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Anyone familiar with Paul Pfeiffer’s pioneering moving-image work knows that he has been out ahead of “the culture” for more than twenty years. Yet the manipulations and labors he thought to exert on at-one-time recalcitrant film and video frames have now been incorporated into platform and persuasion technologies that have touched us all, whether we’re aware of it or not.
One of the singular accomplishments of Ed Ruscha’s long and varied career is to bring the hyperbolic image of the American billboard down to its actual size. Whether revealing the ass-end of the Hollywood sign or the lateral sprawl of Manifest Destiny down to its cinematic Sunset end, he’s served as sardonic witness to the country’s love/hate, super/under-sized relationship with itself.
Dineo Seshee Bopape’s first solo museum exhibition in New York is carefully attuned to histories of resistance. Embedded in the show is a refusal against categorization and linearity, as well as the question: How do we imaginatively retrieve or invent new methods for prospering?
Although the show’s title, Chosen Memories, may afford its artists greater agency, it also illustrates the challenging terrain of ongoing debates concerning cultural preservation, identity, and the multifaceted narratives that shape our understanding of the region. MoMA’s exhibition reminds us how important it is to actively engage with history, not only as a passive observer but as an agent of transformation, working towards a future that reflects our collective values and aspirations.
There’s a point about halfway through After SFX (2018) where Lawrence Abu Hamdan pauses his performance—he’s just relayed the story of Lebanese President Émile Lahoud’s security tackling a cameraman after mistaking the sound of a tripod for the sound of a pistol—and a low, screeching hum, like a buzzing bee or a car burning out in the distance, fills the auditorium.