The Spectacle of Today
Candice Madey
The spectacle of today’s media is dominated by imagery of war and celebrity. The most subversive images might include such atrocities as a photograph of Drew Barrymore without her make-up, stripped of her red carpet status. Truly subversive and grotesque images of war rarely exist (of the Thomas Hirschhorn vein) because, although freedom of speech is presumably preserved at the constitutional level, media practices censorship and most American soldiers are shown as gentle do-gooders. One rare exception was the shocking leak of Abu Gharib photographs, and the images are no doubt etched even deeper in our collective memories as the politicians practically stand to defend these tactics. The cloaked naked man, arms outstretched, testifies to the immense power of a single image to provoke the ordinary, complacent American to question the intentions of our authority. Artists as activists and as image makers have the unique ability to simultaneously probe the powers that be and present information to a captive audience. Foe example, Richard Serra’s work "Stop Bush" in the Whitney Biennial effectively uses the Abu Gharib photograph’s iconic status to incite a modern-day call to arms.
"COUP," an exhibition at Weiss Pollack Galleries, questions the media saturation of our times, and the effect on the individual. The exhibition is aggressive and confrontational, presenting work by 13 male artists, with an underlying militaristic theme. Upon entering the galleries, the viewer is confronted by Dr. Schwangerschaft Sunterbrechung by Eric Watson, a black and white sketched silkscreen of the torso of a man aiming his shotgun at you and Eric Payson’s Paramedia West Virginia a large-scale lightbox installation documenting the West Virginia miner’s tragedy along with the Mountineers football team winning the Sugar Bowl as both unfolded on TV. Alfredo Martinez’s 23 mm Anti-Aircraft Gun, a 10 foot high sculpture of found objects made to replicate the weapon to exact specifications, is aimed to fire. (Having worked for a Belgian arms dealer, Martinez knows his goods.) In these works, we are assailed, but by whom?
Lee Wells, whose body of work consistently unites his proficiency in painting with significant social responsibility, offers a gentler counterpoint to the other more aggressive works in his large painting, "The Drawing Class," in which a squad of U.S. soldiers quietly strategizes in a cloudy haze. The stark anonymity of the soldiers and of their intentions is problematic; the scene is stripped of all the contextual information the media would generally provide to facilitate easy passing of judgements. The same can be said of Rodney Dickson’s painting, Kill Them All, and Let Buhda Sort Them Out. A landscape of captors and their captives is reduced to stick-figure status, leaving nationalities and borders obscured. As an American accustomed to media images in which right and wrong, and good and bad is always clearly communicated, these ambiguities are at once troubling and liberating.
Critical Art Ensemble includes a video currently in the Whitney Biennial entitled Evidence, which brings to light the futility and wasted resources of our government’s war on terror. CAE member Steve Kurtz is currently being charged for mail and wire fraud after charges of bioterrorism were rightfully dropped. CAE’s biotech projects utilize forms of tactical media, technology and science as an artful affront to big business and the art world. Kurtz, if convicted, stands to serve up to 20 years in prison. (For more information go to http://www.caedefensefund.org)
Allan D. Hasty’s works explores themes of false perceptions, not in the mass media, but in the discourse of art history. His appropriated portrayal of Modiglini’s reclining nude addresses the spectacle of art, and particularly the male gaze. Probing sacred and iconic images of art is in some ways the most difficult attack in the exhibition, sharply reminding us than even art should monitor its own intentions and bears a responsibility to the people.
In an era of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear proliferation, an individual feels disarmed and powerless in the face of governmental and media forces. Two powerful allies are our freedom of speech and The Freedom of Information Act, powerful rights that dissidents and average citizens alike should exercise and defend.
Bloodless coups can exist by infiltrating and engaging power structures in a battle of brains and information.
Coup features artists Critical Art Ensemble, Hackworth Ashley, Rodney Dickson, Allan D. Hasty, Stewart Home, Emil Memon, Alfredo Martinez, Shannon McGregor, Eric Payson, Joaquin Segura, Samuel L. Saunders III, Eric Watson and Lee Wells and is on view at Weiss Pollack Galleries in Chelsea through May 20th.
