Gary Heidt
Gary Heidt (born Houston, Texas 1970) is a conceptual artist, experimental poet, musician, librettist, literary agent, and co-founder of Lovesphere, a 67-year performance project initiated in 1996,[1] and more recently, the Perceiver of Sound League.
From 1986 to 1988 he was lead singer for Devil Donkey, which also included Susie Ibarra (drums), Erik Amlee (guitar)[3] and Enrique Gualberto Ramirez (bass).
[6] In 1994 he moved to Austin, where he produced the Mammals of Zod CD Kill The Humans which Village Voice critic Richard Gehr dubbed a "masterpiece.
"[7] He returned to NYC and started an improvising collective using the name Mammals of Zod; core members included beatboxer Kid Lucky, Mem Nahadr, Sabir Mateen,[8] Daniel Carter, Lipbone Redding (then known as CitiZen One), Emmallyea Swon-Young, Matthew Heyner (of the No-Neck Blues Band), Gary Miles and Ira Atkins.
"[14] Lovesphere 21 (and subsequent festivals) took place in Greensboro, North Carolina and featured Lawrence "Lipbone" Redding, Mark Engebretson, and guitar virtuoso Eugene Chadbourne.
He represents the Church of the SubGenius, Charles Yu, Benjamin Whitmer, Jeremy Bushnell, William Gillespie, Rob Klara, Jason Henderson and Chris Carter among others.
[22] "Some of Heidt’s poems look a little like the letters from an intense game of Scrabble or a crazed crossword rendered on a canvas, hand-drawn (some blocky and dark, some wispy and tiny) — like the colorful cells of a Chuck Close portrait, where each component functions like a square on a grid, making a big mosaic-like picture of letters and words, one that you can look at as writing or as an image, depending on your distance and frame of mind," said Winston-Salem critic John Adamian.
What is striking about Heidt’s skull-based series is this tension between systems and anarchy; he devises a scrupulously ordered chaos the viewer instinctively seeks to make meaning of — this, through a form simultaneously universal and individual.
[24] Fist of Kindness has been described alternately as "an art rock ensemble masquerading as a country western band"[13] and as "edgy literate Tom Waits-ish alt-country rockers.
OBJECTS was set inside a human aquarium populated by incestuous gentlepeople, a well-trained nursing staff,[33] an AWOL soldier and his amphibious fiancée.
[36] Critic Lana Adler claimed that 'aided by the melodious, sometimes folksy, sometimes ambient, and sometimes ecstatic live music (arranged by Fist of Kindness) and the skilled, nuanced, and passionate singing and movement work of the actors, the viewer moves into what is at once a deeper and more vague process of experiencing the performance as it comes at them.
'[37] Stein scholar Karren LaLonde Alenier called OBJECTS "a troubadour-like entertainment where... music-making, song-singing, odd choreography kicked my subconscious into another realm.
