ANTWERP.- “I’m talking to you about solidarity with students and workers, and you’re talking to me about tracking shots and close-ups! You’re idiots!” At the height of the events that led to the famous May of 1968, Jean-Luc Godard, the great name of the French New Wave, was caught exchanging accusatory words with other filmmakers. The issue was what to do to help the cause. For him, when faced with pressing practical matters, the cinematographic technique had little power. In the nick of time, solidarity ought to be done without a camera in hand. This schematic separation between art and politics, in any case, wasn’t so stuck as Godard himself would probably later have admitted. Art and politics mingle in complex, dialectical ways. In the end, solidarity and tracking shots belong to the same endeavor—a comprehension shared by Patrick Goddard’s view on the possibilities of art as a political medium.

In Hot Cadavers, Goddard’s (born in 1984 in London) first exhibition with GNYP Gallery, he presents new and recent works in various media: sculpture, drawings, and film. Despite the variation, there is a theme to which they tend to converge—that of “The Wild.” Something the artist understands as a big outsider. That is, outside of capitalist relations, outside of civilizational rules, and regulations, and outside, one could add, the rules that separate different media. That realm, fundamentally chaotic, finds some coherence in the world created by Goddard. In his works, several of our contemporary crises are understood through the lenses of this outsider. Still, we are welcomed not only to mourn the results of such ongoing predicaments, like the climate emergency, or the refugee crisis, but also to question and investigate what led things to this state of affairs. When facing a work like “Migratory Birds,” for instance, or even “Skirmish,” we can’t help but inquire what exactly is going on. But while the first work may lead us to lament, given its somber connection between migration and Anthropocene, in the second one, we may realize even with some amusement, that the notions of inside and outside, local and external, are much more porous than are often assumed to be.

This same dynamic between static melancholy and witty reflection can also be found in another pair of works. In “Ghost! (20),” the exclamation point delivers the impact: given the sheer size, the lighting, and the motive itself, the viewer’s first response might be more of awe than anything else. However, in “Whoopsie’s Dream,” once again absurdity is transformed into examination. The comparison between immigrants and animals, full of consequences and historical warnings, is represented through a different key, indifferent to the common boundaries between genders, political inclinations, and eventually viewer response. Yet politics is not just about denunciation; even if timid, there is always a small hint of utopia. In his recent charcoal series “Denizens,” Goddard manages to discover and celebrate a new wilderness in the heart of the city; a wild space unfolds even there, where all possibilities of life seemed exhausted. Such dynamics, on another level, also remind us that nature always ends up transforming itself. Despite the grim scenario that we are apparently condemned to reproduce, corpses give rise to other organisms that in turn repopulate and disorganize what we thought was stable and known. Despite the grim scenario, someone will still have the last laugh. And it won’t be us.

João Gabriel Rizek