The Devil Rearing Its Head: Part II

Image from the New York Times article
To Live and Not Die in L.A.: Fear the Walking Dean in AMC

A week ago, I posted this comment under my article: The Devil Rears His Head:

There's an instinctive awareness of evil these days. That means that people are reacting to evil as though it were some common occurrence. People used to shy away from evil, concocting all kinds of ways to deter it, or keep it away from them. Now, they court it.

I was analyzing a painting in the Art Gallery of Mississauga (posted below).

In the article, I link to other posts I've made where I describe a determined pursuit of evil in the arts, and which is slowly making its way into ordinary life.

Here is Diana West, who normally sticks to current political commentary, observing the same phenomenon in her article The State of the Culture. Here is an excerpt:

Take today's "Arts and Leisure" section. The title promises arts and leisure, but, of course, it showcases fare once relegated to "pulp magazines" or even wrapped in a paper bag.

What we are looking at (above) is (1) Blood and gore lede: "'Fear the Walking Dead,' " a spinoff of 'The Walking Dead' on AMC, goes back to the early days of the zombie plague."

Excerpt: "The two shows fit under the same mythological umbrella created by Mr. Kirkman in his comic-book series, with the same rules governing the type of zombies (the lumbering kind) and how to kill them (stabbing, shooting, or smashing them in the head).

The secular, ungodly world that we have created has allowed for cracks (now gaping holes) through which the ever-lurking devil can enter. God help us.

"Very Bad Consequences"

July 24, 1959: Richard Nixon and Nikita Krushchev tangle on the merits of capitalism vs. communism in the “Kitchen Debate.” Visiting Moscow to open a national exhibition promoting American culture, vice-president Nixon joined Soviet leader Krushchev on a tour of displays of modern American homes. Krushchev dismissed the American wares as no better than their Soviet counterparts, and turned the conversation to politics when he slammed the U.S. Congress’s Captive Nations Resolution condemning Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. By the time they arrived at a model kitchen, the volume of the debate had spiked, with Nixon criticizing Krushchev’s constant threats about his nuclear arsenal, and Krushchev ominously warning of “very bad consequences.” As a rare outburst of genuine animosity in front of the world press, the debate made front-page news back home. [Image Source]

What I find revealing about this photograph is that Nixon is really debating Krushchev, while Krushchev is standing pugnaciously, eventually to warn of "very bad consequences."

It is the West which is always ready to "debate" and "negotiate." The rest of the world, if given the chance, simply wants to dominate.

And Brezhnev is in the background, watching, assessing, figuring out his American adversary.

Here's another:

3. The Aggression of Alien (Alienated) Asian Artists: Kim Lee Kho

Photo By: KPA


I attended the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Walk the Talk series to listen to Kim Lee Kho, the artist who is "walking the talk."

I had visited the gallery's most recent exhibition, Be a Sport and Pan American Photo Exhibition in honor of the Pan AMerican games which are being hosted by Toronto and surrounding region, which includes Mississauga, but I couldn't understand why Kho's chains unlinked was included in this exhibition. I still don't, but my conclusion is that it is a separate work, sponsored by a separate body, as the online program notes inform me:

The XIT-RM is a project space dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging artists in the GTA and Mississauga region.
Six artists are selected annually by the gallery’s curatorial team to exhibit work that honours the mission and mandate
of the AGM, with an emphasis on contemporary art and critical engagement.

Thanks to generous funding provided by the RBC Foundation, each exhibition features its own opening and is
accompanied by a published catalogue with a curatorial essay.

The AGM has to accommodate six artist from the GTA (Greater TOronoto Area) and Mississauga region. Exhibitions which have to be displayed due to special events cannot be moved or rescheduled. And Art Galleries are ecclectic places after all, so concurrent exhibition will only add to the interest.

But, the gods have co-operated, and Lee fits in more than it seems.

Kendra Ainsworth, in the the AGM's program notes describe her thus:

The chain link fence is a ubiquitous structure, found in ares both urban and rural, demarcating property lines, enclosing or separating spaces, people, and objects. In her first solo museum show, Brampton-based multi-disciplinary artist Kim Lee Kho engages with this every day item both physically and symbolically, examining the formal elements of its composition and its semiotic significance, crafting an immersive installation in she not only emerges the varied media of her practice, but one i which the viewer's negotiation of the gallery space echoes the thematic content of the work.

