Allow me to take you back to 1992. We see… in the shades of an industrial dusty space on a raw concrete floor, whitewashed walls and just a few windows to attain some daylight…a big man on bare feet, in a black suit, playing powerful on ever so small musical instruments, with big fingers on tiny piano keys. He interacts with a child, who seems to be delighted to entrance his world. The location is the ground floor of an old Dairy factory, in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, which has become an artist initiative squatted by its inhabitants. The artists cleared out their studios to make space for seven British Performance artists for them to be able to do their work.

1992. De Melkfabriek, 's-Hertogenbosch

On two days, from 16 – 20 hrs, durational performances are playing simultaneously in the whole of the large stone and concrete building, windows in steel frames, most of them broken. The wind blowing through the cracks and open doors where the performances are taking place.

Imagine the sound and movement, looking at one work while hearing the echoes of another. Getting aware of deep intention and silence of concentration while walking the tiled steps with rusty edges, up and down the factory. No distracting ring tones.

During this group show Great Britain Performances I met Brian Catling for the first time. We wrote letters and made telephone calls to arrange the invitation, and I saw him in a picture which he sent to me for the catalogue we made. In this picture he has a thread above his mouth with loads of little threads hanging from it with little paper labels attached to it, as if a different mouth. His eyes shut yet also covered by two small round pieces of cardboard.

The image made me curious to meet him. He arrived later than the others, coming from a show in Berlin. I remember to rent the house next doors for the artists to stay over, forgot to make his bed and have since then wondered how he slept without sheets and blankets. He told me not to worry. While running around to make sure the other artists were all fine with their materials, spaces and needs, he found his way. I performed as well and only heard testimony of his piece, it had been mesmerizing.

1994. Hide Park, London.

On my way to New York for a residency, I search for the Serpentine Gallery. I decided to make a stop on my way to America to see Brian Catlings’ show. Amid the park, I hear strong knocking, in a rhythm. The large man, again in his black suit and on bare feet, knocks, with a stone in his mouth, on all the windows of the glass doors, around the gallery. Tok… tok… Tok… Looking through the glass I see tables arranged in a rectangle, white pages on top of them, neatly arranged. Later when entering the gallery, they appear to be torn out pages with indecipherable writing. Poetry carrying the haunted atmosphere of the large figure, mouth-knocking.

1999. Were you there?

Back in the Netherlands. Performances set up in the decorum of the city of
‘s-Hertogenbosch, at whatever location the artists prefer. 16 International artists, invited by Joan Jonas and me, came to the city to create their work. In that time communicating worked via letters, faxes and telephone calls to arrange everyone’s location, props and timing. It all worked out perfectly. Spread over a day and over the city, performances were made. Roi Vaara started in front of the Museum at 9:00 in the morning, building a chimney with white stones around him smoke coming from it when he was finishing his work. I ended the day of performances with my work at 23:00 hrs. in an industrial shed, just outside the city, singing an Italian love song, as a lullaby before going to sleep. In between those hours there had been performances in inner and outside spaces, in a glass window of a warehouse, in a small living room bordering the street, in a gallery and Brian performed around 5 o’clock and chose a boot to row through the canals, underneath the arches, responding to the medieval rests of the city. He, his body became extremely, utterly cold.  He then came up with a plan.

2001. Wolf & the Winter - February

Meanwhile De Melkfabriek, the old dairy factory in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, had been renovated and became a dedicated to artists- territory, to live and work, legal and with support of the community. I was back from moving away and again living and working in this building. While looking for vivid environment and more experience and discussion about performance art, I invited Brian to be guest curator of a performance event in our building. He said yes, but only if I joined the Groupe and was one of the named performers. And there was no technology. Each performer only used what they could carry in.
 
So Brian soon came up with his concept and the names of artists he would like to gather. This must have got stuck in his mind after his experience in the boat in the city in 1999. “In medieval Europe. January and February were called the season of the wolf. The cold would drive them from the sanctum of the forest into the townships to forage for food and shelter. We, a group of solo performance artists, have taken their name, coming together in different places to make a pack.”

Imagine:

The street in front of De Melkfabriek is cordoned off, Aaron Williamson works there. He uses old wooden furniture and sharpens it with a knife, the legs of a stool get pointed this way. He sits on an old oak bench, wears a strange hat, formed like a funnel. His performance scene is in a small spotlight, his work will last all evening, it is dark outside. The audience walks through this atmosphere and scene and passes his performance before entering the building. They now enter the same space as where we were in 1992, the concrete, dusty floor and the whitewashed walls. It is also darkish inside this industrial room downstairs in the former factory. There is only one spotlight burning. The public awaits the first performance.

