DYSTOPIA. CURATED BY CRISTINE WANG (CURATOR, NEW MEDIA ARTS)
MACHINES WILL LEAD TO A NEW ORDER BOTH OF WORK AND OF LEISURE”
[Le Corbusier, Vers une Architecture (1923)]
Artists at the beginning of the 20th century sought towork in hybrid forms, as a socially-oriented movement, anutopian vision which embodied the idealism of a neworder, believing itself capable of changing, reforming,reordering–totally changing all aspects of human life.They embraced the notion of the all-encompassing role ofart: the profound belief in the ability of art to effectchange.
Almost one hundred years later, into the new millenium,we have seen the effects of this utopian vision: thefailure of modernism and its various permutations on aglobal basis.
At the dawn of the new millenium, what are the newparadigms for living in this Age of GlobalCommunications? We see that in the work of BettyBeaumont, for instance, in her “Ocean Landmark Project”(1978-1980), located 40 miles beyond New York Harbor,that here is a prototype for sustainable living. It is itself,both an underwater sculpture on a massive scale: 500tons of an industrial waste product made of processedcoal-waste, a potential pollutant that has undergone aplanned transformation into a flourishing ecosystem: apoetic vision 70 feet below the surface, on the floor ofthe Atlantic Continental Shelf.
Contrasting with this positive paradigm for inhabitationor regeneration in the world’s oceans, Christoph Draegeroffers us his catastrophic vision in his video “Oil” (1998).Utilising found footage of the world’s oil spill disasters,he comments upon the way in which we easily forget thequestion of technological failure, deconstructing ourconcept of reality as mediated by the news media,hollywood, and other sources of stimuli in the globalmedia-saturated village.
“At the end of the 20th century, catastrophe has notbecome a paradigm of world experience, but rather,because of its ubiquity in the media, the definitive imageof “accelerating standstill” (–Paul Virilio). The magnitudeof a catastrophe is no longer measured by the number ofits victims, but rather by its medial valuation andresulting telepresence–whose impressive images presentus with horror as an aesthetic experience.”
[Dirk Blubaum, The Security of Risk]
CURATED BY
CRISTINE WANG (CURATOR, NEW MEDIA ARTS)
THE ALTERNATIVE MUSEUM, NEW YORK
December 2, 2000 – January 13, 2001
Tribes Gallery
285 East Third Street New York, NY 10009
Participating Artists in the Gallery + Online Exhibitions Include:
MARK AMERICA
DANIEL GARCIA ANDUJAR
ZHAO BANDI
BETTY BEAUMONT
MIKE BIDLO
NATALIE BOOKCHIN
JOHN BOONE
HEATH BUNTING
YOUNG-HAE CHANG
SHU LEA CHEANG
MARIAH CORRIGAN + JONATHAN HERDER
CRITICAL ART ENSEMBLE
ANDY DECK
RICARDO DOMINGUEZ
SONG DONG
CHRISTOPH DRAEGER
LAURA EMRICK
FAKESHOP
PETER FEND
ZHANG GA
JOY GARNETT
LEAH GILLIAM
RICK GLOBUS
KEN GOLDBERG
MARINA GRZINIC
GH HOVAGIMYAN
FRAN ILICH
EDUARDO KAC
YAEL KANAREK
OLGA KISSELEVA
TINA LAPORTA
PATRICK LICHTY
MARK LOMBARDI
DIANE LUDIN
JENNY MARKETOU
HILARY MASLON
JENNIFER + KEVIN MCCOY
JONAS MEKAS
EMIL MEMON
WILLIAM MEYER
MTAA
MARK NAPIER
CARSTEN NICOLAI
EAMON O’KANE
ROXY PAINE
WANG QINGSONG
FRANCESCA DA RIMINI +
MICHAEL GRIMM
LEE SONGE
LEWIS STEIN
JEREMY STENGER
ZHOU TIEHAI
LINDA WALLACE
MACIEJ WISNIEWSKI
GU WENDA
QUI ZHIJIE
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