Swagger, Drag, Fit Together
Wallspace, New York, USA
The thematic strands of ‘Swagger, Drag, Fit Together’ are subtle but pervasive, linking disparate works from the 1970s and to today into a coherent, but never dogmatic, meditation on the body in space. The artists in this adroitly curated show explore the physics of tension – and, by extension, pressure and containment – in relation to the body. In doing so, they engage in the politics of how we occupy a space.
This is made most clear in one of the few works featuring a human figure, Jiří Kovanda’s XXX, Pressing myself as close as I can to the wall, I make my way around the whole room; there are people in the middle of the room, watching … (1977). Kovanda’s action – documentation of which is presented in the gallery, and which performs precisely what the title describes – maps the coordinates of performance, surveillance, and the body.
XXX . . . provides a context and thesis for understanding for the sculpture and photography that is presented elsewhere in the exhibition; namely, that the way we physically occupy a space has a direct relationship to social power, position, and recognition. But Kovanda’s work also nicely signals some of the other formal concerns of the exhibition: the physical signatures of pressure and tension.
Take, for example, Judith Scott’s sculpture (Untitled, undated) which evokes a human torso, banded and bound (Untitled, undated), an image echoed in Erika Vogt’s Traveler (2010). The containment of the body is one of the dominant visual motifs at work in the exhibition, which also includes video work by Adam Putnam, who has previously staged performance works constraining his body.
Here, he shows three videos, including Cracked Infinity Chest (2010), in which Putnam holds a pane of glass in front of his torso, violently punctured by bullet holes. The video operates in tandem with John Divola’s black and white photographic series on vandalism. The rubble of Divola’s images operate in an anthropomorphic way – as do the assorted fragments that pervade the gallery, from chicken legs to ropes and balls.
These representations of the body are granted their anthropomorphic quality through the use of physical tension – best captured in Ryan Kitson’s beautiful Floor, Wall, Plank, Ball (2006). In places, this tension gives way to ruptures of violence, as in Divola’s photographs and Putnam’s video, and most graphically in Daniel Gordon’s collage style photograph July 6, 2009 (2009), an image consisting of a severed head and collected body parts.
Elsewhere the act of collecting and collating expresses an interest in language. Divola’s photographs almost form a lexicon of symbols, while Mark Wyse’s Bruce Nauman/Barbara Kruger (2008) features the appropriation of Kruger’s text based work and both artists’ visual vocabulary. Christopher Williams’ Untitled (Study in Brown), Dirk Schaper Studio, Berlin, April 30, 2009 (2009) prominently features the Falke logo, a small study in brands, words and meaning.
This is all fitting in an exhibition that is preoccupied with the process of abstraction, and the cascade of associations that results, whether it is through art historical association or brand connotation. Visual humour is integral to numerous works in the show (including the titular animated video by Laura Riboli), and that humour is often generated through the simple act of juxtaposition. Placing one object alongside another object – the strange alchemy of this process is one of multiple artistic manipulations explored in ‘Swagger, Drag, Fit Together’.
Katie Kitamura
Responses
There are no responses yet for this article.
