Dan Graham’s 1984 video piece, titled Rock My Religion, is a 50-minute montage that offers a spread of imagery ranging from pre-revolution American settlements to evangelical religious revivals, to sunbathing hippies, to contemporary hardcore punk rock mosh-pits. Initially, these clips come in quick succession, with no apparent interest on Graham’s part in establishing any form of narrative structure. Different video and audio fragments that present various historical eras, cultural epicenters, and pop punk icons weave in and out of each other relentlessly, injecting the viewer with a monumental dosage of cultural information. From one minute to the next, we are plodding along the muddy lanes of a 17th century village, then staring up at Jerry Lee Lewis, dripping with sweat, banging on a piano with his shoe. Graham’s overwhelmingly diverse flood of footage is punctuated by low-budget text scrolls, which are often white block letters moving in front of an image, or else a solid black or red back ground. The text usually describes specific events or states philosophies relating to the topics of faith, worship, rock ’n’ roll, and American youth. The artist increases the risk of total disorientation by adding voice-over or sung lyrics to the scrolling text, which have no direct link to the written words.
After the first fifteen minutes or so, all the connections Graham is orchestrating begin to clarify. Early in the video he documents the organization of religious fanatics known as “The Shakers,” who would fall into rapture-induced comas and shake violently to announce the presence of the Holy Spirit in their bodies. Given this information, we are then confronted with footage depicting this same sort of ecstatic seizure in modern rock ‘n’ roll environments. The look on each movement’s participants’ faces—the eyes closed, the lips parted, the brow slightly furrowed as though expecting an answer from God at any moment—is practically identical. At one point Graham makes a particularly direct association by presenting visual content of an elderly crowd of churchgoers tossing and swaying with each other, that is then overlaid with a song by LA hardcore band, Black Flag, with remarkable synchronicity.
As the video progresses, each successive image or audio fragment comes with increasing familiarity. Graham’s montage finally establishes a direction to its movement, which seems to trace the development of American counter-culture identities through the combined powers of intense physical exertion and crowd-fueled delirium. He draws a connection between the loss of oneself by way of fanatical worship practices and the sublime displacement that sex-starved teenagers sought after in the thunderous drone of the 1960s rock concert. Graham isolates music and rhythm, and specifically the movement that they inspire, as the common binding in each of the cultural or religious factions that he imparts. The video feels much more like a documentary in the middle section, as he describes, in noticeably more coherent juxtapositions of text, imagery, and narration, the introduction of the guitar into worship services, and then the eruption of gospel music in African American communities. Graham suggests that the evolution of the church as an energetic social gathering that involved wild, redemptive dancing is what laid the foundation for rock ‘n’ roll.
Graham continues in this documentarian style a deeper exploration of the rock ‘n’ roll phenomenon of the 50s and 60s. He puts a lot of focus on the sexual liberation that accompanied this defiant new musical style, illustrating its importance with several minutes of Jim Morrison in tight leather pants, strutting in front of an incapacitated audience. His attention to this aspect of rock culture casts a new light on rock’s roots in religious fanaticism. It appears that throughout history humans have had a need for an aggressive response to the sexual energy that is pent up inside of them, especially in societies with rigid moral guidelines in place, such as America since the time of the Puritans. Graham points out that to American youth, the rock star represented the unrepentant sinner who demanded to receive his ecstasy in this life instead of waiting for salvation in the afterlife. This immediate gratification of course meant sex, which in this way took on an angelic quality; the pure, sacred benevolence of angels was replaced by a notion of pure sexual feeling. Patti Smith says late in the video that rock and violence must always coexist. Here, violence stands for all the obstructed energy that was seeking a way out in pre-revolution era religious rituals, up through Black Flag concerts.
