leisurely disappointment

maybe the new york city art world has a weakness for work that utilizes the latest technology. you know, those cool installations that everyone talks about and wait in line for hours to see because only a few people are allowed at a time. the media and general word of mouth tend to fuel the hype. for example, doug wheeler's "immersive light environment" at david zwirner last year was given to me as an option for a review assignment. i already knew there would be a long wait, but i went anyway. seeing the line for myself, i said fuck it, i won't buy into this hype. when christian marclay's the clock premiered in chelsea for the first time, i went on one of the first few days of its opening, and there was little hype and no line. i enjoyed a few hours in a relatively empty room. i actually thought the work sort of interesting. then i heard about the long lines later, about its return to moma and the ridiculous wait there, and started to not like it so much.

but maybe by placing judgment on the work purely based on the hype and limited capacity, i miss out on some good ones.

so i decided to go see the rain room at moma by random international. i had a strong feeling this was going to be the kind of hype that i hate: all "cool" but little else. luckily for me, i had member privileges so i did not have to wait in line for very long, considering it was also a monday afternoon. very lucky, because i hated it.

i understand why people would find it worth their time to visit the room. the technology, at least theoretically, is very cool. heavy rain drops fall from a large square close to the ceiling but the water makes way for you when you enter. like moses.

don't we all imagine that happening? as a joke we might say, i wish that rain would not fall on me during a heavy storm. kind of like that cloud in a cartoon perpetually hovering over a depressed person, except an umbrella version of it.

how fitting for a narcissitic generation. the inconvenience of natural discomforts will not effect ME. 

how fitting for a generation obsessed with new technologies to enhance the comfort of our lifestyle so that we can focus on more important things. automatically flushing toilets, for example, spare us the trouble of having to push down on a lever, which may make our hands even more disgusting. voice commands on our mobile phones spare us the trouble of having to use our hands to write with a pen on paper. automatic doors spare us excessive physical exertion. you get the idea.

now rain that parts without our telling it to do so? how satisfying. probably even more so because the drops are so heavy.

it also helps that it's summer in nyc, when the heat can get suffocating just from the concrete. it also helps that, to help visitors shield themselves from the sun while waiting in line outside, they offer very black moma umbrellas to absorb even more heat. once you get into the room, of course it's refreshing. it's even better that the technology actually DOESN'T work very well so you do get rained on. hard.

i wore shitty sneakers, just in case i got wet, but wore a watch that may or may not be waterproof and a dryclean-only dress. well, i was very annoyed when i got poured on. it was safest to go where others were already standing, but the sensors are not sensitive or fast enough to keep you completely dry. to experience the "cool" effects, you have to get wet first, wait, then walk very very slowly. otherwise, good luck with your watch and cellphone.

aside from the refreshing and "cool" technological aspect of the room, the installation looks cool. there is an oppressively bright light at the back of the room, aiming straight toward the entrance where visitors must still wait their turns and watch others "have fun." the backlight effect makes those "experiencing" the work look holy, in a sense. you can only see silhouettes moving through the space with very long shadows stretching toward those watching in line. the splatter from the water hitting the ground also creates a mysterious mist / fog with the light, so the whole scene appears dream-like or otherworldly.

once inside the rain, the sight is infinitely disappointing and even vulgar. standing close to and facing away from the bright light, you get to see everything: the lame rain fall ("why the hell would i pay to stand in rain??") and a clear view of every visage in the room. the experience is kind of like conjuring fantasies of a handsome man you meet in a darkly lit bar, then seeing a very plain or ugly face outside under a streetlamp. or better yet, meeting him for an actual date next day when it's bright out, and you can't even recognize him.

maybe that is the point? the antithetical nature of such "new technology" installations and the hype that surrounds them. but i have the feeling that the work is not intentionally self-reflexive. the writing surrounding it seems to emphasize "experience" and the only experience i had was a feeling of annoyance from the "cool" technology not working properly.

moma seemed to have been experiencing problems with people staying way over their desginated limit of 10 minutes. i gladly gathered my things after 10. eager to leave the wet room, i approached the exit. when the guard opened the door for me, it was pouring outside too.

the weather forecast did not warn me about rain, so i had no umbrella. even more annoyed by my visit, for a second, i was convinced that the rain room brought actual rain. 

oh well. this might prevent me from going to another "cool" and limited capacity "immersive environment" for a long time.

but if anyone is still interested in visiting after reading this, the work is on view until july 28th at the museum of modern art.

not overrated

 

Cindy Sherman Retrospective at MoMA
through June 11, 2012
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“[T]he one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.” -Cindy Sherman (Respini 23).

