Jan 10 2009
Asses of Evil by Claude Wampler
“Asses of Evil” by Claude Wampler
This video appears to have been posted onto YouTube by Wampler herself. (The account that posted it is called “ClaudeWampler.”) In the description to the video it is written that it is an expression of the artist’s view of the current (and outgoing) president of the US.Wampler is an interesting artist, more often focusing on performance based pieces that include audience participation, and often include some form of deception. In many ways her work on that front shares something in common with Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain.” It forces you to actually talk about art, what it is, where it has been, what it is now, and how we relate to. I recall one performance of hers titled “PERFORMANCE (Career Ender)” in which a recording of a band rehearsing a song is played while cardboard cutouts of the band sit on stage. Smoke pours across the stage and the actual video of the band rehearsing is projected onto the smoke. By the end the band has played the song four or five times and keeps getting a little better. The band leaves, the recording ends, a polar bear comes out and knocks over the cardboard. The band then comes out and actually performs the song. The audience goes crazy and sings along, it turns into a rock show. Two weeks later a video is issued that has the final curtain call (there is none the night of the show) and it reveals that many people in the audience were actually a part of the piece. They were in the audience influencing their reactions, that is how the show gets so raucous by the end. But her work frequently begs the question, Who is the artist and What is the artist’s work?