Just when the video seems to tie everything together, Graham inserts an odd five-second gap in the tape, after which there is a brief description of Patti Smith falling off a stage and breaking her neck, then returning after a few months in a neck brace and continuing to perform. The piece ends abruptly here, leaving the viewer in the dark with a combination of the startlingly brutal report of Smith’s accident and an uplifting symbol of righteous perseverance, which seems to contextualize all 50 minutes of footage into a radical celebration of the vehemence of human nature.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
John Stezaker: Beware the Black and White
In John Stezaker’s 2006 collage piece, Untitled (Film Portrait), the artist has combined two 40s-era, black and white film stills along a diagonal axis, to unite two unrelated people as a single human form. The axis along which these images meet cuts at approximately an 80 degree angle from top to bottom, just right of the center of the frame, leaving the left side slightly larger. As in many of Stezaker’s pieces, the two bodies being joined are of opposite genders. The male, residing on the left side, appears to be seated, with one arm likely resting on his knee. He is dressed in a checked shirt, a light, solid-color vest, a rich, dark tie—which I assume must be red—with diagonal stripes, and a thick tweed blazer. The imagery behind the man is out of focus and therefore abstracted, but the play of bright light on the man’s shoulder and on the tips of his hair, as well as the absence of any furniture or recognizable architecture within the frame, suggest an outdoor setting. The right side of the frame presents a young woman with dark, wavy hair, leaning toward the camera, resting on her elbow, with one hand placed neatly on her forearm. She is dressed in a shimmering, sequined blouse or gown, and is wearing eye shadow, mascara, and dark lipstick—all of which suggest evening attire. The background is out of focus here as well, but the light and the presence of furniture imply an indoor setting, and the woman’s attire as well as the hard-edged shadows on her face further indicate that her scene is taking place at night.
At first glance, the face appears to be complete, without any interruption. The angle at which Stezaker combines the images lines up very closely with the angle at which the two figures’ heads are cocked. Stezaker carefully matches up key facial features, such as the top of the head, the curve of the chin, and with perfect precision, the edge of the top lip. With these particular joints so firmly in place, the other parts of the face, and certainly the bodies, that don’t line up so exactly are forgiven, or simply overlooked. The real kicker, of course, that gets the slip on our critical eye right from the start, is that these two figures’ eyes happen to be looking in exactly the same direction. With that, a single, complete form is instantly established in one, common 3-Dimensional space. The man on the left gracefully glances across the divide to the person on the woman’s left, calling her attention.
The work’s striking unity is not achieved simply through the precision of Stezaker’s alignments, or through the level of physical coherence he achieves in the combined space. The combination of the figures’ bodies in this piece makes almost no sense at all: the man’s right hand seems to teleport from the bottom left corner of the frame over to the right side, to rest delicately on the woman’s forearm, which itself extends across the axis, into the man’s chest cavity. But the line of her forearm is carried on in the folds of the man’s vest. Unity is established also in Stezaker’s attention to color and texture. There is an obvious correlation in the woven quality of the man’s tweed and the woman’s sequins; the light shade of the woman’s chair is picked up in the man’s shirt and the glare on his shoulder; the contrast of the smoothness of her bare arm against the grainy chair is repeated with the man’s smooth vest against his tweed.
These more abstract parallels provide some access to what I assume Stezaker intends to do with this work. He is upsetting our confidence in our discernments by pulling similarity out of the unexpected places. While often this act yields visual abstractions with beautiful formal complexity, one cannot deny that the artist intends to deal with the complexities of human character. By selecting stills from the 1940s, Stezaker is working with distinct, culturally familiar archetypes for each gender—sexual confusion was not a common topic in the popular media of this era. But the striking harmony of the split face, and particularly it’s furtive, knowing, rather comfortable expression, tears down the idealized separation and authorizes the exploration of a much stranger and deeper complexity to human nature. But the collapse Stezaker is enacting in this piece does not only address the historically unenlightened cultural standards of pre-1960s America, it functions as a reminder to exercise a certain amount of distrust when encountering all information presented in black and white, even, and perhaps especially, when encountering typically trustworthy visual information.
