"The American Effect", NYC
Still in New York City. Yesterday, I went to The American Effect exhibition at the Whitney with Greg and his and Leila’s friend Dave. To quote from the Whitney’s calendar, the exhibition “Explor[es] global perceptions of the United States in art made since 1990 [and] includes works from more than fifty artists in thirty countries.”
It is probably the best, most articulately expressed counterpoint to US jingoism that anyone could imagine. Here we have ageing superheroes; frank and shocking photographs of the detritus of US techno-consumerism (parts from old US computers, that is, as piled up in toxic dumps in China someplace); George Bush in a Mughal-style love-fest with Pakistani Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf (with Ronald McDonald dancing attendance); an incredibly funny re-enactment of a promotional “conversation” between Lee Iacocca and Frank Sinatra; and much, much more.
From seeing this exhibition, I think a person would have to draw some conclusions about the way the US is seen by the artists of the world… It is seen (mainly) as powerful, careless, and driven by consumerism.
The date of production of these items spans 9/11, which gives the exhibition considerable added “relevance” and, I think, added poignancy. It seems shocking now, after 9/11, to see the six-panel screen by a Japanese artist (forgotten the name), painstakingly painted in the style of many old “God’s-eye” city views in Japanese art—and painted some years before 9/11—that is a picture of recognizable chunks of Manhattan real estate aflame, after having been bombed by an iridescent twisted necklace of small fighter planes, shown circling above the flames and the smoke.
Still, if the events of 9/11 sparked an outpouring of sympathy from around the world, I’d have to say I didn’t see much sign of it represented in what I saw of this exhibition. The only apparently sympathetic view of the US that I saw, as produced either before or after 9/11, was New Manhattan City 3021, a futuristic assembly in the style of an architect’s model of how this artist saw a bigger, brighter, more Vegas-like Manhattan emerging a mere 1,020 years (!) after the devastation of 9/11.
I found that piece very touching. Mainly, because the artist, Bodys Isek Kingelez, is from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country rent apart by its own conflicts that are so very much more deadly than anything the US citizenry has ever experienced. I think of Bodys working on this in 2002--where? under what conditions? Was the piece commissioned from him for this show? (Apparently not; it is on loan from a collection in Geneva, Switzerland.) … So he assembled the materials for it—it is a large piece, maybe 9 feet by 9 feet by 4 feet high. He acquired a map of the southern tip of Manhattan. (According to Dave, this was an old map, before the whole area of Battery Park City had been landfilled in.) And he set to work to make a piece that expressed, I think, his sympathy and his determination to be hopeful.
Determined to be hopeful, and a citizen of DRC. As a US citizen, I say thank you for your gift, Bodys. (Even though I really don’t like Vegas style, myself.)
But the rest of the exhibition sends a very different set of messages. I wish every US citizen—and especially, each one of the members of Congress and Senators—could see this show.
Such a vivid account I feel like I was there in person.