j mandle performance - The Fabrication of Blindness

http://jmandleperformance.org

Based on the heart-wrenching photograph of an Iraqi father and son, which was taken shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq at a US detention center, Julia Mandle created The Fabrication of Blindness during her residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center. The creation enabled her to explore her own sense of blindness, remorse, guilt and powerlessness related to the occupation of Iraq. She has created a dark cloud by hanging 385 hoods, the number of detainees currently held in Guantanamo Bay. The cloud blocks out the natural light in the room. Julia Mandle considers the installation to be a performance with hauntingly absent performers who are represented by the hoods. Each hood is embroidered with a number and hung on a thick rope in the air. The fabric moves slightly with the wind.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• nonprofit
• performance
• art
• activism

[JakeRHooker]

Wow. This is beautiful and haunting.

For some reason it reminds me of Douglas Crimp's book 'On the Museum's Ruins". In it he talks about the move from high modernist temples of art to postmodernism's critique of art institutions (among many other thing). This piece -- and my viewing of it on Youtube, the 'virtual gallery' -- drives another nail into the coffin of Modernism and its requisite preciousness. This is art -- and art-making -- as both intervention and elegy.