At first glance, the face appears to be complete, without any interruption. The angle at which Stezaker combines the images lines up very closely with the angle at which the two figures’ heads are cocked. Stezaker carefully matches up key facial features, such as the top of the head, the curve of the chin, and with perfect precision, the edge of the top lip. With these particular joints so firmly in place, the other parts of the face, and certainly the bodies, that don’t line up so exactly are forgiven, or simply overlooked. The real kicker, of course, that gets the slip on our critical eye right from the start, is that these two figures’ eyes happen to be looking in exactly the same direction. With that, a single, complete form is instantly established in one, common 3-Dimensional space. The man on the left gracefully glances across the divide to the person on the woman’s left, calling her attention.
The work’s striking unity is not achieved simply through the precision of Stezaker’s alignments, or through the level of physical coherence he achieves in the combined space. The combination of the figures’ bodies in this piece makes almost no sense at all: the man’s right hand seems to teleport from the bottom left corner of the frame over to the right side, to rest delicately on the woman’s forearm, which itself extends across the axis, into the man’s chest cavity. But the line of her forearm is carried on in the folds of the man’s vest. Unity is established also in Stezaker’s attention to color and texture. There is an obvious correlation in the woven quality of the man’s tweed and the woman’s sequins; the light shade of the woman’s chair is picked up in the man’s shirt and the glare on his shoulder; the contrast of the smoothness of her bare arm against the grainy chair is repeated with the man’s smooth vest against his tweed.
These more abstract parallels provide some access to what I assume Stezaker intends to do with this work. He is upsetting our confidence in our discernments by pulling similarity out of the unexpected places. While often this act yields visual abstractions with beautiful formal complexity, one cannot deny that the artist intends to deal with the complexities of human character. By selecting stills from the 1940s, Stezaker is working with distinct, culturally familiar archetypes for each gender—sexual confusion was not a common topic in the popular media of this era. But the striking harmony of the split face, and particularly it’s furtive, knowing, rather comfortable expression, tears down the idealized separation and authorizes the exploration of a much stranger and deeper complexity to human nature. But the collapse Stezaker is enacting in this piece does not only address the historically unenlightened cultural standards of pre-1960s America, it functions as a reminder to exercise a certain amount of distrust when encountering all information presented in black and white, even, and perhaps especially, when encountering typically trustworthy visual information.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Walt Disney Concert Hall: Keep Your Distance
I approach from the corner of 1st Street and Grand Avenue, where the Walt Disney Concert Hall greets its visitors with its main entrance. After crossing the wide stretch of concrete keeping the downtown traffic at a comfortable distance, I behold a massive entanglement of steel and glass, of angles and curves, of industrial ferocity and organic tenderness. Huge walls rise up out of the concrete at different angles and bend and curl around each other, pumping with a fearsome vitality. At this corner, the forms open up dramatically, like the mouth of a Leviathan, to reveal a simple concrete entry way, offering a glimpse of the mysterious structure’s innards.
Each of the immense walls is plated with large, rectangular steel panels, laid on top of each other in a strictly regimented stair-step pattern, notably contrasting the apparent disorder under which the rest of the structure operates. The steel is brushed, I assume to reduce reflectivity (as well as complaints of blindness from the residents of neighboring buildings), which gives the structure’s rather bold presence a classy subtlety, and also establishes a link to the cold industrial might that inevitably pays for extravagant architectural projects in major metropolises like Los Angeles.
From across the street, I marveled at my total inability to spatially grasp what was unfolding before me—and closer inspection further suspended my comprehension by introducing a multitude of new forms and dimensions, all of which continued to morph with the slightest perceptual adjustment. My disorientation is largely due to the scale of the curving, windowless walls—windows being a standard tool for measuring the otherwise overwhelming size of typical downtown skyscrapers. But the entire structure resides at the very threshold of chaos. It thrives on treading the line between acute mathematical precision and total architectural anarchy. I am enthralled by how well behaved Gehry’s pet monster has agreed to be in such a lawless environment.
