I intented to go to MoMA today, but -after months of procrastinating at home and cursing at the art establishment- I chose the wrong day. The only day of the week that has the Modern closing its revolving, mall-like doors. I felt like a tourist for a second or two. But I'm used to be disappointed by that museum, though. MoMA hates me and I hate MoMA. Will it ever change?
So I saw myself wandering the disgustingly crowded and hot streets near Fifth Avenue, overrun with tourists, sweat and a mixture of rotting garbage and Saks perfumes. New York in the summer, of course (or should I say year-round?). Wondering where to go to see some art, I thought of the Austrian Cultural Forum, this weird and wonderful little-known gem of a public gallery on 52nd between 5th and Mad that showcases weird and wonderful little-known contemporary art, mostly European and particularly Eastern European. MoMA's postcard pictures it ain't.
Now on show, for the whole summer and then some, an exhibition on "Bread and Soccer", or how Europe is under the spell of sports to an extent where the masses forget their everyday problems because... their favorite team is kicking a leather ball in the stadium!! Yeah... panem et circenses, said the Romans. They knew about this. In America, we call it "Burger and Football", or "Hot Dog and Baseball", but the concept is the same. Watch some sports and forget about the creeping price of groceries.
The show is worth watching. Turns out that contemporary artists have a lot to say about sports, most in a funny way, others in a heroic manner, some pulling a pathetic and funny act. One work in particular caught my attention: a Spencer Tunick photo performance (or whatever you want to call his stunts) at Vienna's main soccer stadium.
Tunick is famous for his massive displays of naked human flesh in public places. He's found his niche as much as, say, Richard Serra found Cor-Ten steel. Whether he's getting boring and predictable or still pushing the genre of photography is debatable, but I found his latest performance to be something new: disturbing, almost wrong.
Here we have two thousand people, all white and mostly skinny but indistinguishable, shedding their clothes in a stadium. Following orders, doing what they're told to do. Looking vulnerable, almost miserable, always pathetic. Now lie down, now hold the soccer ball, now get up and clap. Wounded but proud, the citizens of Wien expose their bodies. Tunick excels at extracting, removing and destroying the sexuality out of humanity. If you've ever thought, "I'd like to see that girl or guy naked", well, you don't. They're boring, natural, average. Just body parts hanging and bouncing. Even the best-looking bodies in Tunick's performance are reduced to nothing but flesh.
The disturbing aspect of Tunick's video comes not only from this awareness of the human body but the accepted totalitarianism of the performance. Those bodies are there to be commanded, moved around, tossed, used. That's where I thought of the immates of Auschwitz, receiving a shower they thought purifying. Tunick takes those readily eager and available Austrians and goes wild on them, with their enthusiastic if uncomfortable approval. Smile, clap, run... thank you, Austria.
Would you want to fuck one of those chickens hanging from the dirty window of a dingy Chinese restaurant in the worst part of town? Tunick transforms us into one of those, and then some. Say goodbye to your sexuality. You'd be proud.
That, and you get a limited-edition soccer ball to remind you of the day you made your otherwise OK body into a mass of vulnerable white flesh for the sake of art.