Kho has often taken up the concept of barriers or enclosure, and images of chain link have appeared in previous works. However, with the multiple components of the Chains Unlinked installation, Kho offers a more in-depth and nuanced examination of how we confront and interact with barriers of all kinds - physical, social, psychological. Each of the works in this exhibition can, in a way, be viewed as a discursive strategy i the language of negotiation with the many barriers that we encounter in our lives.

Anchoring the installation is a large-scale wall drawing, Boxed In #21, an extension of Kho's earlier series. The static figure, trapped both within the frame of the image and on the wall, suggests that one possible reaction to encountering the restriction of confinement is that of abject submission. By contrast, the video Can't Ge In/Can't Get Out 2 illustrates a struggle (perhaps futile) against the physical - or metaphorical - impediment; the subject (the artist) throws herself repeatedly against the fence, attempting to either break through or scale it. At the same time, the viewer embodies the role of the captive figure, caught in between and forced to navigate through a series of hanging installations. However in Insubstantiated II and Chains Unlined, the form of the chain link fence is transmuted, becoming mere shadows on sheer panels of fabric, and the individual wire components dismantled, becoming abstracted, minimal forms. Here the seemingly resistant form of the barriers is both adapted and adapted to, as Kho suggests that barriers can be flexible, even beautiful, and rather than only being structures that are imposed upon us, perhaps barriers are sometimes boundaries we need to create for ourselves, for our own well-being.

By leaving the metaphor vague - is the fence a form of physical imprisonment, a barrier to access, an emotional wall built by us or others? - Kho allows the viewer to imbue the struggle to unlink the chains of the fence with personal significance. The fence itself is a universal signifier; our chains and how we unlink them, intensely personal.

I asked her the following questions, right at the beginning of the "walk," afte which I went inthe background, and just watched and listened:

1. Technical Questions:

- Was this a free hand drawing?


Graffitti



Copyright infringement or Copyright violation
If copyright gives the artist certain rights to publish, perform or reproduce a work of art they create, copyright infringement occurs when someone reproduces (copies) or publishes a creative work without the permission of the artist. One important factor is that although copyright gives the artist rights, these are limited. For example,

...anyone is allowed to take a photograph of a copyrighted painting in a public art show and publish it to accompany an article reviewing the show. This is called "editorial use" and it is not a copyright violation. On the other hand, taking the same photo and using it to create and sell posters is "commercial use" and doing this without asking the artist is a copyright violation...


http://www.visualartcopyright.com/terminology.html#legal1


Offence/Defense
Foreground: "Fenced" by Nancy Cuttle
Far left back: "Can't Get In/Can't Get Out video by Kim Lee Kho
Along back wall: "Neighbours", "My-laws: No By-laws" and "Identity: Crisis" by Kal Honey

Binding Agreement HD from Kim Lee Kho on Vimeo.

By Kim Lee Kho, assisted by Kal Honey

Please view in HD by selecting the 'HD' logo in the lower right of the viewer window.

A silent art video that is more like a gently transforming painting that loops for a few cycles. The vertical orientation reduces the apparent quality. I will upload a 1080p version soon. Originally presented on a 37" 1080p LED HDTV display rotated to vertical orientation.

'Binding Agreement' is one of my first two video artworks, though it hardly qualifies as a video at all. I think of it more as a transforming image. It loops a few times through the sequence in the course of its 6ish minutes. Because it is more like a painting than a film, it is best to quiet your mind a little before watching.

In my symbolic world, white picket fences represent domestic life, home ownership and a kind of middle class Canadian dream I grew up with. That dream, while pervasive in Canada anyway, was intensified by the values of my immigrant father for whom home ownership represents security, and security represents the highest value.

My own experience with home ownership has felt complicated, and I am old enough to have grown up in a time of major change in women's roles and expectations. Domestication has played out differently for women than for men, but for either sex there are those who find the situation less than comfortable.

There is more than one kind of "binding agreement" associated with different aspects of our domestication and alluded to in the title. Visually I have also referenced classical and Renaissance sculpture in this piece.

Thank you.