Further highlights from ‘Global Positioning System,’ Art Jameel’s latest exhibition
Bo Wang
‘The Revolution will not be air conditioned’
While the Gil Scott-Heron lyric poem on which this work’s title plays (“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”) was a call to action for Black America in the 1970s, the Chinese artist’s video — a still from which is seen here — “begins with images of the 2019 anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong—scenes of rioting and destruction that spilled into the city’s luxury shopping malls,” the exhibition notes state. “Here, the artist explores the apparent contradiction between the raw aesthetics of protest and the sterile, perfectly manicured backdrop of the mall. Rather than seeing the site as superficial, he treats the shopping mall and its air-conditioning system as a serious political site.”
The video goes on to link the mall’s origins to the 19th-century colonial botanical trade, looking at terrariums and Wardian cases, which were used “to create artificial tropical micro-climates in European capitals.” The notes continue: “Through a collage of found footage, archival films, advertisements, videogames and salesforce training videos, Wang investigates how the air-conditioned mall has become a controlled environment for commerce and social discipline.”