A creature, dressed in a white clay covered dress, lightens some candles on the floor and moves in circles, close to the walls, around the audience. We hear the rustle of the costume; we discern the animal like movements and see some revealing of the person in the twilight. It surrounds us, takes us away to an area with other rules, other images and understandings than the ones we are familiar with. This is Denys Blacker, performance artist from Madremanya, Catalunya in Spain. Then silence falls.

While looking around we see on the side of the room, in the dark, a person, looking like a man, with a hat on, sitting on a chair. The person looks down, face covered in clay. Waiting.

Then the door opens, on the left in the back of the space. A screaming tall figure enters the space, he wears another person on his back and talks, shouts, and unintelligible language forceful into the space. He makes circles and moves aside from the audience. He keeps on shouting. As if, the person on his back and shoulders… is he or she a burden or an alter ego? He stumbles around, waving with his right arm and hand with a lantern, time ticks. Then with as much sound as he entered the space, he leaves the room by the same door, we hear him with stamping feet and shouting on the stairs. This is Brian Catling performing.

Again, the door opens, a young woman enters the space. She pulls a rope, her figure and posture charismatic, she is in ultimate concentration. At the end of the rope, there is a bronze baroque chandelier attached, is she pulling it or is she attached to it? Time slows down, our looks become gazes, don’t blink your eyes, you will miss out on the forceful image. This is Kirsten Norrie performing, our youngest wolf, restless, always on the move, trying to find the best props in the new surroundings, to support and express her imagery.

Then it is my turn, I move with my chair to the spotlight. The clay on my face has dried, and hurts, it has burst, made little cracks. I feel the concentration of the audience, which is silent, expecting. I touch my face, it’s a hard surface, I scratch some clay and hear the noise its making, I scratch harder and harder, the clay comes off and becomes dust and my face becomes free of the mask. I sing, although liberated, it is a sad song, describing the changes of life and never, not being able to hold on to the moment, everything passes. The song is a whisper to connect via a sensitive dialogue with the members of the public. I leave the room.

Aaron enters the hall from the street, he is wearing a thick coat against the cold. The chair with the pointed legs is on his head. He looks like an image from the paintings of Hyronimus Bosch. He pools his face in strong masks and his body looks like tormented, twisted, he expresses sound, not sure where that comes from. Aaron Williamson is profoundly deaf, when he sings or speaks it is hesitant, I think because he cannot hear it. Then Aaron leaves the space, and the audience is left alone.

After washing and clearing our bodies, taking of our wolf skins, getting back in our everyday costumes we enter the space and start talking to the audience. It is then that the romantic idea of travelling as a pack and making performances together, arises. And Brian and I decided to make the Wolf In The Winter a set pack.
Later when everybody has left to go to their home countries, I crawl into my bed in the studio, startled by the extra leg of the person Brian wore on his back underneath my blankets.

Performance as a way to make art

Performance, as a medium to make images in art, differs from sculpting, painting or making installation, because it is, in this case, non-materialistic. Therefor it is par excellence ideally suited for travelling, for working together ánd to interact. Performance artists are the nomads in the art world, mostly stripped of money and possession… that is on stage, it is of no importance. They are shaping their work on tour, light of luggage, packed with imagination and taking their body as their material. A fee and a photographer present at location. Because of this character the form is likely to get an international character, it is so easy and cheap to travel, to meet other artists with the same fascination. Find out about extremely different cultures while the templates to communicate are based on the same imaginary language. Be free of the burdens or rut of daily life and escape for a little while. Travels can be quickly arranged, there is no material holding us back. Performance artists meet in a scene, where the action takes place. Mostly the events differ hugely in their content, in the way performances are being made, conceptual, anecdotical, symbolical, ritual. I had not felt so deeply connected to other performers as I did now, during the event of Wolf & the Winter. It felt as if we all drew from a same subconscious well to make our work, no words were exchanged for the works we would make. Sometimes just a structure to make sure every one’s work could shine and be seen in time. The presentation of our performances together was lifting us all up and the audience. YES, we did escape from the forest to make a pack, as wolves we took the audience along to reflect on our dreams, visions and undercurrents.

After this event several occasions followed. We went to Glasgow and performed in a back room. A new idea arose to invite one or more guest wolves, to keep our pack vivid. After Glasgow we went to Stuttgart (2002) for a larger event which I was able to set up while teaching at the Akademie der Bildende Künste in Stuttgart.

