[ It’s interesting to see how political art changes. This
year’s Whitney Biennial, rather than in-your-face commentary on
American injustice here and abroad. Then there was a collection that I
thought was a parody, but discovered it was serious]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE
WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2022: SOME SUBTLE POLITICAL ART, PLUS TOUCH OF DEEP
IRONY
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Lucy Komisar
August 8, 2022
The Komisar Scoop
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_ It’s interesting to see how political art changes. This year’s
Whitney Biennial, rather than in-your-face commentary on American
injustice here and abroad. Then there was a collection that I thought
was a parody, but discovered it was serious _
The Zombies: Walmart, Apple, Disney. “La horda” (The horde)
2020., This year’s Whitney Biennial. Photo by Lucy Komisar
It’s interesting to see how political art changes. This
year’s Whitney Biennial
[[link removed]], rather than
in-your-face commentary on American injustice here and abroad
(including at the 2019 biennial black football players taking the
knee), my favorites here were more subtle takes, one on the consumer
culture, another on the military and a third that rivets your eyes on
U.S. corporate destruction abroad.
Then there was a collection that I thought was a parody, but
discovered it was serious: a series of questions on becoming an
American that people who take citizenship tests must answer.
THE ZOMBIES: WALMART, APPLE, DISNEY. “LA HORDA” (THE HORDE) 2020.
Andrew Roberts [[link removed]], born 1995 in
Tijuana, who lives in Mexico City and Tijuana, did a video
installation about allegorical zombies, victims of what he calls “a
crossfire geopolitical war.” The heads move and they speak.
Roberts explains he is reflecting on the deleterious effect of NAFTA,
set up to provide cheap labor to American factory owners and destroy
jobs of Americans. (The Economic Policy Institute reports
[[link removed].]that
“an exploding deficit in net exports with Mexico and Canada has
eliminated 394,835 U.S. jobs since NAFTA took effect in 1994,
contributing significantly to the 4% decline in real median wages
since 1993.”) Roberts says the U.S. sent Mexico American TV reruns
and turned Tijuana into a distribution point for illegal arms and
drugs. He says his childhood cartoons were mixed with the brutality
shown on the news.
THE BIG GUNS SUPPORT U.S. INVASIONS.
Rain in Rifle Season, Distributions from Split-Interest Trusts, Price
Includes Uniform, Never Hit Soft, by Buck Ellison.
While small-time guns shot up Mexico, the big versions were meant for
U.S. supported operations abroad, where well-connected mercenaries
were stand-ins for the U.S. Military. Buck Ellison
[[link removed]], born in 1987 in San Francisco, living in
Los Angeles, imagines Erik Prince, founder of private security firm
Blackwater (ie mercenaries) as he could have appeared on his Wyoming
ranch in 2003, the year his company got its first U.S. contracts to
engage in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prince (portrayed by an actor) is reading Clausewitz’s “On
War” and looking boyish and naïve in a style designed for
advertising. Appropriate, since that’s how U.S. wars are marketed to
the public.
DESTROYING BRAZILIAN RAINFOREST: “FELLED JUNGLE READY FOR
BURNING.”
“Felled jungle ready for burning” by Danielle Dean, 2021.
Most American destruction around the world has been carried out by
corporations. Danielle Dean
[[link removed]], born
1981 in Huntsville, Ala, now lives in Los Angeles and San Diego. Her
watercolor and related video are based on Ford Company advertisements:
“Felled jungle ready for burning.” Ford created Fordlandia in the
Brazilian Rainforest in the 1920s to extract rubber there. She says,
“Fordlandia essentially tried to bring the principles of the
assembly line into the rainforest, with disastrous environmental and
social consequences.” You can see the devastation.
BECOMING AMERICAN: THE CATECHISM
Then, in some ways, an unforgettable part of the exhibit. They are
easy to miss, but scattered around the museum. on walls, glass
windows, even above the bar and in the coat room, are bold questions
from a real government civics quiz.
The installation is by Rayyane Tabet
[[link removed]],
born in 1983 in Beirut, living in Beirut and San Francisco. His
questions come from the U.S. naturalization exam which he was
preparing to take. “100 Civics Questions,” part of a series
“Becoming American,” he said the lines “could be read like
concrete poetry or open-ended, contradictory, and often hermetic
questions.” Not a hint of the dripping irony they represent.
Imagining what the artists above would think, I’ve set down how they
might answer the questions.
Q: Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived?
A: The Native Americans, who were largely slaughtered in America’s
first genocide.
Q: What did the Declaration of Independence do?
A: Proclaimed separation from England so that white male landowners
could control the new country, rule over women, poor whites and the
surviving Native Americans and maintain the slavery of blacks.
Q: Name one U.S. territory.
A: It’s not something Americans are told much about since the people
living there were victims of American conquest, which would later be
called imperialism.
Q: During the Cold War, what was the main concern of the United
States?
A: That the Soviet Union would challenge American hegemony. Global
dominance is still the policy, but change the challengers to Russia
and China.
Q: What is the political party of the president now?
A: It is the Democratic wing of the Corporate/Wall Street Party. It
alternates with the Republican wing in America’s one-party state.
Q: What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
A: The ruling oligarchy and its military industrial complex, which are
more powerful than the official branches of government.
Q: The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the
Constitution. What are those words?
A: Refer to previous answer. “We the people” is a nice slogan but
doesn’t now and never did apply to the U.S. government.
Political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of
Northwestern conclude that the U.S. is a corrupt oligarchy where
ordinary voters don’t count.
Gilens and Page looked at 1,779 policy issues. They found that
economic elites and groups representing business interests have
substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while
average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no
influence. In fact, their impact was too small to count. Welcome to
the American oligarchy. See the 2014 study
[[link removed]].
Maybe the next Whitney Biennial could have questions that reflect how
the oligarchy developed.
WHITNEY BIENNIAL
[[link removed]] 2022: QUIET AS IT’S
KEPT. 99 GANSEVOORT ST, NYC. VISIT INFO
[[link removed]]. TICKETS
[[link removed]]. APRIL 6–SEPT 5, 2022.
_Photos by Lucy Komisar._
_[LUCY KOMISAR [[link removed]] articles
have appeared in publications as diverse as The Nation magazine and
the Wall Street Journal. She is also a theater critic and member of
The Drama Desk, the organization of New York theater critics, writers
and editors. Her particular interest is the political aspects of
theater. Her interviews and programs on YouTube
[[link removed]]._
_In 1962-3 was editor of the Mississippi Free Press. Her work for
civil rights is described in a book on the 1960s movement, We Are Not
Afraid. And in the University of Southern Mississippi archive
[[link removed]].
_
_We Believed We Were Immortal
[[link removed]],
a book published in 2017 by Kathleen W. Wickham, a professor of
journalism at the University of Mississippi, about journalists working
in Mississippi during civil rights movement, features a section on
Lucy._
_In 1970-71, she was a national vice president of the National
Organization for Women. A major NOW accomplishment she organized was
getting the government to adopt goals and timetables for hiring women
by federal contractors and by radio & TV stations regulated by the
FCC.]_
_Thanks to the author for sending this to Portside._
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