by Jeriah Hildwine
On Saturday, November 7, Sign of the Times opened at Monique Meloche in her new location on Division Street. More Economics than Poli Sci, the work in Sign of the Times is all about the money. The works address economic hardship and decline, unemployment, globalization, and recession, and features work by Kim Beck, Máximo González, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Michael Patterson-Carver, and Carrie Schneider.
Máximo González collages out-of-circulation currency. The best of
these is his Animal Freezing Machine, 2006. A giant machine like a
prehistoric sea scorpion scoops up hapless wildlife and transforms them
into ice cream. It's environmentalist about on the level of The Lorax,
which is to say a bit simplistic but charming. The sweetness is cut by
the machine's mechanical malice, and the easy-to-imagine grinding of
fur and bone. The use of brightly colored foreign (to me) currency,
with its tight engraving lines, gives the collage a steampunk feeling,
of monstrous robots depicted in a Victorian engraving.
Kenneth
Tin-Kin Hung's In G.O.D. We Trust, 2009, shows Barack Obama as a sort
of divine superhero who travels the world fixing everything...sort of.
The video is so over-the-top with heavily-laden political imagery that
it sort of shoots the moon in terms of ham-handedness. This
oversaturation and horror vacuii are trademarks of Hung's videos, and
are appropriate for the treatment of politics in the media: it says,
basically, "OH GOD OH GOD EVERYTHING IS BROKEN WE'RE ALL FUCKED," but
the South Park grade animation and upbeat soundtrack make it absolutely
hilarious as well, and the irreverent treatment of Obama is a breath of
fresh air.
Carrie Schneider's Recession is a beautiful
photograph. A woman leans forward against a vacant storefront, her
pose awkward and her body supported only by the thin sheet of glass.
The shopping bags and vacant storefront are clear signs that it is an
economic recession that is meant, but the figure's posture implies
another meaning as well: beyond its meaning in economics, the word
"recession" can refer to the act of pulling away or withdrawing.
These
artists use different solutions to making political art, some more
direct, others oblique. What all successful political artists have in
common is that they give us a new perspective on a hot issue, rather
than simply reciting an opinion we've heard before. Political art is
at its best when it's art first and foremost, and only incidentally a
work of politics.
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Tags: , Carrie Schneider, Jeriah Hildwine, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Kim Beck, Michael Patterson-Carver, Monique Meloche