Let me take you there.

It is hard to image now that time was slower, more gaps could be filled with fantasy. Photographers printed their photographs or had them printed, the documentation material always became physical. Digital cameras and back-ups were already in vision. Times were on the move and changing.

Die Wölfe - Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart Germany

Denys Blacker, Brian Catling, Kirsten Norrie, Aaron Williamson, Anet van den Elzen
Guest artists: Ralf Wendt, Jessie Kleemann, Kurt Johannessen, Verena Wunderle  
A structure of five evenings of performances.

Day 1: Wolves performing one by one in the spotlight, Ralf Wendt and Verena Wunderle as guests in this setting. Day 2: all performers in a group setting, performing together and responding to one another in an intuitive group work. Day 3: Solo Jessie Kleemann. Day 4: Solo Kurt Johannessen. Day 5: Solo Anet van den Elzen.

So here we have arrived, the pack as formed in ‘s-Hertogenbosch with new guest-wolves. Ralf Wendt, an audio and performance artist from Halle, former East Germany was invited by Brian. His contribution to this event wolfish enough to become a member of the group. Jessie Kleemann, Inuit woman and artist, from Greenland, living and working in Nuuk and Copenhagen. We saw her work in ‘s-Hertogenbosch in 1999 during Were you there? She performed in deep concentration, moving like an animalistic creature totally one with nature, enormous controlee over her body, acting after meditation, knowledge and strong connection to her people and their ancient culture. A bone in her mouth stretching her cheeks, black striped face, partly naked. Kurt Johannessen, from Bergen Norway. Nordic Scandinavian performance artist, quiet, calm, much in control of his actions, using his long body and its’ specific form language in the staccato way he moves it, mostly subtle and towards gently communication with the public, Nordic poetry in a black suit and on bare feet. Verena Wunderle, one of my students from the Aka who had made a costume with very long sleeves, almost hanging on the floor when she walked. Tender, hesitant, young student wolf. Allard Willemse, a photographer from the Netherlands came with us to take photographs of our works. He had done that brilliantly at our first gathering in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.

Die Wölfe

In the beautiful grand dome room of the Württembergischer Kunstverein at the sides on the benches the public is seated. The room is in twilight. With wonderful acoustics and large space for performance work. Denys opens the show, with a flashlight she shines into her own face and connects to a public member, are you here? Poetic performances were being created in the following days, with a hard or rough edge, bacon on a face, tar and feathers, yellow painted faces and a Stanley knife, and a person with long sleeves being lifted by two other female wolves. Works and images fluently running through and besides each other. Running in circles, screaming, naked Jessie and bending over Kurt, losing mustard seeds from the pockets of his suit. The finish of all days in a requiem in long white dress, body and face liberated from a harness of plaster, the song escaping from my mouth.

I try and remember what the beauty was of our meetings. The guest artists present and invited were always a surprise, no websites then, stories went mouth to mouth. Images were made of people beforehand with little information and exciting stories heard of. Every one of us wolves were looking out for more of us, when we were travelling or joining festivals abroad. Were we, Wolves, anarchistic, outspoken, and bending rules? We were inexhaustible in searching for new, untrodden paths. Kicking against settled art and aversive of coloring within the lines. We were wild, proud to be wolves instead of tame dogs. But also, we were hopeful and trusting each other to lend the shoulder needed to climb. Not many words were spoken to make our work. We’d just get dressed in our wild animal furs and perform, meet in the arena.

Meanwhile lives went on, wolves were settling, having concubines, getting married or divorced, sometimes cuddling up to each other, in search of warm skin and breath. Other wolves were having children, getting PhD’s and steady jobs. We could see each other’s changes, getting older and still were hungry for meetings and gatherings, temporarily escaping from daily life and bringing this to it as a live elixir, shining on our existence. Very beautiful to see each other’s work evolve.

2003 Good days bad days…

Jessie Kleeman invited the wolves to perform in Nuuk and Sisimiut in Greenland.
Jason Lim from Singapore was our guest for the North. I felt strongly that he would have a connection with Jessie. I saw his performance in Gdansk, in Poland where he powdered a room with sweet smelling babypowder, leaving the public in a mist. Sarah Simblet, Brian’s wife, also an artist and sharp eye for images and capturing them, came to document our performances and adventures on video.

