Talent Show @ PS1/MoMA

PS1 Talent Show Review

As an art student who deals with conceptual artwork, I naturally looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed this retrospective of how different artists have dealt with the notion of the viewer, particularly viewer participation within the artwork itself. Upon walking into the exhibition, we are greeted by two works by seminal artists, Live Statue by Manzoni and Warhol’s screen tests. Both works thrust an individual into the spotlight (or pedestal) as the viewers watch one of their own transformed into a “work of art.” These two works serve as a magnificent introduction to the rest of the show (although not all the works are as dramatic as these two are), which is comprised of various works from an array of artists all playing with this notion. While at points the show became a little redundant, there was a surprising amount of variety and innovation with which these artists challenged the role of the viewer.

One work takes the idea of the spotlight literally, shinning a bright light down onto the center of a dark room, illuminating an individual as he or she suddenly become turned into an object of display for the museum goers. This moves beyond the banal “what is art” question and forces us to ask, “am I art?” Amie Siegel takes the concept of placing an individual in the limelight and ushers it into the 21st century in her video installation, which pieces together snippets from various youtube karaoke videos. Unlike the Manzoni and Warhol’s works which illicit a sense of curiosity and intrigue, these clips create a voyeuristic pathos, as we pity these strangers and are amazed at their self-assured nature. Her piece and others that deal with the digital age and the deprivatization of our lives seem to suggest that our newfound overexposure turns us into walking specimens for the whole world to view and judge.

Many of these works are not nearly as complex as other works in the museum, but their simplicity and interactive nature allowed them to have a more direct connection with the viewer and perhaps creates a more developed dialogue then much of contemporary art, which can often appear standoffish. The beauty in these works is not their visual aesthetic, but the effect that they have on a viewer after they have left the museum and are perhaps contemplating their own role in the society of the spectacle. Perhaps they will not need a gallery and a pedestal to get them to look closer at the people and things that surround them and hopefully they will reexamine their own personal and physical relationship to society as a whole.

***

The exhibition Talent Show at MoMA PS 1 seems to touch on the ideas of “talent” in several ways, curated to exhibit a breadth of work that spans 40 years. Many of the pieces seem to address, and reject, the popular 1980s ideas of the artist as superstar, or exhibitor of pure talent (eg. Adrian Piper’s open binder). Thus, many of the works in the show fail to resonate in a non art-historical context. With a title like Talent Show, in a contemporarily appropriated building like PS 1, I would have liked to see more works like Amie Siegel’s video installations.
Her two montages of YouTube clips are shown on opposite sides of the room. On one screen, several male viewers sing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” on the other, young girls, and a few particularly effeminate boys, sing “Gotta Go My Own Way” from High School Musical 2. The viewer wears headphones—being forced to stand no further than a few feet’s distance away—to hear these performers shamelessly belt out their emotions. The intimacy brought tears to my eyes. The viewer makes direct eye contact with the performers as they stare intensely into their low resolution web cams. Their built-in microphones pick up their subtle breathing, lip smacking, and choked-up hesitations. The viewer becomes caught somewhere between voyeur and bored internet surfer. Of course, these individuals want to be seen and heard (their work is on the world wide web), but their crackling premature voices seem to cry out for that sad American ideal: any attention is good attention. Commenting on the insane popularity of sickening reality TV shows (eg. The Jersey Shore, where the most obscene acts yield the most popularity, or American Idol, where the worst singers often receive the most recognition), the increasing success of YouTube stars, images like Susan Boyle, and even the intimacy of Warhol’s screen tests, Siegel creates a train wreck from which the viewer can not look away.
She seems to say that all you need for a talent show is a closed off bedroom, a public URL, and a built in web cam. This is a beautiful thing for so many people longing to express themselves, but comments on our sick society in so many poignant ways.