Damn, this is badass. So if you
remember the Younger Than Jesus show at the New Museum, Gaillard had the video
of Russian kids who go online to organize soccer style riots for fun (where
they just find a location, dress in opposing colors and march at each other
until the randomly chosen opposing sides pummel each other). He also made the
video of the French housing development with a laser light show projected on
it, which builds until the development is demolished. Both videos were pretty great,
and as I recall, next to Ryan Trecartin, the best things in the show.
Well, those videos are in the
current PS1 show, as well as a stagnant shot of kudzu (or thick bushes) with a cloud
(via stolen fire extinguishers) emerging out of them, right, pretty good? Well,
fuck, we aren’t even at the good part. Then bam! In one of PS1’s large open
rooms is a giant projection of a video piece shot in Baghdad. Gaillard is in
the desert at night with men in formal Arab dress, with a laser scope pointed at
them, on the back of military Humvees, in old ruins, on a tour of a looted
museum, at the gate formed from giant swords and generally gazing at modernist
architecture from the 70’s, that makes everything look like a Star Wars set.
All the while, on continuous loop, David Gray sings the word “Babylon” from the
song Babylon. Point being, the direct cluster fuck of cultures colliding or specifically
western culture colliding with Arab culture. If that wasn’t apparent in the
video, David Gray in his intolerable Jason Mraz-John Mayer white boy
singer-song writer belting out Babylon on repeat does drive it home. Oh, and
apparently the song was used to break prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
The awkward cultural colonizing is
even more apparent with the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo logo imposed on an impressionistic
landscape painting, or collages made up of beer labels, pictures of hipster-hijinx
and postcards of artifacts. The most effective evidence of the imposition of
western culture is a video from Mexico, where rather beautiful dolphins swim
along a modernist waterside hotel, a person covered head to toe in red garb
does a Crip Walk on larger Mexican ruins and, most disturbingly, the camera is assaulted
by a wave of shirtless spring breaker dudes who have a chug-off in a palm-lined
lawn next to a hotel. Yup, the west has brought its best to the world, and all
we have left behind is McDonalds and The Expendables. Sorry, the rest of the
world. Oh, there is also a video of two dudes in front of some improbable
architecture, diving into some surprisingly shallow water, only to arise
bloodied and in pain. The video feels like a small token of self-flagellation for
the chaos the west wrought throughout the rest of Gaillard’s videos. I couldn’t
recommend the show more strongly, and it might not be as preachy as I’m making
it sound. I spent most of the show muttering “what the fuck” to myself, so the work
focuses more on the absurdity of the situation than necessarily ascribing blame.
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