Handabbeisser (Blog)

” … ‘Exactly,’ all the noblemen agreed, though they could see nothing, for there was nothing to see. “

[Excerpt from “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Andersen, 1837]

Handabbeisser” (German for: “one who bites off hands“, from the term: ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you‘) is a blog and functions as production diary, sketchbook/portfolio-notes, news page, with occasional interviews included.

It was started in 2012, originally to communicate with a group of homeless youth in Oregon during a collaborative long-term /long-distance interview /blind-photo project (“Each reflection of myself echoes a different emotion at me”).
It is deliberately written in casual language that every average person can understand and relate to, making an effort to avoid “art-lingo” that uses language as status symbol and to create diversion addressing intentionally exclusively a particularly educated audience or one that likes to appear as such. It has been since twice deleted for various reasons and occasionally restarted again.

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: NADJA ナジャ – the Lover’s Flower at 夜想 yaso & parabolica-bis gallery Tokyo

NADJA ナジャ – the Lover’s Flower: Josiane Keller “NADJA – ナジャ – the Lover’s Flow

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: night window and costumes at 夜想 yaso & parabolica-bis gallery Tokyo

夜想 yaso & parabolica-bis gallery window at night: Josiane Keller “parabolica-bis show window 1” (2016) Jos

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: more exhibition pictures from 夜想 yaso & parabolica-bis gallery Tokyo

Even more pictures…. Josiane Keller “parabolica-bis 2” (2016) Josiane Keller “parabolica-bis 3”

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: sneak preview exhibition at 夜想 yaso & parabolica-bis gallery Tokyo – OPENING TONIGHT!

If you are near Tokyo, tonight opening: Josiane Keller “parabolica-bis show – detail 1” (2016) Josiane Kelle

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: setting up Tokyo show at 夜想 yaso & parabolica-bis gallery

Arrived in Tokyo and off to setting up the show at parabolica-bis, opening on the 24th: http://www.yaso-peyotl.com/archives/20

Was wollen Sie von mir ? (2014/16) – theatre poster

theatre poster “Was wollen Sie von mir ?”

ホテル Hotel – other puppets and NADJA – the Lovers’ Flower – dummy books in two different sizes…

Preparing the shows and also finalizing dummy books with photographs from the hotel and a painting “Anemone I” by

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: Double Show in Budapest and Tokyo

ホテル Hotel – Surrogates: Double Show: in Budapest at PH21 Gallery, opening with curator Ágnes Telek–Nay on

ホテル Hotel – Trouble at Cafe Leben – Vladimir should get kicked out

So although the show preparations at Cafe Leben have been behind closed doors or one should say “behind closed curtains&

ホテル Hotel – Nativity scene

A big surprise. Josiane Keller “Nativity scene” (2016) Josiane Keller “Nativity scene 2” (2016) Josian

ホテル Hotel – Jan and Vincent on the sofa

Photo-shoot Jan and Vincent in a dress sitting together on the sofa: Josiane Keller “Jan and Vincent on the sofa”

ホテル Hotel – Vincent in a dress

Vincent in a dress from various Japanese silks with lace: Josiane Keller “Vincent in a dress” (2016) Josiane Kelle

ホテル Hotel – printing for the show – Vol. III – “seven times Molly smoking weed on the graveyard”

More prints, seven times “Molly smoking weed on the graveyard”: Josiane Keller “seven times Molly smoking we

ホテル Hotel – printing for the show – Vol. II

Meanwhile I am printing up my whole budget in ink and photo paper, making a huge stack of small and slightly larger format pri

FLUSH cigarettes poster / Chiaki (2016)

ホテル Hotel – printing for the show – Vol. I

In a bit over a month (or so is the current plan anyway) the first exhibition of documentary work on the hotel is supposed to

ホテル Hotel – Jan and a curtain test at “Cafe Leben”

Just in time for rehearsal start at the “Cafe Leben” Jan has bought a “new” used blue velvet stage cu

