Express, Spring 1983

There seem to be two types of large group exhibitions these days: shows that are organized around a theme (i.e. animal painting) and those that concentrate on formal similarities (i.e. minimalist painting). 1984-A Preview at Ronald Feldman Gallery was both. It had a general theme, 1984, and consisted for the most part of a specific school of art, emblematic and politically direct. While the stated purpose of the exhibition was to present a theme (artists “views on surveillance, prophecy, mind control, computers, leisure, nightmares, fantasies, and bureaucracies), it was almost equally revealing as a reflection of the taste of the curators. One wonders how much the show would have differed if there had been no theme.

1984: A Preview as the second annual exhibition at Feldman gallery organized in conjunction with the Village Voice. Like last year a special issue of the Voice functioned as a catalogue, including photographs of much of the work and special essays on the topic. Last year’s exhibition focused on the nuclear threat and was particularly well timed in the light of the great interest in the topic in the spring, making that issue of the Voice one of the largest sellers in recent history. While there was no such immediately topical slant to this year’s show (it’s still 1983), this is a unique and ambitious endeavor for a commercial gallery. “Curated” exhibitions are normally the domain of alternative spaces or museums and when they do appear in commercial galleries, they tend to be thinly disguised attempts to sell work. While 1984: A Preview did seem to favor Feldman artists, it was remarkably uncommercial in feeling.

The literary bent of much of the work was appropriate for a show that took its inspiration from a book. However, within this overall framework, the art broke down into four major categories: work that depicted dehumanization and human alienation, sculpture that represented surreal machines and assembled environments, overtly emblematic work using words, and a unique optimistic section featuring architectural drawings and models. The show did not adhere to Orwell’s book in a literal sense but drew it’s theme from Orwell’s vision and what it has come to mean.

Dehumanization

The theme of dehumanization was the subject matter of many works in a variety of media. None was clearer or more appropriate to the exhibition than Portrait, a video tape by Harmut Lerch and Claus Holtz which consists of 100,000 photographic portraits viewed consecutively at a gradually increasing rate, up to 20,000 faces per second. As the photographs (which share a common eye level) are shown more and more rapidly, they gradually blur together into one homogenized image, a sexless, expressionless face neither beautiful nor ugly. This is a straightforward work about conformity and lack of uniqueness, yet its simplicity (in conception, not execution) does not detract from the strength of its message leading the viewer to fantasize about futuristic uniform societies produced by cloning. The vision is pure 1984.

Other, more traditional works also deal with dehumanization. George Segal’s Machine of the Year Time Magazine Cover January 3, 1983 consists of a ghost-like man and wife sitting in a room with brightly lit computer screens – reminiscent of 1984’s omnipresent “telescreens.” The contrast of the typically bored and depressed Segal figures and the more radiant computers speak of a time when man has lost control to machines. Like many other works in the show the people here are passive victims of something more powerful (as Big Brother). As opposed to many exhibitions of political art, there are very few distinct villains (generals, police) but a host of victims. The villains in the show tend to be machines or impersonal groups.

One notable villain is Nancy Grossman’s R.A.D. This sculpture is an obvious S/M image-covered with black leather and zippers. However, this is not really a human image but a representation of man-as-machine, a certain candidate for Orwell’s semi-human “thought police.”

Machines

Alice Aycock’s The Theory of Twilight (Prayers for the Undoing of Spells) is a viciously beautiful machine consisting of bright metal curved knives. When set in motion by a machine clearly visible in the back, the knives whirl in aesthetically pleasing patterns – but with an undeniable threat of violence. One if reminded of Kafka’s Penal Colony and its brutal machine but also of the allure that machine had for characters in the story. While its threatening quality seems appropriate for the 1984 theme, there is a homemade quality to Theory of Twilight that looks unique and “artistic” rather than high-tech.

There is no more appropriate work in the exhibition that The One Who Sees All, a small mixed media construction. The piece contains a quotation from 1984: “With Big Brother, ignorance is strength, freedom is slavery, war is peace.” The party slogans repeatedly broadcast to Oceana residents. At the center of the piece is an inoperative camera lens, reminding us that “Big Brother is watching.” While this work is one of the few to draw its inspiration directly from 1984, it is nonetheless comprehensible to those who have not read the book since its basic message is so widely understood. The One Who Sees All, like Aycock’s piece, also looks homemade, and seems a bit too personal for Big Brother’s eye – but both devices give an interesting sense of man’s relationship to the machine.

Words

The work in 1984 that contained words occupied a large percentage of the space and included many of the most problematic works. While some managed to utilize the written word in an aesthetically consistent and thematically compelling manner, others lost strength by a disjunction between word and image. One of the most satisfying “emblematic” works was John Fekner’s Changing Channels Switching Stations Under Control of the Television Nation (Beauty’s Only Screen Deep). The work consists of three elements: A black television set with a racing digital clock replacing the picture tube, two photographs of a Music Radio 77 television commercial with NOTV written over them, and a droning loop tape condemning the tube (including in its text the title of the work). What was impressive about the piece was how well its seemingly disparate elements were integrated. The digital clock looked at home in the television and its quick pace (24 hours every 15 seconds) evoked wasted time. The tape was as boring and repetitive as television tends to be. The photograph showed the exceptionally juvenile images that make you want to watch NOTV.

Architecture

While most of the exhibition offers horrific images of the future or present, the section devoted to architecture is surprisingly optimistic – in some cases downright utopian. For example, James Rossant’s drawings for the new capital of Tanzania, Dodoma, showed a hopeful and idealistic vision of what architecture and urban planning should do. In carefully contrived steps, the city that is now just beginning to be constructed will grow into a modern capital. The drawings and explanatory notes show the well-organized terraces where governmental offices and hotel rooms will sprout up – and one senses that Rossant really believes it will happen. Located next to Segal’s Machine of the Year this project is refreshingly hopeful. This optimism, of course, is not surprising in architecture. No one would intentionally commission a wholeheartedly negative building. When true irony does appear – as in the giant nonfunctional TV antenna atop Venturi’s Guild House (an old folk’s home) it is considered cruel. Negative fantasy architecture, like Piranesi’s or Robert Morris’ prisons, have traditionally been the domain of visual artists, not architects. Architects, unlike painters and sculptors, are paid to make things better.

In Feldman’s press release, there is a quotation from 1984:

“All that they did was to keep alive in him the belief, or hope, that others besides himself were the enemies of the Party. Perhaps the rumors of vast underground conspiracies were true after all – perhaps the Brotherhood really existed! It was impossible, in spite of the endless arrests and confessions and executions, to be sure that the Brotherhood was not simply a myth. Some days he believed in it, some days not.”

This exhibition meant to show us that Big Brother does exist and that there is a Brotherhood fighting back. In this sense the show was hopeful – as was last year’s no-nukes show. The content, however, of most of the work was as depressing as reading the morning paper.

TOM FINKELPEARL