| The title
Obstacles and Disguises covers an ambiguous political and thoughtful scenario unfolded in video and sculptural installations, a new show by Swedish artist Charlotte Gyllenhammer. Her latest work (‘Observers’ a portrait of the kidnapping and release of the wealthy John Paul Getty III’s son) was shown at Moderna Museet in Stockholm last spring. She continues her investigations in this show by digging deeper into the consequences of mass media coverage of hostages, terrorist violence and political crisis in the activism movement of the 70s. The topic is as relevant today as ever with an increasing fear of terrorism,
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�Olydnad� (Disobedience) 1997/2002, c-print, laminate, aluminum, 80 x 114 cm
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but Charlotte Gyllenhammer deals with it from a historical point of
view. In the 70s, the fear of kidnapping was as strong as the fear of terrorist
bombs is today. Gyllenhammer encourages reflection upon the formation of our
memory and the constitution of our subconscious defense. She tests the thesis
that we are most deeply choked the first time we are confronted with extreme
situations, for example violence. A feeling we later recall, for instance as an
experience from our childhood, every time we face it. This is an effect the
mass media takes advantage of frequently. As eyewitnesses, we find ourselves in
the middle of a dichotomy of being the victim of and being dependent on mass
media at the same time.
In her new
work, Charlotte Gyllenhammer turns to what has become the symbol of where
modern terrorism first proliferated. The floor of the gallery is painted light
blue, which makes the spectator step into another space such as a gymnasium.
The central space discloses two screens opposite one another showing news
broadcast from the hostage crisis at the 1972 Olympics in Munich where Israeli
sportsmen were killed when the police failed to rescue them. At one screen we
see the general public gathering curiously – afraid – surrounded by police. At
the other screen, we are confronted with agents from the German secret service
trying to free the victims. The mission looks like a badly staged B-film in
comparison with today’s advanced technology with timed suspense in television
and proficient killing methods. Only the feeling of fantasy is juxtaposed by
the presence of a personal claustrophobic memory embodied in the vulnerable
position of the child.
In the 70s,
Charlotte Gyllenhammer herself was a child and witnessed such events from a child’s
perspective. The na�ve and sharp vision of the child is a continual topic in
Charlotte Gyllenhammer’s work. In her new work, the child is the recipient
where the interpreter takes that place in her earlier works. The children are
locked up behind a wall of bars, staged at a gym show. Behind the wall of bars,
three children formed roughly in clay are shown exercising. The audience
becomes the spectator looking into the children’s jail by mirroring the screens
of the hostage drama. In the other space of the gallery, a single child is
performing on a trapeze above a blue octagon gym mat, which appears like a
swimming pool. She wears sports pants and a golden chain only. She is a fragile
sports symbol. And the whole gallery becomes a fragile sports scene like the
stadium of the Olympics.
As in
Charlotte Gyllenhammer’s other works the children are staged, objects. But they
employ also as mediators of the fearful political and psychological realities
we have to come to terms with. They are puzzle pieces we have to fit together
to grasp our collective memory of terrifying events. And they function as
warning spots – like our thoughts, the children are frozen clay objects, slowly
drying and alienating our inner space. A feeling of alienation one also suffers
from in front of Charlotte Gyllenhammer’s installation. The construction of a
panic room leaves the witness cold as the one able of committing a scheduled
crime.
Additionally,
the new work consists of four key photographs, TV-size and TV-glossy where
Charlotte Gyllenhammer has positioned a red-haired girl in still images from
the two films from the 1972 Munich drama. The girl becomes a witness to the
tragic event staged by mass media as well as a witness of the whole
installation. She becomes the substituting carrier of our fear filled gaze
looking from the outside at a sacrosanct crime. The gaze of the child is an
image of our state of mind – the child being abused, a metonymy of the society
being abused.
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