Forms of Critique, 2011
Notes on Lulzsec, Charlie Sheen, and Occupy Wall Street


For all the purported flaccidity of the previous generation’s youth the current world is engorged in crises. The angst and apathy that once allegedly flagged a crumbling cultural infrastructure in the 80s and 90s (assumed to reach maturity with the turn of the millennium) outgrew its suburban laziness and resigned itself to the instigations of the internet. Simultaneously the internet proved to be an effective medium in magnetizing the generation’s agency – in a decade’s time serving to release us from antiquated notions of human physicality, identity and relations. Anonymity and accountability became greater functions of the system and led to a revitalization of the role of critique and a restructuring of its methods.

In this essay I would like to describe a particular set of events and the subsequent inertia that, for me, most excitingly outlines the shape of critique. Admittedly these events will be predominantly Western – as will their effects – and have played out alongside more visceral forms of critique. I am aware, for instance, of another important set of events that can’t be emphasized enough: I speak, of course, of the current crises and movements of the Arab world. Inevitably those events remain a second order of reality to me – the designation Arab Spring remains an energetic series of reports, bites, clips and others’ opinions; documented into a fixture of reality within the solipsism presumed by my youth and Western-American worldview. I mention this because for the purposes of this essay I will need to bracket off those events – in service of focus and in defense of my greater ignorance to their complexities – but knowing that they exist in tandem is important. Relatable parallels do emerge despite the media’s persistent and obfuscating hum. The events I will focus on are Lulzsec’s 50-day bender (or cruise if you prefer), the spectacle that is/was Charlie Sheen (specifically Bret Easton Ellis’s interpretation in his article “Notes on Charlie Sheen and the End of Empire”) and finally, the Occupy Wall Street movement now gripping New York and the nation. ...

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Everything is a Mind Setting
A Review of Lior Shvil


“It is your killer instinct which must be harnessed if you expect to survive in combat. Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth.” – Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A different war, a different country, a different enemy; Full Metal Jacket is one example out of countless which entertains and interrogates an American pathos that is at once subjective and universal; the specifics are interchangeable. It is a pathos of insecurity, of mis-directed fear and shameless egoism. Turned, it is one of vigilance, of determination and global altruism. It is turned often; more than not it is extolled in the name of security–a defensive posture that excuses discrepancies between action and rhetoric; where a deliberate semantic slurring grays out priorities and values. In the end, it is what keeps the Mission Accomplished and lets the Jersey Shore fill our tweets while the West Bank slips by. Against this backdrop, in the shadows of these structures, Lior Shvil carries out Operation OZ Belev-yam in the consistently upstaging Gallery 2 at Andrea Rosen (I’m looking at you Wysocan). ...

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The Serpent's Fork'd Tongue
A Review of Duke Riley


Two Riparian Tales of Undoing houses reconstructions of Duke Riley’s recently past exhibitions. For the purposes of this review I’m going to forego retelling much of the histories involved behind the shows; simply because the gallery’s press release and Riley’s own website do the job already. Walking through the doors of the Magnan Metz gallery in Chelsea you are confronted with a choice: go left into a brightly lit and welcoming blue-walled room – the home of Reclaiming the Lost Kingdom of Laird; or right into a spiraling dark hallway – home to An Invitation to Lubberland. I chose right.

An Invitation to Lubberland is a spiraling hallway, dimly lit and evenly paced with the show’s works. There are intricate drawings of maps – cartoony in character but with the undeniable veneer of historic reverence and citing the structure of old hand-illustrated maps; a large wall illustration; a set of videos displayed on small screens; and large mosaics made of cigarettes and coins of a particular vintage. At the center it opens up to circular room where a well of whiskey sits surrounded by rock salt, railroad ties, and hanging dirty clothes; the acrid smell a specter of “real”-ness (as in ‘keeping it real’), perhaps to balance the clean presentation a small Chelsea gallery like Magnan Mets impresses. ...

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Godless in America...
A Review of Miguel Palma


If the name didn’t give it away, Miguel Palma’s latest solo show (his first in New York) makes itself out to be ‘American’. Indeed, the show’s title carries its fair share of the intellectual currency; getting cheeky with both our country’s ubiquitous but overlooked tagline (whose words are slowly becoming as cheap as the bills they adorn) and the broader dimensions of perception, belief, and, why not, group think. Unfortunately in this case words are rather cheap, and the work itself doesn’t exactly care to elaborate on these themes; rather than deal with the latent implications of truth, representation, and faith, in images or otherwise, it skews toward a specific and worn affect of American gusto and machismo – our historic obsession with having the largest penis. Its a Fitzgerald meets Vonnegut kind of Americanism served over-handed through toys and ‘innocent’ nostalgic objects. This isn’t only because the content flaunts obvious symbols of American culture – specifically and abundantly American Militarism under the guise of toys – but also in the direct approach to the work and its presentation; a literal display in some cases. ...

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