Law as Symbol: Taryn Simon’s "Paperwork and the Will of Capital" at Gagosian Gallery

(c) Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon, Paperwork and the Will of the Capital is on view at 

Gagosian Gallery 

555 West 24^th Street 

February 18 - March 26, 2016

           Throughout much of her artistic career, Taryn Simon (b. 1975) has utilized the power of visual media—including photography, sculpture, video, and performance—to critique systems of power. Her work exposes the dark side of existing practices and, in particular, the ways in which law affects the lives of people. Simon exploits the dual record-keeping and fiction-making role of photography to document and fabricate the invisible. For example, in The Innocents series (2003), the artist shames the flawed American criminal justice system by photographing wrongfully convicted men at the sites of their alleged crimes. Such works reveal the inadequacies or, more often, harms that result from the current systems in place. Her works compel the question: whom are these laws meant to serve?

            Simon’s work answers that the law is meant to serve its people, but the practical applications of law often do not reflect this purpose.  Law exists to maintain order that will facilitate a free society in which people can pursue happiness without impinging upon the pursuits of others. However, law is often used against the very people it was meant to serve and protect.

(c) Taryn Simon

  

          If Simon’s previous work exposed the perverse applications of law, her most recent body of works on display at Gagosian Gallery reveals another side of law: its empty and symbolic nature. Part humor, part lament, we often joke that politicians are full of crap. Unfortunately, the statement is funny because it is often true. Simon’s photographs and sculptures highlight the artificiality and hopelessly symbolic nature of international treaties: perhaps some of the emptiest promises by one group of politicians to another.

            The power of these works—the large photographs in particular—stems from captivating images that, despite their startling vividness, remain harmless to the viewer.

We use flowers as harmless speech. We buy flowers most often as symbolic gestures to commemorate an occasion or to express particular sentiments to others. We use flowers as harmless objects of contemplation, to provide visual reminders of such sentiments and occasions.

Such speech-flowers are fragile and ephemeral. Their visual and olfactory pleasures expire as quickly as the feelings of the occasion begin to fade from our memories. When they lose their value as sensory pleasure-givers, we toss them out. Unlike other symbolic gifts, we readily dispose of flowers because of their purpose as temporary symbols.[*]

(c) Taryn Simon

            Simon highlights the utterly symbolic and superficial role of flowers—and the occasions they were to commemorate—by exaggerating the surface beauty of flowers that were once sitting on the tables where international powers signed various agreements. Most of the photographs show exquisite arrangements in intensely vivid colors, all against equally striking and beautifully color-blocked backgrounds. However, the texts accompanying the mesmerizing centerpieces state the common fate of all these treaties: failure of the signatories to implement them.

The artist thereby disturbs the easy assumptions held by many people, that once codified into law, the harms addressed by the law will remedy themselves. Her beautiful photos and their accompanying texts expose this as a faulty assumption, which presumes the automatic integration of such agreements into real life. However, laws do not execute themselves—people do.

            First, many international treaties are not self-executing; local governments must pass laws that allow their execution. Even after the agreements are passed as local laws, law truly exists—and therefore holds power—when it is enforced in everyday life. Without enforcement, these international agreements remain as mere words on paper, nice and fanciful ideas, and nice gestures by participating governments, yet nothing more.

            The horror bestowed upon us by Simon’s beautiful work stems from the realization that this is actually how legal systems in general work, and that substantial harm can result from the nature of law as a multi-step process. A law may be passed because of a felt need to address existing problems, but the law can only fulfill its initial purpose when it is executed properly in everyday life, down to the police men, government agencies, and the judiciary.

(c) Taryn Simon

Today, when instances of misapplication and faulty enforcement of the law continue to demonstrate the shortcomings of the current system, Simon’s recent work prompts a second look at law as “mere words,” and invites us to emancipate it from its purely symbolic status toward a working system that better serves its true master: the people.

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[*] The other side of this sad fate of flowers as symbols is that if one does not wish their flowers to meet their inevitable destiny in the trash, one must prematurely remove them from their life-extending environments in water and place them between the pages of a book—or a flower-press, as Simon has—and crush them live in the name of preservation.

