The Century Governs the Ungovernables
The New Museum, New York
The 2012 New Museum Ungovernables Triennial samples work by thirty-four artists born in the 1970s and 80s and from parts of the world “foreign” to New York audiences, primarily the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
Curated by New Museum curator Eungie Joo, the exhibition is riddled with problems that perpetuate a penchant for the “exotic” and marginalize minority groups through wall texts that attempt to provide quick-fix insights into complex sociopolitical concerns. However, beyond this “packaged” presentation, the Triennal does reveal some truly determined treasures.
The finest treasure is undoubtedly O Século [The Century], a video created by Brazilian collaborative team, artist Cinthia Marcelle and curator/filmmaker Tiago Mata Machado. An indictment of our current state of being, O Século [The Century] is a descended street view that bears witness to a 9-minute long single-take concerto of debris being defiantly thrown across the picture plane, ultimately accumulating in an unruly configuration of discarded surplus
Created with the help of the $100,000 Victor Pinchuk Future Generation Art Prize, won by Marcelle, O Século [The Century] is a masterful choreography of flying functional objects, including oil barrels, tires, hard hats, cartons, shipping crates and metal rods that aggressively defile the space with war-like, anarchic crashes. First entering from the right of the frame and then reversing direction, the methodical and brisk pace of flying paraphernalia creates a pulsating Pollock-like rhythm of forms, color and line that comprises this composition-in-motion. A waft of ominous gas-like smoke impregnates the frame and blinds the shadow of a looming barbed wire fence, making it clear that this formalist approach is an accomplice to a vigorous political agenda. Although the anonymous assailants remain omitted from the frame, it is clear their assault on this territory is an activist’s call to action.
It is Marcelle and Machado’s combination of rigorous articulation and raw aggression that allows this video to function both as an aesthetic experience and as a testament to sociopolitical disquiet. As a result, O Século [The Century] is a symphony of destruction that functions multifariously and independently of its written description.
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O Século [The Century], 2011.Video, color, sound; 9:37 min. Coproduced with Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev. Courtesy the artists and Galeria Vermelho, São Paulo.
O Século [El siglo], 2011. Video, color, sonido; 9:37 min. En coproducción con el Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev. Cortesía de los artistas y de la galería Vermelho, San Pablo.
