(photo credit- Stephanie Halmos/Patrick McMullan)
This performance piece was done in conjunction with Koh's exhibition at Deitch's other gallery, two doors down from this space. During the dinner, these genital-baring, bucket-helmet-wearing boys constructed a wooden bridge with a white box at the top.
(photo credit- Stephanie Halmos/Patrick McMullan)
I don't have all the details of the performance, but as the dénouement of this little display was a group urination session. They all pissed into their bucket helmets.
Now, this is an interesting corollary to my post on the New York Magazine Dash Snow article in which I probed, 'What do cum-and-glitter-embellished skulls have to do with the common man?' Alas, I was without answer. With this performance, I am left dumbfounded once again, but able to make some interesting historical connections.
At least the Situationists, though similarly misogynist, based their social detournment on some kind of political foundation. This is such a fantastically poignant illustration of people simply appearing to interact. The viewers are actually watching people construct the images that then literally obstruct the possibility for genuine human interaction that might transpire at a dinner party. Here's a quotation from Chapter 1 of Society of the Spectacle:
The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as all of society, as part of society, and as instrument of unification. As a part of society it is specifically the sector which concentrates all gazing and all consciousness. Due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is the common ground of the deceived gaze and of false consciousness, and the unification it achieves is nothing but an official language of generalized separation.
This is exactly what's happening here. False consciousness? YUP! I bet they all think they're really thinking and smart and aware and shit. Deceived gaze? YUP! They're staring at assy nothing! It doesn't even have aesthetic value! It's just some 2x4s and cardboard! I would love to see some literature trying to justify or explain this abomination, though that assumes that Terence Koh is actually literate, which I highly doubt.
(photo credit- Stephanie Halmos/Patrick McMullan)
In summation, I reiterate my plea for help finding and castrating Dash Snow. I add Terence Koh to the list. Their names even rhyme. That must mean something.
