Not Politics as Usual

Abstract

the Political Economy, Austrian Cultural Forum New York City January 24-April 22, 2012 Visitors to It's the Political Economy, Stupid could easily have missed the video to Burn (2010) by Dread Scott, displayed in the entryway to the gallery. This would have been an unfortunate oversight, as Scott's thoroughly engaging work, with its ironic yet compelling take on the financial crisis, sets the tone for the show. In the video, Scott wanders around Vail Street on a sunny day when hankers, traders, and tourists crowd the streets. He carries a tin bucket and banknotes are pinned to his shirt. Scott intones the short phrase Money to burn over and over as he takes one bill after another and sets on fire, dropping the burning notes into the can to disintegrate completely. Some onlookers seem horrified, others bewildered, still others tentatively accept Scott's invitation to take part in the perlinance by offering their own money to burn. As the camera pans the scene, the viewer becomes aware of a group of policemen gathering in the background, clearly debating what to make of the unusual event unibiding. After a kw moments, the policemen approach Scott and after some discussion issue him a citation for disorderly conduct and stop the performance. As Scott wanders away, still chanting his refrain, a smattering of applause rises from the crowd. Though only about three-and-a-half minutes in length, the video captures several themes that reemerged in work by the other artists in the exhibition, including the cultural value of money in our society and the constraints and rules surrounding its acquisition and exchange or use. Scott describes his work as exploring a taboo, the willful physical destruction of currency, and states that it was the ultimate act of destruction of value--this money was not exchanged for anything. (1) Throughout the rest of the show an international group of artists including Danny Begg, Linda Bilda, Julia Christensen, Ycvgeniy Elks, flo6x8, Melanie Gilligan, Jan Peter Hammer, Alicia Herrero, Institute for Wishful Thinking, Olga Kopenkina, Alexandra Lerman, Oliver Ressler, and Isa Rosenberger reflected upon the financial crisis and its fallout in varied ways, but all engaged ideas of value and values: political, social, and economic. The exhibition, curated by Ressler and Gregory Sholette, featured a substantial number of video works, but some of the works in more traditional media carried particular impact. Bilda's wall mural, The Future and End of the Golden World (2011), provided a lyrical counterpart to some of the show's heavier images with its cartoon-like, yet somehow elegant, figures swooping along the gallery's white walls. The text incorporated into the work, however, encouraged viewers to reflect on the ways in which words do not always mean what they seem, depending on the intention of the speaker. One area of painted text warned When thought, speech and actions are disjointed corruption arises, reminding the viewer to be attentive to how people and institutions can create illusions of wealth and success that crumble when the truth behind them is revealed. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It seemed appropriate that viewers could move from Bilda's statement about corruption to Post-Fordist Variations (2011) by the collective Institute for Wishful Thinking. In this mixed-media work, the group ties an infamous 1973 New Tbrk Daily News headline, Ford to City: Drop Dead, to the current financial crisis. During an earlier fiscal crisis, in 1975, the United States government refused to grant a bailout to a nearly bankrupt New York City unless the city implemented austerity measures that would cut social service programs: 2 The references to bailouts and austerity measures bear an uncanny resemblance to terms connected to the post-2008 financial crisis in both the U.S. and Europe, and the work invokes the recurring nature of crisis and failure in capitalist societies. …