Pleasure Principle presents the work
of twenty-eight contemporary artists
from around the world, in an attempt to interpret the
different roles that
photography plays in negotiating the boundaries between
what is and what is
not humorous. In the age of Globalization we experience
a constant barrage
of influences from other countries. Be it film, music,
or magazines, pop
culture arrives here everyday, divulging insights into
different standards
and different morals. One of the more striking social
differences comes in
our perceptions of what we deem to be funny. An example
of this comes from
the world of Scottish contemporary fiction. Irving
Welsh, an author from
Scotland, recently said of his novels, “If you
are going to portray sadness,
enormous amounts of sad, dark material, it has to be
presented in a funny
way, to release the tension, contrast the sadness.”
Even in our own country the role of humor can change
from day-to-day. Much
of what was thought of as funny on September the
10th, is now considered in
bad taste.
Be it provocative, pleasurable, slapstick, banal,
sociopolitical, witty,
dry, sharp, biting, or stirs the imagination, humor
has boundless
possibilities. Be it voluntary or not, depending
on the construction of
your personality, you will find some of the photographs
in this exhibition
to be funny, others compelling, and still others
you may decide have no
humorous content at all. Many of these artists’ work
examine the thoroughly
complex views we have on humor.
Saiman Li constructs a more personal vision of ethnicity
and color theory.
Blurring the lines between performance and photography,
Li wanders around
cities doing everyday things, covered in monochrome
body paint (red, yellow,
blue, and green). These photographs investigate public
perceptions, and
blur lines between trust and fear, pretension and
the seriousness of our
restricted private identities. What exactly are the
consequences of playing
a character before onlookers who do not know that
you are having fun at
their expense? Meanwhile, in a similar approach Cuban
born Ernesto Pujol
looks at the more serious side of the masquerade.
In this triptych Pujol,
despite his unquestionably masculine face, he dresses
in a nun’s habit and
assumes a pose that indicates victory. As we move
through the series of
photos, the parquet floor behind the artist begins
to blur, giving us the
perception that he is transcending to something higher,
something better.
In another approach at humor, Annu Matthew critiques
India by satirizing her
perceived silliness of the Bollywood movies and the
way in which they are
marketed. Matthew takes on issues that have long
been taboo in India.
These are issues that younger generations and expatriates
often take umbrage
with.
In 1855 Baudelaire spoke of “the absolute
comic,” someone who has no desire
to make a spectacle of other’s hard times (as
he understood that one day he
may fall on hard times himself). The artists presented
in this exhibition
are consciously using their own bodies and their
own lives for the subject
of their jokes. Each photograph in Pleasure Principle
provides us with a
personal vision into our own personal sense of humor.
Pleasure Principle is being held
in conjunction with the Syracuse Symposium, an
intellectual festival celebrating interdisciplinary
thinking, imagining, and creating. The theme for
this year’s festival
is Humor. The symposium includes lectures, exhibits,
performances, and other special events at Syracuse
University.
For more information on Light Work, contact Jessica
Heckman, 443-1300, or visit www.lightwork.org. |