However, when I walk up next to the structure, the wonderment starts to fall apart. I start noticing how much inhabitable space is wasted by all the extreme angles. I look up at the expanses of curving and realize they must be empty. I look down behind a colossal steel arm and see where a hose and a golf cart are being stored. These observations disrupted my ability to perceive the Disney Concert Hall as true architecture; the difference between architecture and sculpture being that architecture has the directive to house human activities. It is here that Gehry’s design starts to slip; his building is no doubt impressive, but that impressiveness depends upon the fact that it is a building, and not a sculpture in a public courtyard. It is of course impressive, and extraordinary, and beautiful to look at all the same, but I cannot deny a sense of disappointment when I discover that he didn’t bother making his radical forms work as a space for people, but just stuck them on a street corner for people to navigate like ants in a crumpled can.
I was also disappointed by the surprising shoddiness of how the structure was put together. A distant perspective presents elegant, futuristic precision, but up close I notice that the steel panels are never quite flush. At every edge, there are crooked gaps of varying sizes. In certain places, where Gehry is attempting particularly difficult bends or twists, the panels are actually often lifting off of one another. In these spots the structure feels like just a temporary mock up of Gehry’s big idea that should have never left his studio. You can imagine him taping additional pieces of paper on to his cardboard model, to smooth out the complicated junctures. It reminded me of what it felt like in grade school to find myself pulling an all-nighter at the last minute, trying to make the damn thing actually work before the deadline.
For a moment, I wonder if perhaps I like to see how the artist struggled to put the forms together. It seems to work nicely with the organic quality of the structure. I think that maybe being able to notice this delicate vulnerability lends a powerfully human condition to an otherwise unapproachable alien fortress. But then I continue my walk around the block, back to the main entrance where I come across the sales display for a new, ultra-chic Acura SUV, which sits haughtily before the glass doors. I then realize that this building was probably never intended to reflect the foibles of man. It more likely is just another symbol of commercial success. In this light the building seems to audaciously suggest that it is simply too important to yield to the needs of its inhabitants. Which of course, is not the problem. Many of the manmade wonders of the world have little regard for utility. However, if Gehry really wants this thing to sing the names of wealth and power, he shouldn’t have made it look like it was constructed with a glue stick.
Each of the immense walls is plated with large, rectangular steel panels, laid on top of each other in a strictly regimented stair-step pattern, notably contrasting the apparent disorder under which the rest of the structure operates. The steel is brushed, I assume to reduce reflectivity (as well as complaints of blindness from the residents of neighboring buildings), which gives the structure’s rather bold presence a classy subtlety, and also establishes a link to the cold industrial might that inevitably pays for extravagant architectural projects in major metropolises like Los Angeles.
From across the street, I marveled at my total inability to spatially grasp what was unfolding before me—and closer inspection further suspended my comprehension by introducing a multitude of new forms and dimensions, all of which continued to morph with the slightest perceptual adjustment. My disorientation is largely due to the scale of the curving, windowless walls—windows being a standard tool for measuring the otherwise overwhelming size of typical downtown skyscrapers. But the entire structure resides at the very threshold of chaos. It thrives on treading the line between acute mathematical precision and total architectural anarchy. I am enthralled by how well behaved Gehry’s pet monster has agreed to be in such a lawless environment.
However, when I walk up next to the structure, the wonderment starts to fall apart. I start noticing how much inhabitable space is wasted by all the extreme angles. I look up at the expanses of curving and realize they must be empty. I look down behind a colossal steel arm and see where a hose and a golf cart are being stored. These observations disrupted my ability to perceive the Disney Concert Hall as true architecture; the difference between architecture and sculpture being that architecture has the directive to house human activities. It is here that Gehry’s design starts to slip; his building is no doubt impressive, but that impressiveness depends upon the fact that it is a building, and not a sculpture in a public courtyard. It is of course impressive, and extraordinary, and beautiful to look at all the same, but I cannot deny a sense of disappointment when I discover that he didn’t bother making his radical forms work as a space for people, but just stuck them on a street corner for people to navigate like ants in a crumpled can.
