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The videos scaled a medley of tones, at once goofy, deranged, heartfelt, and roundabout. “The Collective” (2007–2022) unfurled like a bizarro family sitcom, with the drama (or comedy?) centering on two masked Condeleezas pontificating about the ’70s show Good Times, while another masked couple engaged in a messy kink ritual in the basement. The bleeding eye, for instance, returned in “APHOV” (2005–2022), which features a performer in a Rumsfeld mask and their hands painted black, tinkering with a miniature sinking ship while crying bloody tears. Many videos feature performers donning vinyl Condoleezza Rice or Donald Rumsfeld masks. Detail of Pope.L, “The Collective” (2007–2022), shot on mini DV, digitized, and edited digitally, TRT: 19:07 minutes (photo Allison Conner/Hyperallergic)Īs I stopped by each shed, certain images reappeared like nagging ghosts. The screen would then cut to an extreme close-up of a bleeding eye, with my body sinking every time, the same sensation I feel when witnessing a jump scare in a horror movie. One thread concerns two figures in hazmat suits investigating mulch near a garden bed, their action intercut with close-ups of pastel flowers and scenes of two masked figures chatting in a dank apartment. “Shed Film” (2006–2022) was shot on pre-high definition mini DV, and follows a nonlinear stream-of-images. I circled the box until encountering a side with a beige curtain and stepped into a dark cube, my attention drawn to a video playing on one of the walls. A dripping sound filled the gallery as I inspected the sheds, unsure of what I was looking at or for.
AFFINITY PHOTO FORUM SERIES
When I entered Vielmetter, I was greeted by a series of sheds, arranged throughout the space like a deconstructed maze, creating improvised pathways and edges. Installation view of The Ritual Is for All of us, Vielmetter Los Angeles, 2022 (photo Allison Conner/Hyperallergic) Whether he’s using a VHS camera or found objects, his work considers the slipperiness of language and time, inviting the viewer into absurdist encounters that leave us contemplating our own perspectives and social conditions. Though he is often linked to his “Crawl” series - public performances that found the artist dragging his body across the asphalt of the New York City streets from one location to another - Pope.L’s practice resists categorization, flitting from theater to writing to visual art with a mischievous glee. Spanning video, projection, objects, and paintings, The Ritual Is for All of us offers another view into Pope.L’s legendary durational practice. I thought about Pope.L’s desire to “produce a world or object with these types of tensions,” as he explained to Wilson, while visiting The Ritual Is For All of us, the artist’s second solo exhibition at Vielmetter Los Angeles. He embraces contradiction and nonsense as but one method of engaging with our social realities and understanding how those realities are structured by ideologies like racism, consumerism, and more. LOS ANGELES - When asked by Martha Wilson about the affinity for contradiction within his work in a 1996 BOMB magazine interview, artist Pope.L pointed to his own family experiences as one clue, noting how the “desire to keep things together,” kept coming in conflict with “this tendency for things to fall apart.” Rather than accept these impulses as mutually exclusive and in opposition, Pope.L, who is known for his gonzo interventions into art and life, dives into the tensions, curious as to how one makes meaning within such a shifting and unstable environment. Installation view, The Ritual Is for All of us, Vielmetter Los Angeles, 2022 (photo by Robert Wedemeyer, image courtesy the artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles)