At first, the matter-of-fact list of materials contained in the title of the exhibition takes the wind out of the sails of any potential attempts to charge art with meaning. In an almost formalistic manner, the assertion is made that, besides snow, spray paint, hair, sperm and baloney (an American type of mortadella sausage), there is nothing to be seen, which distracts attention from any potential messages. This reduction to individual aspects of the expected artworks informs the playful strategy of the American artist William Pope.L. When, for example, skin colour is the subject of his works, as in the earlier »Skin Set Drawings« (2002-2004), it occurs in connection with other colours. Being black is equated with being red or orange; the entire cultural, race-related superstructure of the politics of skin colour is reduced to the rudimentarily abstract characteristic of colour, and thus made ridiculous. Pope.L takes this game with the charged meanings of colour in the socio-political context through several hoops: by virtue of the fact that the meaning is, on the one hand, denied and on the other implicitly understood, it can be turned on its head, bent and mocked to expose the brutal ridiculousness of the whole business. It is no joke when people have to suffer because of the colour of their skin – but at the same time, no society likes hearing that it is unfair, which is probably why a monograph about Pope.L published in 2002 is called »The Friendliest Black Artist in America«. The artist, who has become known in the past thirty years above all with his performances, asserts his friendliness, which is in itself also a distortion, as his art is anything but nice. The title of this exhibition, too, is a distortion, because, even though it suggests a material-based formal language, it in the end uses these materials to imply a political meaning.
Snow is the backdrop of »Snow Crawl« (2003-2007), a version, captured in video format, of the best-known Pope.L performances, staged over 40 times since 1978. Mostly, the man, dressed in a suit, crawls over the asphalt of the road, sometimes with other people as well; in the longest version, »The Great White Way«, Pope.L crawled 22 miles in stages over five years from the Statue of Liberty to the Bronx, dressed in a Superman costume and with a skateboard lashed to his back, upon which the »hero«, if he gets tired, can keep on rolling. In the »Snow Crawl« presented here, which was filmed over a period of four years, one sees the black-skinned Superman crawling through the winter wonderland or descending stairs carrying a white cat. However, the performative element here is pushed into the background in favour of a media presentation. The visitors have to climb up a ramp on the first floor onto a construction upon which a chimney is standing. They then have to ascend another step to be able to see inside it. The flickering video film at the base of the chimney, which is covered in mirrors, produces a kind of endless Rorschach effect; the filmed details of costumes, staircase or snowy landscape are distorted to become ornaments. The performance is turned around: visitors have to take action; the film is just merely beautiful in its multiple reflections.
Spray paint is used in two »Household Artifacts«: pots containing snowflower plants, also called peace lilies, were sprayed black, green and blue, thus artificially darkening nature. Hair and sperm can be seen in large quantities in the photographic editions of collages that, under the title »Semen Pictures«, bring together magazine pictures, ranging from those of small children and African animals to historical figures like Malcolm X, with all sorts of unappetising things, presenting them, smoothed out, on glossy photographic paper. The largest-scale work is the 140-part »Documentary« (2007), which also collages various materials and is also based on a play on words. American »Bologna sausage« is similar to Italian mortadella, and is often called »baloney« in American English, which of course also means »nonsense«. The sausage is pressed into a round shape and sold as packaged slices - when the material dries, it becomes very firm. Pope.L has pinned the slices together at one point, given the penis-like construction a white undercoat in parts and attached photographic illustrations of Muslim restaurants to it. »Documentary« is related to »Setting the Table« (2005), which had pictures of 84 US soldiers killed in Iraq attached to the sausages (this work is however not on display).
Material is the anchoring point of these works, which do not seem to be concerned with a message, even though they arise from a political context. Household decorations, news images, body fluids, hair and food are used, seemingly apolitically and atheistically – but they are political symbols that can provoke discussions about social order, means of production or poverty. From the point of view of Pope.L, society seems capable of change by means of the artistic equation of material and product. In the »Black Factor«, an ongoing project initiated by the artist in 2004, tinned foods are bought and then sold again at art-market prices; the profits are sent to institutions that promote the integration of socially exclude people. The apparent naivety of the food product dissolves; the dubious arguments about colour in the political arena are meant to dissolve in the same way. William Pope.L uses »Black Factory« to highlight difference, which both emphasises special characteristics and points up common features – an aim that is also reflected in the reversals of material and content.
Translated by Timothy Jones