Absence and Neglect

For some reason

I actually thought that there actually did exist some sort of ontological dispute taking place through or under the guise of an ostensibly linguistic dispute about the definition of art, as manifested by recent lawsuits involving appropriation artists.

Silly me.

It all comes down to money.

Why did I think I could place art in a category that operates differently from others? 

Even though I made conscious and even performatively public criticisms against the infiltration of money into the way in which our cultural products are distributed and legitimized…

For some reason

I thought my discovery of the intersections between law, language, art, philosophy, and other abstract ways in which we understand the world around us was somehow special. Law, especially, because I had never quite understood anything about it until recently.

Art is the same. Money dictates its operations. 

What I had given superficial attention turned out to be a horrible monster, which I am happy I did not endorse so enthusiastically—the rich are winning the copyright litigations and “redefining” the “definition of art”! 

Is this a good thing for art or is it just the victory of those with money?

I can’t tell if it pushes art to go further and into another kind of territory, or if it merely demonstrates the reach of capitalism’s power into a variety of realms such as art and other cultural affairs. 

It feels good to rant again.

But probably another long silence will pass.

everyone's favorite: identity politics

view of question bridge: black males, a work in progress by hank willis thomas, chris johnson, bayeté ross smith, and kamal sinclair at jack shainman gallery.

i saw an exhibition yesterday at jack shainman gallery, of work by hank willis thomas and question bridge: black males, a collaboration with thomas, chris johnson, bayeté ross smith, and kamal sinclair. the show displayed one of the most explicit engagements with racial and "identity politics" i have seen as of late. this is probably because, well, after the multiculturalist fad of the 90s passed over, the topic is no longer "trendy." still following a 2000-year-plus tradition, the art world still believes in "universality." "good" art will appeal to "all" on a "fundamental" level. since the internet, digital realm, and ecological concerns dominate our current era (i'm thinking of the u.s. and other globally "first world" countries), those topics have become "our shared" experience. addressing the problems of a black and white dichotomy, the experience of "being a black man" (and gay), evoking w.e.b. dubois and ralph ellison's invisible man are so passé in this post-racial world. just like artists avoid the label "feminist" like the plague.

addressing racism is difficult today because it operates under the table: official laws and politically correct american culture forbids discrimination according to race, gender, sexuality, but it still happens, masked by a myriad of seemingly rational and racially (sexually, etc) irrelevant excuses. 

here is an excerpt from my thesis on the perpetuation of racist stereotypes and imagery in comedy:

This act of self-affirmation through negation has been a necessary tactic for the Eurocentric paradigm in American mass culture, a legacy that has been thoroughly demonstrated by the history of 19th Century minstrels shows, performed in both black- and yellowface. The demand for racially reductive and sub-human images of the non-normative (non-white) population displays itself more subtly in contemporary times. Acceptable instances of such demeaning laughter are now restricted, as when comedians give overtly exaggerated indications of their intention to make politically incorrect jokes. 

Margaret Cho and Bobby Lee—both popular entertainers among Asians and non-Asians alike—exaggerate “Asianness” in their acts to draw the audience’s attention to the absurdity of American racist assumptions. Cho is famous for the mimicry of her mother’s broken English; Lee plays an array of stereotypical Asian characters—whether they be Korean, Japanese, Chinese, or their confused hybrid. These grotesquely exaggerated performances give direct signals to the audience that racial stereotypes are precisely the point of their acts. The performers’ Asianness grants especially the non-Asian audiences further permission to laugh. 

