Jonathan Horowitz
30 Sep - 16 Nov 2012
JONATHAN HOROWITZ
Your Land / My Land
Election '12
30 September - 18 November 2012
Jonathan Horowitz’s Your Land / My Land: Election ’12 serves as a convening space where visitors can watch and discuss the unfolding presidential election and its aftermath. Presented simultaneously at several museums throughout the country, the installation uses red and blue carpeting to divide the gallery into two distinct spaces. Fox News is broadcast live on a monitor in the red zone, while the monitor on the blue side is tuned to MSNBC, directing our attention to the increasingly rigid two-party system that defines US politics today. As the artist notes, in spite of movements such as the Tea Party and Occupy, the country remains “swathed in red and blue with no purple in between.”
The title of the piece is a reference to Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land” and highlights particular concerns of the 2012 election, such as fiscal policies and economic disparities. The project revisits an installation that Horowitz staged during the last presidential election, November 4, 2008, which featured similar elements: red and blue carpets, but with televisions tuned to Fox News and MSNBC. In both iterations, the artist co-opts media to address the politics of politics and to acknowledge a polarized system that, closed as it may seem, does not necessarily generate predictable outcomes.
Your Land / My Land
Election '12
30 September - 18 November 2012
Jonathan Horowitz’s Your Land / My Land: Election ’12 serves as a convening space where visitors can watch and discuss the unfolding presidential election and its aftermath. Presented simultaneously at several museums throughout the country, the installation uses red and blue carpeting to divide the gallery into two distinct spaces. Fox News is broadcast live on a monitor in the red zone, while the monitor on the blue side is tuned to MSNBC, directing our attention to the increasingly rigid two-party system that defines US politics today. As the artist notes, in spite of movements such as the Tea Party and Occupy, the country remains “swathed in red and blue with no purple in between.”
The title of the piece is a reference to Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land” and highlights particular concerns of the 2012 election, such as fiscal policies and economic disparities. The project revisits an installation that Horowitz staged during the last presidential election, November 4, 2008, which featured similar elements: red and blue carpets, but with televisions tuned to Fox News and MSNBC. In both iterations, the artist co-opts media to address the politics of politics and to acknowledge a polarized system that, closed as it may seem, does not necessarily generate predictable outcomes.