Oranges
Cliff Hengst, Karla Milosevich, Scott Hewicker, and Kota Uetsu of Oranges.
Oranges is a band comprised of Karla Milosevich, Scott Hewicker, Kota Uetsu, and Cliff Hengst. It is a tribute band to The Fall created for the show, I am Kurious Orange, curated by Anne Colvin at David Cunningham Projects.
I Am Kurious Orange was a collective exhibit designed to inhabit that most elusive of conditions; right place, right time. It rewards its audience with an evolving, challenging stratosphere of reference and multiplicity and requires of its artists and curator to brave the challenges of the inconclusive, the uncertain and the instantaneous. It is a study in re-enactment, motivations to perform, playing out ‘character’ and interlocking narratives all crashing and colliding, importantly, for one night only.
Milosevich accepted the challenge to play Smith with complete dedication, learning to play guitar from scratch and devising a band, which included artists and musicians Cliff Hengst, Scott Hewicker, and Kota Uetsu. On the night of the grand finale the space was elevated to pop history as she and her band, named Oranges for the night, played a tight set of re-interpreted The Fall songs including Mr Pharmacist, Cab It Up, and US 80’s-90’s (from the album Bend Sinister). It reflected in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Bend Sinister: “This choice of a title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life." Milosevich’s practice uses both Nabokov’s and Smith’s discourses to marvellous effect synonymous with this show’s premise: the magical moment, possibility, auditory illusion and allusion, the superstar condition, the fan condition, audience and artist becoming indecipherable.
See the Oranges play live at David Cunningham Projects on YouTube
Read a review of I Am Kurious Orange exhibition, titled Orange Skies by Kevin Killian on SFMOMA's Open Space blog.
Watch Oranges perform live at I am Kurious Orange at David Cunningham Projects
Greens
Greens band: Karla Milosevich, Cliff Hengst, Scott Hewicker, and Kota Uetsu
Greens is a band comprised of Karla Milosevich, Scott Hewicker, Cliff Hengst, and Kota Uetsu.
The group collaborated to form a Scritti Politti tribute band, playing covers. To contrast the band’s name, the members wore all red outfits. They performed as part of Skank Bloc Bologna Number Four, an event hosted by University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).
The opening night of Skank Bloc Bologna Number Four includes a reenactment of Jack Goldstein's Two Fencers (1977) by Laura Glass and Keith Tsang, members of the Cal Fencing Club; a screening of Ostia-an apocryphal depiction of Pier Paolo Pasolini's death starring Derek Jarman-by U.K. filmmaker Julian Cole; the iconoclastic performer Eugene Robinson reading from his new book; and Greens, a Scritti Politti cover band with local artists Cliff Hengst, Scott Hewicker, Kota Uetsu, and Karla Milosevich.
See Greens performing live at BAMPFA
Violets
Violets is Cliff Hengst, Karla Milosevich, Scott Hewicker, and Kota Uetsu
Violets is a band comprised of Karla Milosevich, Scott Hewicker, Cliff Hengst, and Kota Uestu. Together they formed a Siouxsie and the Banshees tribute band to play cover songs. In keeping with their alternating color themes, the band members wore all white when performing as the Violets.
Violets performed live via a series of videos at a poetry event curated by Kevin Killian and David Brazil in Oakland, California in 2010.
Violets played Siouxsie and the Banshees cover songs: Christine, Green Fingers, Kiss Them for Me, and Spellbound. The band created pre-recorded music videos that were shown in between live poetry readings. Kevin Killian was the MC for the event.
See Violets music videos from their show in Oakland, California