Kurze Pause /”Brief Interlude”

KURZE PAUSE / “Brief Interlude” (2016)

ホテル Hotel – It’s time! Pre-rehearsals and Jan’s wrist watch

So now at the Cafe Leben the production of the top secret (for now) play involving Molly as a dancer has started. She is atte

ホテル Hotel – Jan riding an ostrich

Jan’s cafe and particularly stage performances at “Cafe Leben” are famous to be very avant-garde, he seems

ホテル Hotel – Jan philosophizing

At work in his “Cafe Leben” Jan is generally showing a very different side than at home watching TV. There he is h

ホテル Hotel – Jan late at night, still watching TV on the sofa

At times Jan is watching TV til late at night, he is very interested in the commercials: Josiane Keller “Jan watching TV

ホテル Hotel – Jan watching TV on the sofa

Jan from “Cafe Leben” is a philosopher and supports the avant-garde arts by providing in his cafe a stage for vari

ホテル Hotel – Making of Jan from “Cafe Leben” – Vol. II: Jan on the sofa

Jan, owner of “Cafe Leben”, assembled, after having his hair and beard trimmed is taking a break on the sofa, nud

ホテル Hotel – Making of Jan from “Cafe Leben” – Vol. I

Making of Jan, the owner of “Cafe Leben”, where Molly is soon to start rehearsing her dancing role. Josiane Keller

ホテル Hotel – mehrmalige Gotteslästerung (multiple blasphemy) – the sex of the photographer versus the sex of the model from A to F

Finally I finished working over ChoCho’s nude photo session. Doing that I realized, it is, at certain times, irrelevant

ホテル Hotel – a stray dog on the street – Goebbels

Last night Larry took Chiaki and me out for a drink. Larry for some reason these days seems to have a lot of money for play,

ホテル Hotel – fashion Vol. III: delicate luxurious underwear: MISTY’S

And finally, discussing fashion of people in the hotel, we have to drop a word of two about underwear: most lingerie around he

ホテル Hotel – fashion Vol. II: not high end: famous charity fashion houses

Since I posted the high end hotel fashion in the last post I decided to make a special post for the, well, not high end one, t

ホテル Hotel – fashion Vol. I: high end: !EXPENSIVE® boots and “Victorian Expectations”

At times, in bohemian communities, individualism may be expressed in eccentric clothing (not always though.) But some of the p

ホテル Hotel – birthday picnic for ChoCho in the park

So, a number of things happened. Molly had her audition, Starfish badly wanted to come along, but she insisted to go by hersel

ホテル Hotel – night before Molly’s audition – Molly and Starfish by the gas stop at night

Tomorrow afternoon is Molly’s audition, to avoid thinking about it and driving her crazy Starfish took her out. If she g

ホテル Hotel – green shirt – pink shirt

This afternoon someone did laundry, which was hanging outside to dry, in fact: just ONE shirt. In the afternoon it was green,

ホテル Hotel – a bank robbery and police

Ops. More Ops. There was a bank robbery in a branch near the hotel. Police is looking for a man /or women (they aren’t s

ホテル Hotel – making of a red dog

I am planning an ambitious bar scene for “Cafe Leben”, and to avoid that I crawl under the bed in hiding for the n

ホテル Hotel – diamond earrings, an old jacket and Starfish and Chiaki get into a fight (finally!)

Hmm. The day has come. To celebrate Miss Molly’s success with the upcoming audition at “Cafe Leben” our Star

ホテル Hotel – Molly is going to audition at “Cafe Leben”

Rumor has it that Starfish took a couple of the shower pictures and is running through town to advertise Molly’s dancing

ホテル Hotel – Molly’s shower pictures

Molly came up to me the other day, explaining she still needed to earn more money to afford her stay and if I ever needed a mo

ホテル Hotel – Smoking weed on Memorial Day on the graveyard

Memorial Day we took Molly to the graveyard where are some fantastic old tress to climb and somewhere in a secret corner Larr