Last week I have been at galleria kaufmann repetto for the opening of Yoshua Okon's Piovra and found his work a refreshing remind to what should be relevant in the contemporary art scenario. Reality. Yoshua builds a reconstruction of the bloody civil war that CIA helped to perform within Guatemala. A silent and forgotten war that lasted almost 40 years and procured 200000 violent deaths to secure US multinationals a decent benefit out of a disgusting fascist terror campaign. it's really a refreshing REMIND as we have just been through the 10th anniversary of sept the 11th where the US "are the victim"of foreign terrorist. And ..what about guatemala? the coup d'etat? the atrocities against the "socialist"? the ethnic cleansing against the maya population? the desaparecidos? the terror centers sponsored by the CIA? Yoshua inquires on the consequences of that shameful campaign and indulges on
its legacy. Actors of Okon's Piovra video-installation are real clandestines from Guatemala are so they represent indeed a testimony of the American Empire's forgotten crimes.
The other piece on show is Hipnostasis, a video-installation thought and produced in collaboration with legendary artist Raymond Pettibon. The subjects are the remaining hippies still living in Venice Beach. They seem to be the last of the Mohicans and they are a living remind of what might happen to the rest of us uncapable of turning an utopian dream into a sustainable lifestyle. What I haven't caught though is a sign of happiness or consistency in the hippies behaviour. Not sure infact if these old men were proud enough to reject the camera of the filming duo. Not even sure if this piece has a meaningful appeal other then its documentary value. the sensation is anyway that this is a video that will gain importance in 50 or more years time. has anybody else filmed the last hardcore hippies of venice beach? not that I know..
Yoshua