We all met in Copenhagen and travelled to Nuuk the next day, where Jessie awaited us and took care of our beds and living spaces for the following ten days. Being North, end of April, beginning of Mai, there is no darkness outside. Day and night are lit. Curtains of the hotel were not darkening the room, I lost track of time, day or night, when to be hungry and when to sleep. Saw husky’s in the garden beneath my room, mean dogs…Nuuk is a bit of a sad city, drunk people laying besides the streets in the lit night. Imagine that Greenland was the land of the Inuit, the original inhabitants, living quietly until the invasion by Denmark of the western world. Inuit living of what the land and the water had to offer, no salt or sugar in their systems. Now I walk through the city of Nuuk and see that bakers bake with a lot of sugar, that alcohol is being sold and people old and young are tempted to drink it.
 
The day after we arrive, we are invited on a boot trip on to the glaciers, passing by several Islands and stopping at one. We might even see whales this time a year. We stopped at a small piece of land, surrounded by water, with a little church and only a few wooden houses, stockfish on racks in the gardens. Denys is gathering long strips of seaweed to use them in her performance that night. We got back in time with a large sack of shrimp, well arrived in Greenland, ready to perform.
 
The room of the cultural center is filled with audience. In the middle of the benches there is a space to perform. Indigenous people with their children, have come to see our performances. They seem very open minded and curious to see what we will do. Jessie opens the festival with a film and performance creating the link to her people. In the film she jumps of an ice floe into the water, as if this action has been on her mind for a very long time. How strong can a human being be, in water so cold that it only holds animals?

[groenland]
 
Aaron performs with a big block of ice, on his bare skin. Kirsten burns candles, stuck on her skin like a necklace, with superglue, tearing her skin after the performance to get the candles of. Brian covered his entire head with shaving foam to erase it afterwards, the foam like snow in Greenland, so white so intense white. Ralf eating wolfskin, and I transformed into an indigenous woman, using some of the rituals, learned that the Inuit people created song for almost everything they wanted to tell each other. I invented song to bridge the gap, from me, the west, to them, the north. Denys closed all the performances and had the entire audience, and herself laughing, by throwing the long slaps of seaweed into the public.
 
After Nuuk we travel to Sisimiut, a northern little village, where we stay in sort of a school, educational center. Where people from Greenland are taught the old rituals and habits of the Inuit. They learn how to fish, how to build an igloo, how to survive in nature. Therefor they are on an island nearby. We go with small very fast boots to this island, eat fish just caught and filleted, unsalted, so pure, cold from the water. We there perform outside, with the whole group and find a way to create a dialogue with the people, surprised as they are to see our performances, their attitude open to enjoy.

Afterwards we have dinner with them, cooked in the shed with a simple stove. Potatoes and cooked fish. We sing with them and tell stories with hands and feet and adapted English. Life and work and getting to know the people all flow together.
 
When I arrived in Greenland, I was pregnant, just about ten weeks. After returning from the performances on the island I was bleeding and had to go to hospital. In the village there was a small hospital, with only three doctors. I was told after an echo that the embryo was outside the womb and therefor had no chance to survive. Best to have it taken away, was the advice, so I was in a better state to travel. And there in this enormously white covered with snow landscape Greenland, there was this kind gynecologist from Soudan, a black man with tattooed stripes on his cheeks. He explained to me after the operation what had happened when I was anesthetized.

Sometimes thinking back these contradictory memories, the beauty and the pain, help romanticizing and softening reality. I returned to the place where we were staying and where the wolves had cooked a beautiful meal to spend the evening together. I wore a t-shirt of my husband saying good days, bad days, which made Brian laugh. All coincidence. We had a warm meal together, where Jason chanted the chant of his Chinese grandmother and Denys chanted a Buddhistic chant. Aaron sang an Irish song and Brian spoke. All wolves carried the heartfelt feeling of support. Being away from home this felt warm and cordial.
 
What I mean to say is, we wolves, Wolf In The Winter, support each other. We have each other’s back. We kept on meeting each other. In ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) out on the streets, In South London Gallery, in LADA (living Art Development Agency) In La BisBal d’Empordà in Catalunya in Spain, in Halle, Germany and in Sventu Gheoghe, Transylvania, Romania. Our last tour in England, via Modern Art Oxford, to Dorchester Abbey and then Fierce Festival in Birmingham became the crown on our work.
 
In my understanding, we never chose an easy way out. Grasping any opportunity to create images, physical images, to attack, to hurt, to move, to laugh and to disturb, not shying away from physical proximity.
 
Because we, we are Wolf In The Winter.
 
Anet van den Elzen
Texel, The Netherlands,
June 2022