| Dan Graham has said before that most great art is about humor. In curating “Deep Comedy” with independent curator Sylvia Chivaratanond, Graham has brought to Ballroom Marfa works by more than ten artists variously motivated by the comedic impulses of non sequitur, slapstick, satire and sitcom. Their punch lines aren’t as hard-hitting as the obvious ironies of the 80s and 90s. Nor do the artists attempt to affect gross political or social change by cracking people up. The “deepness” in “Deep Comedy” is in the visceral nature of spontaneous, uproarious laughter as much as it is in the conceptual profundity of subversive humor. |  |
Deep Comedy – Alicia Ritson
Dan Graham has said before that most great art is about humor. In curating “Deep Comedy” with independent curator Sylvia Chivaratanond, Graham has brought to Ballroom Marfa works by more than ten artists variously motivated by the comedic impulses of non sequitur, slapstick, satire and sitcom. Their punch lines aren’t as hard-hitting as the obvious ironies of the 80s and 90s. Nor do the artists attempt to affect gross political or social change by cracking people up. The “deepness” in “Deep Comedy” is in the visceral nature of spontaneous, uproarious laughter as much as it is in the conceptual profundity of subversive humor.
Graham and Chivaratanond’s selection of artists is singular. Fischli & Weiss, Isa Genzken, Jef Geys, Rodney Graham, Christian Jankowski, Japanther, Julia Scher, Roman Signer, Michael Smith, William Wegman, John Wesley, Joshua White and Elin Wikström straddle a number of generational divides and stages of career, from the internationally renowned to the obscure. The common intersection between these artists—working across a range of media that includes photography, installation, video, painting and performance—lies in their responses of disdainful amusement to contemporary life and art practice.
Through the theatrical slant of comedy, the relationship between art and entertainment is palpable in “Deep Comedy.” Graham and Chivaratanond embrace this often-uneasy relationship in a way that brings complexity to the predictable reading of entertainment merely as pop culture fodder for contemporary artists. “Deep Comedy” incorporates television programs by comedy greats as part of the exhibition; re-situated in Ballroom Marfa’s galleries momentarily unshackles the shows from their association with the stifling monotony of suburban home life. Instead, television programming (television comedy in particular) is presented as an active site of cultural engagement and critique.
Clear visual and conceptual strategies translate between artists and comedians. Ernie Kovac’s absurdist “Kitchen Symphony” segments of the 50s compare with Fischli & Weiss’ procession of sausages in their photographic “Wurst Series” of 1979. Andy Kaufman and collaborative duo Michael Smith and Joshua White annex the television infomercial as a viable form for humor in “The Andy Kaufman Show” and Quin Quag, respectively.
The self-consciousness of entertainment—its awareness and assimilation of the audience as well as its strategic self-referentiality—makes for a compelling alliance between art and humor. The artists of “Deep Comedy” question conventions of art’s production, reception and display with particular ardency. Isa Genzken defies the traditional pedestal in Barbecue, adorning it directly with reproductions of masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance and carving out a fire pit at the top for a ceremonial sacrifice of colored dolls. Christian Jankowski’s two films gently, yet thoroughly, invert art world order, documenting the magical transmogrification of museum director to poodle and artist (Jankowski himself) into dove.
While none of Graham’s own art is included in “Deep Comedy,” the show’s attention to the viewer’s role in making meaning manifest is illustrative of Graham’s own interest in means of perception. From his early writings on television to his most recent architectural projects, Graham himself has maintained an interest in inter-subjectivity. His two-way mirror projects create an environment where the viewer becomes cognizant of their own processes of perception while being made aware of others recognizing their own subjectivities. This consequent state of hyper-awareness increases the visibility of systems of power and control that, from the public atrium to the private living room, more generally shape our physical and psychological space.
With their anarchic sensibility, Graham and Chivaratanond make humor the weapon of choice to bring down the (institutional) house. In deference to the deconstructive possibilities of comedy and to the culturally necessary pressure release valve of humor, “Deep Comedy” entices audiences not to tune out from the relentless intensity of today’s sociopolitical climate, but to tune in and hit that volume button—on the comedy channel.
