The final stop of the Texas inflatable suit performance tour began outside Akard Station in Dallas. This is a shot of the suit in its bag with the portable battery pack next to it. Most people do not notice these two objects sitting on the street until the combination of the two results in a huge inflatable sculpture. Rain and strong winds did not stop the performance nor the public. Before suiting up, cameramen from CBS 11 and CW 33 interviewed me about my plans for the Dallas performance. A photographer from the Dallas Observer and Pegasusnews.com braved the wet and windy weather as well.

The Texas performance tour did not have any hiccups. After spending an extended period in Texas during graduate school, it will always fell like one of the places that I can call home. I look forward to the next time I return to Texas with new work. Thank you to all the patrons of the arts in Texas.

You Wear What I Wear hit the streets of Houston starting at Sam Houston Park. Houston is a great city for the arts and I enjoy doing public performances there. As usual for a Friday lunch break, the public was ready for action. The next and final stop on the Texas tour is in Dallas on April 2nd at 12:00 noon. I will start outside of Akard Station (Akard St and Pacific Ave) and then head into the city.

Deborah Cannon of the Austin American-Statesman came out during the performance to snap some documentary photographs. One appeared in the Metro-State section in the Saturday paper. There is also an online slide show at Austin360.com that has more photographs from the performance.

The performance began at the corner of Cesar Chavez Street and Congress Avenue. Due to the SXSW Festival I had to further south on Congress and walk across the bridge. The sun beat down on the street and people crammed the cafes and restaurants. As I made my way toward the capitol I slammed into traffic lights, trash cans, storefront windows, buses and just about everything else. I met some people during the trek and filled the tiny screens of cell phone cameras. It has been almost a year since I performed in Austin in Big Red and was sucked into a parking garage by the wind. This time You Wear What I Wear braved the wind and did not falter once.

Next week I will be performing in Houston, Texas. The performance starts at 12:00 noon at Sam Houston Park on the 19th. Hope to see you there.

Jeanne Claire van Ryzin of the Austin American-Statesman interviewed me about the Austin stop of my Texas inflatable suit tour. As the article title states, the inflatable suit man is returning to Austin. Tomorrow I take You Wear What I Wear to the corner of Cesar Chavez Street and Congress Avenue and the charge into the city. The last time I trucked an inflatable suit to Austin was during the 2009 Fusebox Festival about a year ago. That time I faced my nemesis, strong winds. This time I am prepared with a nearly wind-proof inflatable suit.

Read the article on Austin360.com or click on the picture for a larger image.

News 4 WOAI ran a short segment during the 5:00 newscast about the San Antonio inflatable suit performance. The anchors Randy Beamer and Delaine Mathieu along with Jennifer Broome had a candid discussion about the work and even related it back to previous bicycle performances that I did in San Antonio. I appreciated Randy standing up for the arts and accurately describing my performance in a digestible sound bite without a TelePrompTer.

Transcript:

Randy Beamer: Alright now, this is what I was talking about before. People pretty shocked to see that bouncing around downtown tonight. You might be wondering what it is. Well it’s a guy wearing his inflatable suit. A performance artist, Jimmy Kuehnle, goes around the country performing for different cities, but why?

Delaine Mathieu: Cool, what does it do?

Beamer: Well, he actually got his MFA in sculpture from UTSA here and this is his performance art and the idea is strangers should interact more.

Jennifer Broome: And MFA would be Master of Fine Arts

Beamer: That would be Master of Fine Arts, I’m sorry.

Mathieu: But, what does it do?

Beamer: Well, it doesn’t — It gets you talking and interacting. It’s a performance art.

Mathieu: Like his bike.

Beamer: Yes, there was a bike here a few years back that we found the story on that we did and we — it –

Mathieu: Can’t tell you really what it said. — Not suitable for –

Beamer: Well it was a bike that spelled out a certain word that also got people talking.

FOX 29 sent a reporter and cameraman out to the Main Plaza to cover the San Antonio performance. Anchors Michael Valdez and Mileka Lincoln introduce the work by asking the audience how many times something bright and colorful runs into them. At the end the weather man makes a joke about someone giving the excuse of, “I saw a monster, I swear.” for why they wrecked their car.

Transcript:

Mileka Lincoln: Well finally from us tonight — you can run into a lot of colorful sights in downtown San Antonio.

Michael Valdez: But — Have you ever had one run into you? Meet performance artist, Jimmy Kuehnle, who unleashed his inflatable, You Wear What I Wear, suit on downtown this afternoon. The UTSA grad uses the suit to challenge himself and his unsuspecting audience to break out of their everyday routine. Kuehnle is on a tour of Texas right now, where he says he normally draws a lot of smiles and a lot of pictures.

Jimmy Kuehnle: We can categorize this. This is a fountain. We can categorize those cars. Those are cars we don’t pay a second thought to. But when we see something that — our brains can’t categorize then possibly we might have new thoughts or become vulnerable to new ways of thinking — and this is just one attempt to try to break through that repetitive consciousness each of us have

Valdez: Ah — How about that? Kuehnle says he has been breaking out his inflatable art for the past four years all over the nation. If you watch that whole video, really people are like complete unfazed by it.

Lincoln: Really? – I would have turned and run

Valdez: He like runs — He like runs into people and there just like, “Hm — alright.” — Here’s our Anthony Pittman with Maximum Sports — Antonio.

Lincoln: He would have run.

Anthony Pittman: Honey how did you wreck the car? Well, I thought I saw a monster. I’m serious. Oh, yeah –`

The Texas inflatable suit tour began in San Antonio on Friday. At the chime of noon from the bells of the Cathedral of San Fernando I unpacked my suit in the Main Plaza downtown. Camera crews from the local NBC and FOX stations met me and conducted a brief interview before I inflated the suit. After all questions were answered, I put the suit on and started blazing a trail though the plaza with cameramen in tow. Lunch time on Friday is a great time for performances because everyone is in a good mood. The next performance will be in Austin on March 12. It will start at 1st and Congress at 12:00 noon. Other cities on the tour include Houston and Dallas.

Jen Khoshbin and Paul Lewis of Refarm Spectacle, a San Antonio, Texas collaboration, have an ongoing sound project called Low-fi Toll-free. The only way to hear the art is by dialing the toll free number to listen on your phone. Each month features a new theme and new artists.

The month of October has the theme of Villainy featuring Amalia Ortiz & Chris Wise, Jason Jay Stevens, Semiotech – Amy Khosbin & Mike Clemow and yours truly, Jimmy Kuehnle.

To hear the recordings dial 1-888-733-2761 or visit the Refarm Spectacle at:

http://www.refarmspectacle.blogspot.com/