Tracey Rose
The
Cockpit
September 13 –
October 25, 2008
Opening Reception:
Saturday September 13, 6 – 8pm
PRESS
RELEASE
MC is pleased to present the last
exhibition at its Los Angeles location: Tracey Roses The Cockpit. In what could seem a fitting gesture for the
occasion, Tracey Rose has come round to killing God in this latest video work.
A theatrical piece commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation, The
Cockpit is a world of murder
and revenge populated by stylized characters like the jester, the soldier boy,
Space Man, Lil Bo Beep, the wise Redd Indian and the adorably clueless Jesus
Potter Heart. A series of personage photographic portraits accompany the video.
Together they form a patchwork of cultural references plaguing national,
religious and cultural consciousness, pounding out the absurdities and general
mismanagement of institutionalized cultural discourse. Although Rose is not her
customary every performer this time, she is nonetheless omnipresent in the
direction, script and in an improvised moment when the characters on their way
to killing God leisurely and explicitly gossip about the artist's sexual
exploits.
MC
will also be showing a renewed version of The Cunt Show, in which the artist, dressed as
Mami, a head teacher character, speaks a vitriolic response to institutional
feminism through the voices of two sock puppets. This video performance
recreates a talk given by the artist during Global Feminism, an exhibition at
the Brooklyn Art Museum (of which the institutional logo is recognizable in the
background throughout the performance). In this version, Rose gives Mami a
video audience in the form of a silent, black and white projection of 17
audience members. Silent and slow, seemingly in a dark cave, the audience hangs
among the viewers, and looks for the shadows of knowledge that Mami projects.
In a series of photographs complementing the video, some of these characters
from the crowd are portrayed in a style that recalls the old movie bills of
time past.
Tracey Rose has
widely exhibited in Africa, Europe and the US. Her work was recently seen in
"El mirall sud-africā" at the Centre De Cultura Contemporānia De
Barcelona, Spain, "Mouth Open, Teeth Showing: Major Works from the True
Collection" at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, "Memories of
Modernity" in Malmo, Sweden, "Check List: Luanda Pop" at the
African Pavilion in the 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy, "Heterotopias"
at the Thessaloniki Biennale in Greece, and "Global Feminisms" at The
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art in Brooklyn, New York (all 2007).
Caryatid & BinneKant Die Wit Does and Imperfect Performance: A tale in Two
States are among her most recent live performances, seen at the Dusseldorf Art
Fair in Germany, and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, respectively.