In the previous post we briefly focused on a young artist who got a special mention at the Venice Biennale, so let's look today at another artist, Charles Atlas, who received a special mention at this year's art exhibition, "for two videos of great visual splendour and sophisticated editing in which images of natural and artificial beauty are joined to words addressing questions of austerity and frustration, sexuality and class."
Born in Saint-Louis, Missouri, Atlas has worked for around forty years creating visual installations, collaborating in the early '70s with dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham (together they produced 12 films). After her death in 2009, Atlas started experimenting with a new aesthetics, eliminating the human figure, favouring numbers and experimenting with repetitive rhythms.
In Venice he presents a multi-channel video installation in the Arsenale, "The Tyranny of Consciousness", simultaneously showing a montage of 44 sunsets ("Kiss the Day Goodbye"), combined with "Here she is...v1", featuring the voice of legendary New York drag queen Lady Bunny.
In the video Lady Bunny reveals how she finally found a voice and managed to speak about politics only after growing up, and then talks about peace, life, our planet, greed and the confusing and complex times we are living in.
"I don't understand where the greed that is causing the war, I don't understand where the greed that is killing the planet (the only planet that we have to live on) is coming from (…) I don't understand where the desire to oppress comes from, but it happens in every layer of our society," Lady Bunny states.
"There really is an agenda to prevent us from being peaceful and prosperous. Because peace does not make as much money for the people in power (…) Unless we mobilize (…) unless we stand up and say 'No, you are not going to oppress us -- No, you are not going to take our money to go and fight a war with it -- No, you are not going to racially profile us -- No, you are not going to rape us -- No, you are not going to dictate what goes on in our vagina. Until we actually stand up to them, they're just going to keep away with murder. (...) It has really become insane and no one is talking about peace. I don't want to live in a world without peace."
A final work, "Chai" features a huge digital clock counting down from 18 minutes to zero (the number of minutes it takes the suns to set). Ominous music accompanies this section of the video, but then Lady Bunny appears on the screen, her massive blonde hairdo filling it.
In her fake eyelashes and glamorously kitsch outfits, Lady Bunny uncannily becomes more credible and reliable than today's politicians, as she erupts in an infectious disco anthem, almost apocalyptically announcing the joyful end of our sad world.
Note for book lovers: for this year's project "Unpacking My Library", inspired by Walter Benjamin's 1931 essay, Charles Atlas recommended as reading materials John Cage's "Composition in Retrospect", Douglas Crimp's "Before Pictures", Chris Hedges' "Unspeakeable", Paul Schimmels' "Robert Rauschenberg: Combines" and Andy Warhol's "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)".
Image credits for this post
Charles Atlas, The Tyranny of Consciousness, 2017; five-channel video installation.
Photographs in this post by: Andrea Avezzù and Italo Rondinella; Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
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