The Hammer's new 'Lifes' show proves how commissioning new art, especially collaborations, is risky
Midway through my recent visit to see “Lifes,” an eccentric exhibition in one large gallery at the UCLA Hammer Museum, a clattering sound accompanied by a visual blur rocketed through the room.
The wall label reveals that what’s periodically whooshing over and around your head, unseen in capsules hurtling along inside this pneumatic tube, is artificial vomit. I believe that too. Like the digital decals of a smashed wall, inner fakery is fundamental. Jenkins — an early adopter of video as a tool for artists, back when the technology was brand new around five decades ago — pressed his homemade electronic media against oppressive corporate standards set by commercial television. Video works like “Mass of Images” and “Inconsequential Doggereal” use the artist’s individual Black body as a conduit through which the social and cultural stereotypes relied upon by mass media flow.
Who did what is not always clear — which is presumably part of the point — while a considerable portion of the exhibition consists of projected video as well as audio and spoken-word pieces emanating from speakers that ring the wide-open gallery, just where the wall meets the floor. The echoing sound is not always comprehensible.
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