Yet the source of laughter is at times ambiguous. Should non-Asian viewers doubt the appropriateness of their laughter, they need only seek laughing Asian audience members. The legitimatizing function of the Asian audience’s laughter is especially apparent in recordings of the comics’ live performances; the edited footage intersperses images of Asian audience members laughing at the racially offensive jokes. But do we not laugh at that in which we perceive a degree of truth? Does the non-Asian audience laugh at what it believes to be a truthfulness of the enacted stereotypes themselves or at false societal beliefs of perceiving them as truthful? As scholar Howard Winant has written, “Today racism must be identified by its consequences." Cho and Lee, at times, reproduce the very stereotypes they attempt to skewer.

for the purposes of my thesis on psy's "gangnam style," i focused on asian (american) entertainers, but of course, comedians like chris rock have made their careers out of racist and homosexual jokes, many of which are self-deprecatory.

and as stated above, the very existence of even the most overtly and consciously absurd racist jokes indicate the fact that these sentiments exist. our laughter is twofold. we laugh because 1. we recognize the absurdity of those jokes (ex. "hey, jackie chan!") but also because 2. we recognize a "truth" in them, whether we actually believe them ourselves or know of others who do.

cedrick smith at dillon gallery

i have a guest over from korea, hk. he is 17 years old and is exploring nyc mostly on his own while crashing at my place. he arrived last sunday. i was free and i decided to take him to central park to begin an introductory tour of the city.

the weather was unbelievably beautiful--it was the warmest welcome for someone who had just come from a country going through the most humid and sticky season of the year. but halfway through our getting lost in the park (after living in nyc for 15 years i still get lost consistently there), we encountered something i did not want to be part of hk's intro to nyc: racism.

to conceal racism from a tour of nyc is, of course, to deceive. but perhaps i was trying to do unto him what i wished others had done for me when i first arrived from korea. no one had warned me that i could be the target of hatred and mockery just because i looked a certain way to some people. although i'm not sure any warning would have helped at all, maybe it would have better prepared me for the actual experience. but i maybe i hoped, stupidly and naively, that someone had protected me from unexpected blows.

i did not want hk to have this unpleasant experience, not while i was with him. but we ended up running into a street acrobatics show--the kind that goes through a dance and tumbling routine. i had seen the same group perform in union square once. they follow a fairly lengthy script which relies heavily on racist jokes: black men freezing and ducking at the sound of police sirens, pretending to run away with the volunteers' bags, etc. besides self-deprecatory "black jokes," they also like unsophisticated asian jokes (i have also seen them crack a mexican joke, something about being poor).

the time i saw them in union square, they picked me as a volunteer, one of maybe five people over whom one performer jumps. he cracked a horrible joke at me, the kind i imagine only a 10 year old living in a suburban white town (connecticut? midwest? south?) saying to the only asian kid in school. or pre-pubescent white boys in a riverdale prep school saying to me, the only asian person "from" asia.

the joke? emitting a series of incomprehensible sounds that the speaker believes is some faithful mimicry of chinese or a generic "asian" language. when one of the performers did this to me in union square, i called him out on it and gave him a fuck you, interrupting their carefully planned routine. (i was then kicked out and replaced by a quieter asian woman). when i was with my guest at central park, i remembered this about the troupe too late. after a few minutes of watching, hk got dragged in as a volunteer because they "have to have at least one asian guy" in a mix of female volunteers. i saw links to the feminization of asian men by this gesture. maybe i was reading more into it than the guy meant, so i let this pass.

but the jokes got worse and worse. hk got called "jackie chan" and "jet li" at different times. when the main performer stacked his volunteers close together to prepare for the jump, he told hk (who was standing behind a young italian woman), "get closer, get closer. you can thank me. when else would you have a chance like this?!"

fortunately, i don't think my guest got the joke--that asian men can only "dream" of getting with a white woman because 1. asian men are undesirable 2. white women are the pinnacle of attractiveness and 3. since undesirable asian men cannot get with the extremely desirable white women, they must resort to dating the less desirable women "of their own kind."

leaving aside the fact that the "joke" is not funny at all.. i find it notable that these kinds of jokes are very american. the "joke" is only understood by americans--when tourists like hk come across racist jokes, often it takes a bit of time for them to register as "racist." the notion of race is an invention, and although racial discrimination does exist in fairly homogenous countries such as korea, american construction of race is very elaborate. the racial stereotypes, myths, "characters" are much more detailed so that they pose as widely understood "truths." 

