19/11/2011
Three exhibitions
MoMA PS1, New York
Surasi Kusolwong makes installations and performances that reference consumer society and the economy. His work suggests a sense of play in which visitors can climb the mounds of thread waste, comb through the material and explore. George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies includes many of the artist's most important works, including films, videos, and works on paper. The artist collective Chim↑Pom traveled to Soma City, Fukushima where they made friends with local youths-many of whom had lost their homes and loved ones, and were living among the destruction and radiation. PS1 presents their two-channel work KI-AI 100 (100 Cheers).
Surasi Kusolwong
Surasi Kusolwong (Thai, b. 1965) makes installations and performances that reference consumer society and the economy. Through his participatory and interactive works the Bangkok-based artist encourages social interaction over economic exchange. His large-scale installation at MoMA PS1, Golden Ghost (The Future Belongs To Ghosts) (2011), which was first presented in the Creative Time exhibition Living as Form, invites visitors to enter into the vast field of industrial thread waste to search for gold necklaces hidden in the piles of cotton. Visitors who are fortunate enough to find a necklace are welcome to keep it. The work suggests a sense of play in which visitors can climb the mounds of thread waste, comb through the material and explore. While the literal treasure hunt in a field of excess serves as a metaphor for consumption at the global and individual level, it also inverts standard systems of exchange—the expensive gold necklaces are not sold nor bartered, but generously given away.
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George Kuchar
Pagan Rhapsodies
George Kuchar (American, 1942-2011) was among the most prolific and influential American filmmakers of the last half century. His more than two hundred low-budget films, many made with his twin brother, Mike, regularly feature his friends and students, pioneering a camp aesthetic that has inspired generations of filmmakers and artists. Based in San Francisco since the early 1970s, where he taught for four decades at the San Francisco Art Institute, Kuchar grew up in New York City, in the Bronx, where he began his career, before resettling in California in 1971. Planned prior to the artist's recent death, in September of 2011, George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies includes many of the artist's most important works, including films, videos, and works on paper. A presentation of Kuchar's films at The Museum of Modern Art, on Thursday, November 17, will coincide with the exhibition.
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Chim↑Pom
organized by Christopher Y. Lew, Assistant Curator of MoMA PS1.
Following the March 11, 2011 earthquake, the artist collective Chim↑Pom traveled to Soma City, Fukushima where they made friends with local youths—many of whom had lost their homes and loved ones, and were living among the destruction and radiation that accompanied the earthquake and subsequent destabilization of the nearby nuclear reactor. In response to the disaster they conducted a sequence of one hundred KI-AI. KI-AI is martial arts term describing a way to collect and direct one’s inner energy through exhalation or vocalization before attacking. Chim↑Pom plays on the idea by focusing the group’s energy through collective action which was video recorded. MoMA PS1 presents the resulting two-channel work KI-AI 100 (100 Cheers).
Unlike other areas that featured in many media reports, Soma City suffered from a shortage of volunteers, exacerbating the radiation-related problems and delaying the cleanup. The local youths, themselves victims of the quake, provided relief and aid towards reconstruction. Chim↑Pom explains, “This is the KI-AI shouted from the bottom of their hearts, in the midst of sorrow and delight, by those who live simultaneously as victim and aid worker. This is their reality!!”
Images: Chim↑Pom. KI-AI 100 (detail). 2011. Video. Courtesy of Mujin-to Production, Tokyo. Copyright Chim↑Pom
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