Robert Kusmirowski at the Barbican

Forgive the creekiness, this is my first writing assignment for MFA Computational Arts. I'm not entirely sure how any of this works right now...

Robert Kusmirowski
'Bunker'
The Barbican Curve Space.
23.11.09
Hestia Peppe

Animism. Things and collecting them. Nostalgia of matter. Collective memory. Relationship to the narratives of preceding generations.

Architecture of /from dreams.

My first thoughts on entering the installation are that these objects have real histories of their own which are overwritten by greater narratives of History. Both are 'true' but perhaps do not pertain equally to the physical objects and the conceptual content of the work. There is this uncomfortable relationship between a plurality of histories competing for my attention.

Small instances of glitch occur throughout the work; seemingly accidental but almost certainly intentionally allowed to remain if not deliberately concocted. One layer of constructed artistic reality catches on the constructed institutional reality; The Barbican's fire safety equipment remains visible throughout and allows the artist to draw our attention to his methodology of deliberate illusion. Our immersion in it is never quite complete.

Self conscious handprint. A trace of 'The Artist'.

Curtain at the back of the installation behind which the mechanics of the illusion are exposed, the artist's workspace. Like the reveal in The Wizard of Oz. Backstage. Pictures of Emma Watson cut out of a magazine and stuck on the wall.

A disorientating sense of absurdity will not allow the viewer to succumb to the passive manipulability encouraged in museum installations. Wires are not connected, pipes don't go anywhere. Theatre. Facade. The space is not associated with use but with spectacle. Walking experimentally up the rail tracks the sense of transgression is strong, there are things behind things but only so far, then you hit the institution and its familiar boundaries and interdits.

The promenade form of the installation lends itself immediately to narrative but ironically also reinforces an impression of a Disney Land style attraction that permeates the experience. This is noticeable in the first instance at the point of departure from the Barbican's foyer where brighter lighting gives the viewer their first view of the installation's aesthetic and under which it appears decidedly more artificial than it does in the interior of the installation. Juxtaposition with the design aesthetic of the Barbican's interior decor enhances this incongruity and certainly lends a layer of irony to the viewer's perception of the work from the outset. The sense of entering an illusory space where our usual narrative context is suspended is one that in a society dominated by Capitalist Spectacle is so familiar that we cannot help but retain these associations even in contexts where apparent seriousness of content should preclude thoughts of theme parks and funfairs.

It seems to me to be a central issue in this work that generational disparities in our relationships to media, matter and things conflict with the smooth transmission of cultural memory. Perhaps dreams and fictions are the only places where this ambiguity can be dealt with effectively and specifically. The grand fictional narrative of the post apocalypse and the connection it creates between the dual imaginary realities of past and future is a fine site on which to found work of this kind. It is said that children can inherit the dreams and nightmares of their parents. Objects from the past carry history into the future.

Comparisons with Gregor Schneider/ Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster/Mike Nelson/Thomas Hirschorn/John Bock. Also Anselm Kiefer.

The grey painted surfaces. The Hum. The Rubble.