LONDON.- The exhibition presents Yoshua Ok髇's early and latest film installations. Focusing on absurd political and social aspects of the North American region, the artist points to the interconnection of transnational phenomena, such as disproportionate consumption, rampant dispossession, and blind nationalism. Ok髇 challenges the boundaries between artificiality and reality by using reenactment as narrative technique, in order to exasperate social dysfunctions. Experiencing this exhibition at Chalton Gallery as an installation of three moving image works, the visitor witnesses a non-linear world. The presented works lie between social performance and simulation, constantly enacting and re-enacting an uncertainty towards what is both seen and unseen. Future Shock invites the viewer to reflect on the consequences that post-truth politics has on reality. Clich閟, forms of supremacy, and prejudices empower massive shifts in perception, opening up new worlds of domination that are continually reproducing themselves. How can we escape the shock of a world meltdown if not by overcoming the disconnection between the geopolitical micro and macro, present and future?
Future Shock is presented by
Chalton Gallery running during Frieze London. A series of talks featuring artist Yoshua Ok髇 and curator Giulia Colletti accompanies the exhibition. The first will be presented on 4th November 2018 at The Royal College of Art. Since its establishment, Chalton Gallery has been a project space dedicated to showcasing British and Mexican artists at different stages of their career, with the aim of initiating lasting collaborations between art professionals from both countries.
Presented works
Installed in the main window of the gallery, the single channel video Freedom Fries: Still Life (2014) puts a spotlight on the dehumanization of the body, promoted though adverts and accelerated by food corporations. The artist invites a countermodel – a loyal customer of McDonald's– to strike a pose on the “fast food catwalk”, where daily consumers are invited to pursue their freedom in choosing their own diet and life style, while in fact trapped in a spiral of disproportionate consumption.
Drawing upon the laughter track patented by Charles Rolland Douglass, Yoshua Ok髇 simulates a hallucinatory production in Canned Laughter (2009), a three channel video installation presented in the main room of the gallery. Conceived in response to his experience in Ciudad Ju醨ez, the artist imagines the production of canned laughter for sitcoms in one of the most dystopian industrial realities of Mexico, the maquiladora. In this establishment promoted by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the artist sets up a hilarious schizophrenia, alluding to globalised exploitation and the impossibility of reproducing authentic emotions through technology.
Adopting the fictional strategy of mise-en-sc鑞e, Yoshua Ok髇 presents The Indian Project: Rebuilding History (2015), a single channel video installation in the back room of the gallery. Speaking an urgent voice on misrepresentations of “nationality”, this film focuses on the community of Skowhegan (Maine) originally called Milburn, but re-christened in the 19th century to what is thought to be its original Abenaki, Native American name. The area, where Skowhegan is located, was the site of some of the most atrocious acts against Native Americans, purging any authentic trace of their culture. In an attempt to attract tourists, the local community tried to resuscitate the spirit of indigenous times by erecting an 80 ft. tall Native American wooden sculpture and to re-brand the town itself upon a pretentious native heritage. Along with some invested inhabitants of Skowhegan, Yoshua Ok髇 recreates a skewed approximation of a native ceremony. What happens when depictions such as these cross into reality? Clich閟, forms of supremacy, and prejudices empower massive shifts in perception, opening up new worlds of domination that are continually reproducing themselves.
Yoshua Ok髇 (Mexico City, 1970) is an artist based in Mexico City. His artistic research pivots on experiments executed for the camera blending staged situations, documentation, and improvisation, questioning conventional perceptions of reality, truth, selfhood and morality. In 1994, Yoshua Ok髇 along with Miguel Calder髇 founded La Panader韆 in a former bakery. Until 2002, this project served Mexico City as a vibrant non-profit space for exhibitions, residencies, and cultural events involving local and international artists. In 2009, Yoshua Ok髇 establishes SOMA along with artists such as Francis Als, Teresa Margolles, Mario Garc韆 Torres, and Julieta Aranda. It is conceived as a non-profit space, which comes directly from the tradition of La Panader韆. SOMA is an organization aiming at nurturing discussion and exchange in the field of contemporary art and education in Mexico City. Its mission is to provide a forum for dialogue between artists, cultural producers, and the public at large. Yoshua Ok髇’s works have been featured in Manifesta11 (Zurich); Gwangju Biennale (South Korea), and included in the collections of Tate Modern, Hammer Museum, LACMA, Colecci髇 Jumex and MUAC, among others. Recent solo shows include Yoshua Ok髇: Collateral, MUAC, Mexico City; Yoshua Ok髇: In the Land of Ownership, Asakusa, Tokyo; Sal Island, UC Irvine, Irvine; Piovra, Kaufmann Repetto, Milan; Poulpe, Mor Charpentier, Paris; Octopus, Cornerhouse, Manchester and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and SUBTITLE, St鋎tische Kunsthalle, Munich. Recent group shows include: Antes de la Resaca, MUAC, Mexico City; Incongruous, Mus鑕 Cantonal des Beux-Arts, Lausanne; The Mole磗 Horizon, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; Mercosur Biennial, Porto Alegre; Amateurs, CCA Wattis; San Francisco; Laughing in a Foreign Language, Hayward Gallery, London; Adaptive Behavior, New Museum, NY. Yoshua Ok髇 studied at UCLA Los Angeles, graduating in 2002.
