You walk into a room and instantly space seems to fall away, replaced instead by cacophonous sound that seems to alter your sense of reality. You wander into a gallery space and feel transported into a melancholy hipster dream. A video plays before you and manages to capture both the experience of living in the digital age and the ancient mythologies of mankind.
These are the experiences created by the latest collage of artists at the New Museum, proving once again why it is at the forefront of the New York art scene. At once whimsical and disturbing, shocking and deeply playful, the 5 artists presented in the exhibition running until June 29 are present a reawakening of tried artistic norms.
Ragnar Kjartansson presents ‘Me, My Mother, My Father, and I,’ a collection of video and performance artworks which discuss ideas a masculinity and performance with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek. Growing up in a theatrical family (his mother is a famous Icelandic actress) the question of performance seems to have been a constant for Kjartansson. Even before we enter the space, the museum becomes a performative space as music drifts gently down the stairs. Entering the exhibition hall, we are confronted with the source: ten young men, variously arranged across the room strumming a guitar and singing. They seemed (and probably were) plucked straight out of Brooklyn: skinny jeans, beanies and beards abound. The scene is comical in its cliché of the modern bohemian: PBRs even litter the space. Immediately ideas of cool, of masculinity and contemporary creative lifestyles are questioned. Yet the simple beauty of the song, composed by Kjartan Sveinsson, of Sigur Rós fame, transforms the space into something sacred once more, alluding to a continued, aching perseverance for the creative ideal.
Roberto Cuoghi’s ‘Šuillakku Corral’ is a profound sound installation that takes the viewer into the void. Walking into the dark gallery space is a disconcerting experience in and of itself, yet as we trace the serpentine path into the exhibition’s core, the sound of clanging and wailing grows ever ominous. The work is described as “an immersive sound installation evoking an imagined ancient Assyrian lament from the seventh century BC.” Using a collection of handmade instruments carefully researched, built, and played by the artist himself, Cuoghi envelops the viewer, or more accurately the listener, in sound and darkness, allowing space and time to fall away and transporting us to a more primal, mythical time.
In a similar vein but in an entirely different medium, Camille Henrot presents ‘The Restless Earth,’ by far the most exciting collection of works in the museum. The standout is a captivating video installation which juxtaposes images from the natural world with both mythical and scientific creation stories. The editing is reminiscent of the films of early twentieth century filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein: seemingly random bits and pieces of footage and still image are cut rapidly against each other, forming an immaculate web of interconnection and contemporary classification. The experience is reminiscent of trying to understand evolution through Facebook: new ideas constantly emerge and resurface, are replaced by images, montages, pieces of text. It manages to simultaneously explore the nature of human storytelling as a means of understanding the world as well as speaking to the contemporary experience.
The only weakness in the exhibition is Hannah Sawtell’s ACCUMULATOR in the lobby, whose poorly manipulated photographs do not do justice to her interesting soundscapes. Jeanine Oleson’s ‘Hear, Here’ is long spanning work which will culminate in a contemporary opera. Judging from her piers at the museum, I cannot wait to see the result. Overall this particular New Museum encounter is a rather breathtaking one.
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