To lie, here, means that the image produced by the camera may not necessarily correspond to the perception that we might experience directly, if we were immersed in that situation first hand, knew the context, if there was an element of time. The photographic image eliminates the temporal factor, which results in an isolated fragment of reality; this mere fragment of the larger picture provides the false impression of representing the entirety of an event or reality.

The camera also alters our perceptions of reality itself. The image created by the camera inevitably differs from the one created by our sensory perceptions; as long as we continue to experience the world through images, as we do now, the world through the camera lens becomes our reality, and the actual physical world starts to appear false. The camera is a device that continually deceives its unknowing victims.

But we do all know this, at least on a subconscious level. For example, we look at a picture of a friend and say, “Weird, that doesn’t look like you,” or “You look exactly like your father in this picture,” when the photographic image does not correspond with our own impression of the person. Some people even have special poses or facial expressions specifically reserved for the camera. This latter phenomenon in particular stems from an awareness that the image produced will be viewed, whether by oneself alone or multiple people; the impulse to pose is thus an attempt to project a type of image of oneself, what one deems may look attractive, etc.

And as Cindy Sherman indicates through the work she has produced throughout several decades of her career, these notions of what one believes will look good, desirable, etc., may enter our consciousness subliminally through the endless stream of images in the media, especially those of popular advertisements and film. The case in point: most of her images—even the fairy tales series, the disasters, and maybe the sex photos too?—appear familiar to us, even though Sherman claims that she rarely makes a direct reference to a specific image. This is because the artist pulls these images from our collective consciousness; we recognize them because they correspond with a certain pattern of images that exist in media representations of people, specifically women. When we learn that Sherman’s characters are not mere parodies of pre-existing images but a general enactment of types, we become stunned the way in which the images in our mass culture leave such strong impressions on our own perceptions, and in turn, the way we subconsciously use these patterns to project desirable images of ourselves.

While her early work, such as the Untitled Film Stills, 1977-1980 and other color cinema series from 1981, address the artificiality of the female image projected by the film industry, her later work, such as the head shot series, 2000-2002 and 2008 society series, critique the way in which these cultural ideals play out in our culture once they have already infiltrated and solidified within our collective consciousness. These latter portraits are humorous and disturbing: we laugh, wondering who actually thinks this kind of pose, makeup, orange air-brush tan look good, then realize we have seen people who present themselves in this manner. Regarding the head shots in particular, Eva Respini, in MoMA’s exhibition catalogue for Sherman’s retrospective, writes: “Whichever part of the country they’re from, we’ve seen these women before—on reality TV, in soap operas, or at the PTA meeting” (Respini 44). The women in the society series also “belie the attempt to project a certain appearance” while they pose for the camera (Respini 47). In both series, each woman is always conscious of the camera’s presence, trying her best to reproduce the desirable image of herself that has been fed by mass culture. Most of them, many will agree, look hideous: Sherman presents how the ideal female image can mutate to the point of oblivious perversion. Some are extreme cases, but others, not so much: we know people who have gotten botox, a new cosmetically altered nose, or spends hours getting ready to leave the house.

With her clown series from 2002-2004, Sherman pushes her interest in life as masquerade to the extreme. While the characters in some of her other work pose and act in attempts to render an attractive self-image for social acceptance, clowns, both male and female, play the ultimate dress-up that marks them as outsiders of society. The characters in the head shots and society series, for example, use make-up to alter and mask features of their face that they wish to hide; clowns use make-up as masks—Sherman is barely recognizable behind the layers of powder and costume. Respini situates these series in the artist’s context:

The clown can be seen as a stand-in for the artist, who is often expected to entertain in the contemporary circus of society and is encouraged to act outside of codified norms. Perhaps the sad clown in Untitled #413 […], donning a silk jacket embroidered with “Cindy” on the chest, is an acknowledgment of the demands made on the artist to embody such a manufactured persona (Respini 45).

But the entire series continues Sherman’s overall line of thought on social masquerade and the construction of identity. Make-up, dress, pose, and facial expressions are utilized by many—especially women—as signs the evoke a particular image/aura. Sherman, through the clowns as well as through her other work, demonstrate that the societal demands to act in adherence to prescribed standards pervades all levels of society—low to high—and you, I, or even the artist herself is not an exception to their power.