i have also noticed that foreigners "from" abroad don't care so much about racism but the hyphenated americans (asian american, african american, latin american..) do. this is probably because foreigners find this an inevitable part of living/staying in the u.s. and well, if it becomes unbearable, they can go back to their own "homes" where they will be the racial majority. for second, third, fourth generations, the u.s. is their home. they have more at stake, and constantly being differentiated from the "norm" based on a ridiculous fiction called "race" (ambiguously tied to appearance and "origin") on one's own turf will trigger stronger reactions.

as outmoded as the shainman show seems, identity politics are still very much relevant. in fact, it may be even more now, because stereotypes are so deeply seated in our conscious/unconscious that they come off as invisible and non-existent.

i will leave you with a link to a slightly controversial and interesting blog: http://blackgirldangerous.org/new-blog/2012/11/27/how-to-know-if-you-are-white

only in nyc

august slumber

every "field" operates according to a certain kind of calendar or sense of time. in fashion, for example, they work in "seasons," related to the weather and lifestyles of consumers. the "new" is always being planned a year in advance and "fall lines" arrive in stores in the early summer, when summer clothes are already sold out or on sale. different concepts of time can be seen in products like the old-school "planner" (who uses those things nowadays anyway?). there is the regular calendar which begins with the december of the previous year then ends with the january of the following year (or december of that year, depending on the company). then there is the "academic" calendar for students that begins in august and ends in july or august of the following year. 

no longer part of an academic institution, i have been hovering in the strange limbo typical of a recent graduate grappling with the anxiety of an uncertain future and worries about "the next move." these anxieties have to do with practical matters (get a job? where? how?) and often they are fueled by the lack of a "given" time structure. i have to find my own temporal structure, which will reflect what i "want to do" with myself/my life. the difficulty lies in picking and choosing whose calendars fit what i want to do (a ginormous issue in itself) and creating a new one tailored to my own identity, vision, etc.

that was a round about way of saying that it didn't really occur to me that august in the art world is very slow--and, well, dead. i knew, of course. but having this knowledge in one's own head differs from how that knowledge is experienced on a practical and visceral level. my current sense of time is rather monotonous--no high/low seasons, but only the same kind of day after another, after another. the only factors that cause fluctuations--and require some planning--are the opening hours of galleries and museums, certain short-lived events such as performance nights and special openings.

in a way it is nice--it's like receiving a blank sheet everyday for me to mark up anew. but the real new york art world schedule, which i have tried to incorporate into my own sense of time, doesn't quite work the way i pass my days. it is not monotonous like mine, but has its seasons like any other calendar. certain months are "vacation" time (end of july to august, and december), then some months are the "big" moments when art people return to the city and there are a million openings every week (september is a major openings month). some months host a multitude of art fairs, others (in alternating years) have biennials, triennials, or annual exhibitions organized by major institutions.

it's not all that different from an academic or other work calendars, actually. but there are small elements (knowledge?) that one will only come to embody if one lives immersed in that life and realm for a prolonged period of time--constant training until that knowledge is no longer considered separate information but becomes instinct. 

and i could feel myself floating in this no-person's-land when i asked a gallerist friend why everything was closed one saturday and she told me about summer hours. annoyed, frustrated, i felt like a hungry ghost that can only stare at what it can't have. but trying to "gain entry"--what does that even mean? i must have some sort of fundamentally unattainable, absurdly impossible, and completely fictional notion of "belonging" to the art world. and that is probably right. i set my own definition of legitimacy (the creation of which i angrily attribute to "the art world") and thereby deprive myself of it. it's like complaining about others' racist behaviors when i am only reaffirming their racist beliefs precisely by taking them for granted. 

and this is also just a very roundabout way of excusing myself for being slack. i haven't been out as often lately to see shows and another excuse: much of what i have seen haven't strongly inspired my writing about them. but maybe that's just what august does to people and that's why many people abandon the city to lounge around some place with more green or water. i should stop feeling guilty and let myself sit in my air conditioned room all day with a good novel. i am a master fabricator of excuses.