Stress is weighing down on students. Midterms and papers are abundant; outer-world interactions of the slightest importance end in disagreements due to their heavy burden. And what escape is there? The primary entertainment medium of postmodern time becomes the savior through which any human interaction can be avoided. Good old MTV is the final destination once again, the turning point of youth culture since the 1980s, the ultimate trendsetter. After hours of exposure to the light box, the colors of the simulacra world of videos and commercials, the student is successfully removed from the real world — mission accomplished?
The only missing reference in the evolution of the unfortunate student at UCSD is the free, undeniably easy and startlingly interesting visit to the University Art Gallery. The latest exhibition in the gallery, “Luis Gispert: loudIMAGE,” brings all of the above together in an opportunity to step back from one’s addictions or conventions and look at life from a distance. This year’s first exhibition is in collaboration with the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College and was curated by our very own visual arts professor Roberto Tejada and San Diego Museum of Art Executive Director Derrick Cartwright.
The gallery becomes an array of flashing colors that Gispert uses expressively in his photographs. His works bring aspects of “low culture” and “high culture” together in a critical overview of youth culture. Gispert specifically uses the hip-hop culture of extravagant expressions and excessive use of accessories, and combines them with a framework of “high culture” via references to classical or Baroque artworks and popular religion. Through the display of photographs ranging in time, the exhibition also allows the portrayal of Gispert’s artistic evolution, from earlier works to the most recent photographs taken in 2004.
MTV culture comes through in colors, roles and expressions placed in settings that mimic canonical artworks of the past. In one of the photographs, a cheerleader poses as the self-portrait of Bruce Nauman, “The Fountain,” completely reversing the context. In “Wrestling Girls,” the cheerleaders pose in the form of a 17th century Italian sculpture.
The video works of Gispert are even more stimulating, combining youth culture — a mix of popular hip-hop tunes — with violent urban sound effects. The final outcome is a festival of color, one that either mimics the language of MTV or overuses the codes to produce a grotesque image, rather than one that celebrates the inventions. By communicating with the same language, Gispert reaches out to the youth culture, but his attitude has immense connotations.
Gispert’s video work, when considered with the photographs, resembles the work of video director David LaChapel, who made music videos for the likes of No Doubt, Christina Aguilera and blink-182. Gispert, in contrast, pushes boundaries much further, going to an extreme that allows critical thinking to enter the viewing, rather than the blind consumption that most videos furnish. In another video work, Gispert edits images in a couple different ways, including changing typography to demonstrate how Hollywood places images in different forms through representation, even though the context is identical. The video uses the icons of western, action and documentary films that allow the viewer to recognize the conventions that are in use.
In the works of Gispert, kitsch is transformed into the beauteous, criticism into cognizance. The exhibition allows a refreshing break from the stress of the quarter — it’s a combination of aesthetic pleasure and critical thinking. Gispert is a prominent artist who is yet to fulfill his potential after the success at the 2002 Whitney Biennial in New York. Gispert is an artist who can stimulate thoughts within the realms of his time — an ability that “high culture” often abandons — making loudIMAGE the ideal exhibition for the University Art Gallery.
