Joe Sola will be the officiant for the wedding, which means he will be the voice of the ceremony, the guide for the guests and the celebrant for the couple.


The Studio Visit, 2004-2005, video still

February 2011 blog entry: It already feels as if a fog has lifted regarding the role Joe will play, and its only our second conversation. It feels slightly useless to me now that I spend any time worrying about things like the coming together of the aesthetics, the officiant's interaction with the couple and the guests, when/where the dinner is and the flow of the day. I chose all of these artists for a reason and I admire and trust them - I pleasantly reminded myself of that while talking to Joe. He pulled open the dark curtains in my brain by simply saying that he would work between and around the other artist's ideas - it will be a part of his work to play off of the structure we create for him. In other words, it doesn't matter where the table/s are and how the guests move through the space and what the timing is like - Joe will be privy to all the relevant conversations about these things over the months ahead; his subsequent ideas/words will be the glue that binds it all together. But to put it simply, his role will be how to structure the monologue/dialogue with Jon and Liz and the guests.

Every time we meet something else will become clear. This process is certainly not boring.

Also this same evening, over a lovely glass of wine, Joe, Tif and I had the pleasure of meeting Linda Williamson, a freelance writer who is interested in the machinations of Get Hubbied, perhaps enough to write about it. Her questions about this project's process, its origins and its eventuality, and then my resulting answers served to underscore my own interest in the whole thing and belief in its ability to captivate, entertain and communicate.

Way back in 2010 - the meeting with the former couple. I do think it has relevant content that extends over into this new improved status:
Wow, if I meet with any more brilliant and exciting people this week I think I'll implode. Joe's meeting was atop the Kimmel one on the same day. I barely had time to walk the dog, and get some refreshments for Joe before he was walking through the door. There we were again. Liz, Jon and I, explaining our intentions, our wishes, our fog and our clarity. It was a mash-up of personality that, again went incredibly well. I was chuffed with myself for bringing them all together I admit. There is a certain satisfaction with watching people ignite each others imaginations.

Joe listened patiently as we got our bearings and repeated ourselves but then got into the grit of our thinking on the topic at hand, which is the verbiage of a wedding, the ceremony's crux, the statements to each other and the organization of such moments. 'Teetering', a word that came up early in our talk, is what I see as the goal to seek. We want to be subversive, and funny and prod the structures that be, but at the same time to embrace the actual happening - the two people committing publicly to each other in front of their near and dear.

Joe is the perfect fit for this teeter in my estimation. I have seen his performance work, and his skill as an entertainer is as strong as his skill as a pusher of boundaries. The comedy he controls that taps into the tragic or uncomfortable for a second (or much much longer), crosses back into comedy again; this a talent the likes of a symphony conductor. You, the audience, are awakened to the place beyond comedy, and are (hopefully) awakened to the line he has crossed and come back from with humor and a solid gaze. His work reminds me of Buster Keaton mixed with David Mamet; Henry Miller mixed with Betty Boop, or cowboy movies mixed with kareoke. There's the teetering, and the skill in knowing just when you're about to go too far - to control the room, and know your goal. In this case, the work will be a dialogue with Jon and Liz, through which will form a solid notion - a ceremony paying attention to the couple and their deep affection for each other and the witnesses, but also prodding at the structural norms of weddings that people repeat blindly.

There were so many ideas that came out of our talk, I dare not say. It would lead or mislead. Suffice it to say there were mentions of power-point, legal documents becoming characters in the ceremony and the norm wedding sped up and then unveiling the un-norm, but truer self. It will be a dialogue worth checking in on. Again, Liz and Jon were pushed into talking about things not in their normal dialoguing. It may be uncomfortable at times, but I hope they feel comfortable with that.


But even better, these three drawings of Joe's I find particularly relevant to Get Hubbied: the missile drawings re: the conversation about the conflict between wanting to get married and not knowing why you'd want to get married: a yes and a no. We've been talking about using text on the wedding garments themselves announcing that conflict. Head Exploding- well, isn't that obvious.

Yes Missile 2010, watercolor and pencil on paper, 30 x 24"

No Missile 2010, watercolor and pencil on paper, 30 x 24"

Head Exploding 2010, watercolor and pencil on paper, 22 x 24"

Joe works in a variety of mediums including video, watercolor, performance and drawing. In each case, he evokes the surreal and humorous aspects of everyday existence and its representations. Taking on a range of social norms, from manhood to the idea of the artist, himself, he asks us to pause and consider how we expect things to be. In his work for New Editions, Joe explores the possible dreamscapes of an infant, presenting a hilarious but astute rendition of one possible “sea of calm.”

Joe Sola’s most recent exhibitions are: Hard Targets: Masculinity and Sport at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art 2008-9, Mixed Signals, at the Cranbrook Museum of Art (2009), The Studio Sessions, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (2009), Vancouver Biennale, Vancouver, BC. (2009-2011). He is represented by Blackstone Gallery in New York, Hilary Crisp in London, and The Happy Lion in Los Angeles. Reviews of his work can be found in ARTFORUM, Artforum.com, Art on Paper, Art Papers, ArtUS, Frieze, LA times, the New York Times and the New Yorker.