Ugo Rondinone and the Absurd

I've wanted to look further at Ugo Rondinone's work for awhile. I was first familiar with his "Hell, Yes" rainbow piece (above) that was on the face of the New Museum. Playful, fun and poppy. Yes, it made me smirk. I took him as a clever joke-ster. His sculptures of funny monstrous face blobs (beige blog smiling above) added to this idea I had about his work. I recognized a darker side in his clowns...but still placed them in a category that was closer to the quick joke than to anything deeper. I had not seen any shows of his - sadly - so I was only seeing a small part of his work and, therefore, was missing the part I would most cherish.

Now, in reading about Ugo's work, I found he was giving us more than a joke...or, rather, pointing out how WE, all of us, are really the joke. I realized this while` reading a review of his show in Australia on www.theage.com.au. In it, Robert Nelson reviews 'Clockwork for Oracle', 2004.

Nelson explains the video space set up in the gallery:

'There are three walls of 24 videos each, set up in grids. They display two films: half the monitors show a man walking along a whole lot of deserted buildings and the other half show a woman doing the same beat....The sequences roll on for as long as you can watch. The longer you attend, the more you experience an illusion, as of perspective: you expect the two to converge but they never do. '

Then Nelson hits on something I cherish - the same way I cherish Samuel Beckett:

'The illusion is psychological, because when you see a man and a woman walking in one space, you can't imagine that their movement is independent.... Our romantic will for them to be united is as absurd as expecting the man and woman to be lovers. We're hard-wired to project a vision on to the world that flatters ourselves. And finally, in this room of abstract motifs without an abstract core, sits a clown, a puppet of a man, dumped on the concrete floor, a good simulacrum of an exhausted imbecile, whose nonsense nevertheless amuses. After making everyone chuckle at so much absurdity, the clown resumes a life which lacks the humour of the stage.'

Absurdity. The clown lives a life without the humor of the stage. He is sitting slumped down on the ground. He is scary, as clowns often are. Ugo's clown looks like a clown in the face - but with it's own unique colors of a full green face, large yellow spaces for eyes and a blue mouth. Green like an alien, green. Or a sick person depicted in a cartoon. He isn't wearing the typical costume. Instead he is loosely covered in a brown fur fabric- like teddy bear skin? He has a large hair 'necklace' hanging from his neck like a member of an aboriginal tribe. Is he supposed to refer to more 'primitive' societies with this costume? Neanderthals- less civilized human ancestors? Closer to our animal selves?

This makes me think of a recent article I read: Thomas Nagel's 'The Absurd'. Nagel leads you through why and how the absurdity of our human existence is found in the situation of our consciousness (and, therefore, our ability to step outside ourselves) coupled with our inability to change being just a human and act at our lives as just a human. The absurdity is felt in our daily lives as we mundanely go through our lives building, making, striving - yet, what we do now will not matter in a million years- Earth and the universe will move along as it does.

Quotes from Nagel about the absurdity of our overall lives:

'Collision between seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt....We have to make choices, live with energy and attention that shows what is taken more serious than others....'

Nagel goes on to speak of ways people can relieve this sense of absurdity. These tactics for relief could be religion or purposely living an existence closer to our animal selves. He does point out that religion still leaves room for doubt and, therefore, the absurdity still exists. And in living a less 'civilized' existence: he reminds us of the extreme effort it would take to do this and, therefore, the level of seriousness the individual would have to take himself in order to live in this way. That level of seriousness would have its own absurdity.

I wonder if that is Ugo's clown- trying to live a more animal existence?

More of Ugo's work:

The lightbulbs. Large, handmade, useless - absurd.

Lastly: the human body sculptures at the top:

These were at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea in 2010. At first they seem to 'tame?' for his work. They lack the caricature, the cartoon-ish. They are us sad, pensive humans sitting around in non-active poses. The hybridity shown in the lines and color differences are interesting to me. They have the same lines as mannequins - a representation of the human self. All the colors are earth tones that point to our human, biological, earthly selves. The dirt, rock, ground.