I was also disappointed by the surprising shoddiness of how the structure was put together. A distant perspective presents elegant, futuristic precision, but up close I notice that the steel panels are never quite flush. At every edge, there are crooked gaps of varying sizes. In certain places, where Gehry is attempting particularly difficult bends or twists, the panels are actually often lifting off of one another. In these spots the structure feels like just a temporary mock up of Gehry’s big idea that should have never left his studio. You can imagine him taping additional pieces of paper on to his cardboard model, to smooth out the complicated junctures. It reminded me of what it felt like in grade school to find myself pulling an all-nighter at the last minute, trying to make the damn thing actually work before the deadline.
For a moment, I wonder if perhaps I like to see how the artist struggled to put the forms together. It seems to work nicely with the organic quality of the structure. I think that maybe being able to notice this delicate vulnerability lends a powerfully human condition to an otherwise unapproachable alien fortress. But then I continue my walk around the block, back to the main entrance where I come across the sales display for a new, ultra-chic Acura SUV, which sits haughtily before the glass doors. I then realize that this building was probably never intended to reflect the foibles of man. It more likely is just another symbol of commercial success. In this light the building seems to audaciously suggest that it is simply too important to yield to the needs of its inhabitants. Which of course, is not the problem. Many of the manmade wonders of the world have little regard for utility. However, if Gehry really wants this thing to sing the names of wealth and power, he shouldn’t have made it look like it was constructed with a glue stick.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Ofili's African Virgin
Chris Ofili’s painting, titled The Holy Virgin Mary, presents the image of a woman in a bluish gown, hovering in the center of a field of gold paint and glitter. Beams of light radiate from the top of the figure’s head as her eyes stare forward. These aspects are all familiar when I think of traditional, Medieval European religious paintings. However, before I even need to take a closer look, major contrasts are apparent: For one, the Virgin Mary’s dark brown skin, wide nose, and thick lips suggest that she is African. There is also a protrusion from the picture plane on the figure’s chest, indicating an exposed breast. And the figure is surrounded by strange conglomerates of purplish polyps that seem to be raining down around her.
At this point a closer inspection seems warranted. I realize that the polyps are in fact paper cut-outs of male and female genitalia from rather extreme pornographic magazines that have been collaged onto the background, as well as onto the virgin herself. Wherever the pieces of paper rest on the background, tiny waves of gold emanate in reaction to their presence, as though the bits of collage are floating in a pool of liquid gold. The collage element establishes a certain childhood craft-making sensibility in the piece. The pieces of paper are positioned somewhat haphazardly, some overlapping, and the single line of smaller pieces along the bottom of the frame are reminiscent of cowrie shells found on the beach and carefully glued to some Grandma’s birthday card. The rendering of the virgin also carries the mark of a child’s hand. Her body is somewhat formless, her two eyes are lopsided and different colors, and the coarse, brown flesh reminds me of mud—a substance that can easily be linked to childhood occupation of baking mud pies.
However, the flesh is not painted with mud, it is painted with elephant dung. The charms of childhood nostalgia suddenly fall apart here. The cut-outs of genitals come hurtling back to the foreground, and the virgin herself becomes instantly grotesque. The pool of gold in which the images float now seems much more like a puddle of piss, rich and deep and stinking. Now the previously harmless bits of genitals become unquestionable carriers of putrid, festering disease. In this same light, the shock of red that is the virgin’s mouth now appears to be a wide-open, exposed vagina—in this sense, the gaping threshold of both birth and sexual violence.
What I find so interesting about this work is the balance between these radically different ways of seeing it. Regardless of all the filthy elements at play, the figure still maintains the sense of balance and calm that Ofili borrows from Medieval iconography. Though the beastlike eyes lack the beauty and wisdom traditionally adorned to the image of Mary, there is nonetheless a stability in their gaze. It is soothing, despite the ruptures this painting causes in our preconceptions of the mother of God. From this perspective, the materials Ofili has chosen relax in their effect. Her flesh loses its explicit scatological charge and becomes simple, earthy material. The body parts in the paper collage become simply, organically human. The virgin stands in her blue frock, with her breast and backside exposed, as the Earth does: calm and maternal, nurturing and accessible.
