaching larger audiences and Colette began using the label "C.I.A. - Colette Institute of Art" and its no 1. Moto - "Fight Terror with Glamor, also " beware of When In Pink ". She presented her C.I.A. (Colette institute of Art) with an installation performance on April 1st at the NYC club" Crowbar". In "Domestic Bliss" (1994), an arresting vision that featured a long pink table with Lumiere plates, could be seen from the streets of Rosenthal's Madison Avenue Rosenthal's Show Room. The Mannequin replacing Colette, was attached to a long table with a train containing at its end a large pile of record albums size artworks from "The Story of my life" series.(78-)
Colette Justine
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In 2008–2009 Colette converted her studio at the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art into a home environment, and began a series of new metaphysical portraits; mostly of friends and colleagues :Alessandra Anderson Spivy, Roger Webster, Anthony Hayden Guest, Katerina Otto Bernstein, Donald Bachlor, Kevin Baker etc.. ; and a few celebrities of her generation; David Bowie, Jim Jarmusch, Bill Murray, Susan Sarandon, Blondie and Richard Gere. the studio was open to the public in spring 2009. In February 2010 Colette exhibited these portraits and her "Street Paintings" at Destination Art Space in an installation : "That's All She Wrote" (a 3-minute music video documenting this transition and putting closure to the tragedy of losing her atelier). For the Windows of Boutique/art space she created a Valentine onsite installation "The Letter" with light blue rushed and torn satin, shredded soft white wig material and a Colette Mannequin sculpture holding "a return to sender" envelope.
Colette Justine
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In 1978 Fiorucci invited her to do an exhibition, which included a sleeping installation performance in the windows of the West 59th Street store in NYC. Soon after, Fiorucci began using live models in the store and Colette's "Victorian Punk Look" became part of the 1980s NYC "Downtown New Wave" world. In 1979 Emilio Fiorucci commissioned her to create a line of clothes for the store. Her "Deadly Feminine Line" was showcased in the windows of the boutique and Colette staged a fashion art performance at the Mudd Club in celebration.
Colette Justine
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Through the nineties Colette continued to seek various settings and stages in which to exhibit. Eighteenth century salon inspired and "Colettesized"artworks were installed in environments created for them:- ex;" Colette goes Uptown "Uptown Downtown gallery" (1995), Eugenia Cucalon (1996) "the House of Olympia persists its way unto reality ", "Me Myself and I", Carol Johnssen, Munich. At the Lowen Palais part of the Starke Foundation in Berlin, she was given her own "Colette Salon". There she periodically appeared and entertained in eighteenth century style, and presented her latest comissined portraits and works of art work of her choice.
Colette Justine
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Other installations incorporating fashion and "Fragments of her life" were -" The "ApARTment" exhibition at HPGRP gallery in the Meatpacking District 2007, with installations within the installation :In one of the corners was an installation work titled "Be bold with new beginnings" featured a Colette mannequin sculpture with long white gloves, viewed from the back looking at the window with a series of white suitcases following her. Other sections displayed racks of clothes, furniture,and art made at different times displayed on shelves or stacked against the walls. The exhibition addressed the nomadic life of the artist, particularly addressing personal concerns at the time and the uncertainties of human existence in general. "The Closet" - at Windows Gallery, Long Island City, reconstruction of the clothes of her closet resembling a thrift shop with street painting leading to it from PS1.connecting the artist history there to the current show.) These shows proceeded the unnounced vacatefrom her loft, that came soon after and were somewhat prophetic. By 2008 Colette had relocated and was awarded a wonderful studio space at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art foundation in Dumbo for a year. She transformed her new atelier into a living space and there was able to begin a new body of works. She travelled to Berlin, to participate "React Feminism" (2008) held at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Early street works and store window installations performances were presented, as well as a live re-enaction of a "Beautiful Dreamer" installation with performance and audios.
Colette Justine
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In 2010/2011 Pavel Zoubok gallery represented Colette's work in New York with a show called "Girl Talk".. And her work has been exhibited and in the collection of his "Collage Center".She continues to present her multimedia works internationally. Due to the current interest in Street Art and the seventies and eighties style and culture, her earlier works are being re-exhibited. Her "Sepia Color Beautiful Dreamer LP" with Peter Gordon (1979) was released on November 9, 2010 by the DFA label. The archival video "Justine and the Boys" (1979) starring Jeff Koons and Richard Prince was presented as part as the "Indomitable women" show in Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010. Her lightboxes, part of her living environment (1972–83) (that Leo Castelli helped to preserve and which was written about by Peter Selz in "Art of our times" and Arturo Schwarz in Poliliti's monograph "Colette - 10 years of work") was shown at the James Graham & Sons Gallery in NYC in an exhibition called "Consider the Oyster" curated by Ingrid Dinter. At Black and White Projects, in a show called "Basic Instinct" curated by Sasha Oykstein, early staged photographs from the 1970s are part of her installation, which also features a larger-than-life image of herself as living doll (wrapped in satin) in her living environment 1978. "La reine soleil" an installation with artworks was showcased at Pavel Zoubok gallery booth "Basel - Pulse art fair" in Miami, December 2010. During the Art show at the Armory, March 2010. she performed The Arrival of Mademoiselle Lumiere at the Pavel Zoubok booth.
Colette Justine
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In 1990 in an exhibition in Munich at Carol Johnssen Gallery "Visits to the Normal World" Colette began to use the name Olympia. It was the first of seven solo shows at that gallery. In 1991 she presented her Colettesized commissioned portraits in "The Aristocrats"; among the portraits of local aristocrats were Leslie and Dedlef Von Waggonheim, Kiki and Eckbert Von Buehlen & Urbach; and an installation featuring "The Unnunciation". The subject Colette as "the Countess Reichenbach" (with her then boyfriend actor Misha Tregor ("Count Reichenbach") a regular at the Kammerspiele theater in Munich). In 1991
Colette Justine