Vito Acconci - Video/Performance Work from the 70s

I first heard of Vito Acconci when I learned of his famous masturbation piece that took place under the floorboards of Sonnabend gallery in 1972....his private moment made semi-public. It was called 'Seedbed.' Acconci spent 8 hours a day over a 3 week period lying under a low wooden ramp in the gallery telling his sexual fantasies of and to every viewer that came into the gallery- his words emanated over speakers in the gallery for all to hear. The video documentation of the piece shows no visual sexual content - it is all in words and suggestions. (See the top right hand photo for an image of Acconci performing this piece.)

I then learned more about his work- He dealt in the private/public, the body and the psychological- primarily through performance and video. Then, in a video class in Grad School, I saw his video 'Theme Song', 1973 (See the top left hand photo). Oh my god. I had a mixture of reactions: humor, uncomfortableness, revulsion and entrancement. He drew me into the television monitor like no one ever had. It is still my favorite video piece ever made.

In this piece, he plays a cassette player with music from the Doors, Bob Dylan etc. He brings his legs in towards the camera as if he is wrapping his body around you, his face taking up the right hand side of the frame, and then brings his legs back out behind him. During the entire video, he smokes cigarettes and tries to talk you into coming into the video space with him... He asks you to come to him with 'openness and manipulation' (Electronic Arts Intermix quote):

"Of course I can't see your face. I have no idea what your face looks like. You could be anybody out there, but there's gotta be somebody watching me. Somebody who wants to come in close to me ... Come on, I'm all alone ... "

Here is an overall view of his work - words are again from the website, Electronic Arts Intermix:

'In the 1970s, he produced a remarkable body of conceptual, performance-based film and video works, in which he engages in an intensive psychodramatic dialogue between artist and viewer, body and self, public and private, subject and object.

In his video performances, the body is a site for a physical and psychological search for self, with language as the catalyst. Video is equated with the close-up, an intimate theatrical space for face-to-face confessionals and actions. Intensely personal, often to the point of exhibitionism, Acconci's stream-of-consciousness monologues and performative acts, documented in real time by a fixed camera, chronicle the insertion of the private self into the public sphere.'

Now with the onslaught of the internet, skype, youtube...with people photographing themselves...teenagers knowing how to pose in the most flattering (above head to the side shot) poses for their fb pages...Now where is the body, the identity? It's meta compared to Acconci...he is within all of us now in this way. Many of us in this digital age are doing what he was doing in the 70s - only not with the same sense of self-awareness. Our self-awareness is a different kind of critical? We aren't thinking of the body as body...our digital bodies are obvious representations to us....how are we represented online? How are we packaging and showing ourselves?

Our ability to reach people has changed through digital means. The spread of our reach is infinite...but the depth/realness is often less so... it is less body, less face to face in the internet age...but there are more people to reach towards, to interact with - even if it is on a digital realm often or even only.

In our internet age, do we see a video of someone talking to the camera as if the viewer could come inside of the video space? Yes. Do we see someone seducing the viewer? Yes. Is this video piece a forerunner to the skype seduction between a girlfriend and her boyfriend?

The third image above is from Acconci's video, 'Open Book', 1974. Honestly, I couldn't watch much of it. It grossed me out or annoyed me or something...I couldn't understand what he was saying -which I found frustrating...but it also felt disturbing in that special Acconci way that I can't help but have respect for.

Here is a quote about this piece from online ArtForum:

'Vito Acconci's open mouth is framed by the camera in an extreme close-up, bringing the viewer uncomfortably close.. A desperte sense of strained urgency comes across as Acconci gasps, 'I'll accpet you, I won't shut down, I won'tbshut you out... I'm open to you, I'm open to everything...This is not a trap, we can go inside, yes, come inside...” Acconci continues to plead in this way for the length of the tape, his mouth help unnaturally wide open. The pathological psychology of such enforced openness betrays a struggle to accept and be accepted by others. The sustained image of Acconci's open mouth also evidences a sinister, vaguely threatening streak that is more or less evident in much of Acconci's work.'

I am especially drawn to the above section of the quote: 'The pathological psychology of such enforced openness betrays a desperate struggle to accept and be accepted by others'. I see that in all of his work. There is a beautiful humanity sitting right next to that threatening sinister streak also mentioned above...right next to each other - co-mingling.