It is here that the vicious uproar ignited by this work becomes more complicated. New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, as well as countless fuming Catholics, led a robust opposition to the piece because of the use of excrement in the depiction of a sacred religious figure. The use of excrement in African cultures, however, can often indicate respect and admiration. So what Ofili is doing to the scared icon is not totally for blind shock-value. He is surreptitiously setting up the Virgin Mary as an African entity, complete with elements ranging from the excrement of indigenous African animals and its use to adorn sacred images, to graphic images from Blaxploitation pornography. Ofili baits the opposition with the pornography and elephant dung, but allows the ensuing outrage to point to the real discomfort at play here, which has to do with one culture subsuming the precious belongings of another.
Ofili actually dodges most of the opportunities to make something truly vulgar. It would be easy enough to paint the Virgin Mary right into a scene from a scat-porn video. Instead, Ofili makes his comment, but preserves the unwavering maternal grace that is at the core of this Christian figure.
At this point a closer inspection seems warranted. I realize that the polyps are in fact paper cut-outs of male and female genitalia from rather extreme pornographic magazines that have been collaged onto the background, as well as onto the virgin herself. Wherever the pieces of paper rest on the background, tiny waves of gold emanate in reaction to their presence, as though the bits of collage are floating in a pool of liquid gold. The collage element establishes a certain childhood craft-making sensibility in the piece. The pieces of paper are positioned somewhat haphazardly, some overlapping, and the single line of smaller pieces along the bottom of the frame are reminiscent of cowrie shells found on the beach and carefully glued to some Grandma’s birthday card. The rendering of the virgin also carries the mark of a child’s hand. Her body is somewhat formless, her two eyes are lopsided and different colors, and the coarse, brown flesh reminds me of mud—a substance that can easily be linked to childhood occupation of baking mud pies.
However, the flesh is not painted with mud, it is painted with elephant dung. The charms of childhood nostalgia suddenly fall apart here. The cut-outs of genitals come hurtling back to the foreground, and the virgin herself becomes instantly grotesque. The pool of gold in which the images float now seems much more like a puddle of piss, rich and deep and stinking. Now the previously harmless bits of genitals become unquestionable carriers of putrid, festering disease. In this same light, the shock of red that is the virgin’s mouth now appears to be a wide-open, exposed vagina—in this sense, the gaping threshold of both birth and sexual violence.
What I find so interesting about this work is the balance between these radically different ways of seeing it. Regardless of all the filthy elements at play, the figure still maintains the sense of balance and calm that Ofili borrows from Medieval iconography. Though the beastlike eyes lack the beauty and wisdom traditionally adorned to the image of Mary, there is nonetheless a stability in their gaze. It is soothing, despite the ruptures this painting causes in our preconceptions of the mother of God. From this perspective, the materials Ofili has chosen relax in their effect. Her flesh loses its explicit scatological charge and becomes simple, earthy material. The body parts in the paper collage become simply, organically human. The virgin stands in her blue frock, with her breast and backside exposed, as the Earth does: calm and maternal, nurturing and accessible.
It is here that the vicious uproar ignited by this work becomes more complicated. New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, as well as countless fuming Catholics, led a robust opposition to the piece because of the use of excrement in the depiction of a sacred religious figure. The use of excrement in African cultures, however, can often indicate respect and admiration. So what Ofili is doing to the scared icon is not totally for blind shock-value. He is surreptitiously setting up the Virgin Mary as an African entity, complete with elements ranging from the excrement of indigenous African animals and its use to adorn sacred images, to graphic images from Blaxploitation pornography. Ofili baits the opposition with the pornography and elephant dung, but allows the ensuing outrage to point to the real discomfort at play here, which has to do with one culture subsuming the precious belongings of another.
Ofili actually dodges most of the opportunities to make something truly vulgar. It would be easy enough to paint the Virgin Mary right into a scene from a scat-porn video. Instead, Ofili makes his comment, but preserves the unwavering maternal grace that is at the core of this Christian figure.
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