Bunny Rogers
24 Jul - 21 Sep 2014
© Bunny Rogers
Clone State Bookcase, 2014
Maple wood, metal, Limited-Edition Elliott Smith plush dolls, "Ferdinand the Bull" third-place mourning ribbons, casters
246 x 309 x 61 cm/ 97 x 121.5 x 24 inches
Unique
Clone State Bookcase, 2014
Maple wood, metal, Limited-Edition Elliott Smith plush dolls, "Ferdinand the Bull" third-place mourning ribbons, casters
246 x 309 x 61 cm/ 97 x 121.5 x 24 inches
Unique
BUNNY ROGERS
Columbine Library
24 July - 21 September 2014
Columbine Library is Bunny Rogers's first exhibition at Société.
It takes as a backdrop the Columbine High School massacre, which occurred in Colorado, USA, on April 20, 1999. That school shooting, which left 15 dead and 24 injured, resulted in a media frenzy. Fear spread across the country, as did doubts about a culture that creates a spectacle out of violence and the use of firearms, to the point of normalizing them. Many wanted answers about what motivated the perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. What emerged were portraits of disturbed teenage boys – as well as sobering insights into the pains of adolescence and the trauma of being in high school.
In the media, Harris was portrayed as deranged, and Klebold as prone to depression. They were dehumanized, described as monsters. Psychologically, they couldn't be normal at all; they had to be aberrations, come untethered from social bonds. Any statement about identifying with them was taboo, repressed, tantamount to homicidal or suicidal tendencies, impossible to reconcile with the status quo that so many had put faith in, that was supposed to keep kids safe and alive and in school.
But the culture industry – the media included – thrives on the capacity of spectator-consumers to identify with the representations that it generates and regenerates. And there's a kind of unspoken romance to tragic cases in particular, an attraction to the pain of others, an idolization of those who die young (actors, musicians, artists; self-inflicted or not). Difficult though it may be to believe, that's been the case with Harris and Klebold, too: Rogers discovered a subculture of teenage girls who obsess over them, using the Internet as a forum to express their empathy with the shooters as well as a sexual attraction to them. Not only does this challenge the media's portraits of Harris and Klebold, it in fact forces us to face an inconvenient truth – that a death drive, rage, vulnerability, difficulties expressing oneself and integrating socially, and even a capacity for atrocities are categorically human traits.
Several cultural icons crop up in Columbine Library, setting up a chain of identification always in relation to Rogers herself – the artist, the tie that binds. Perhaps more than we'd like to admit, there's something that unites the perpetrators of a horrific school shooting, the victims, adolescent girls (so often typecast as innocent, pure, and non-violent), a cartoon of an angst-filled teenage girl, one of a rage-filled girl, a captive killer whale turned violent, a pacifist bull from a children's book, and a musician who succumbed to addiction and depression. As Rogers, a kind of medium for the subjectivity of the young girl, threads together uncanny representations of these cultural icons, she reveals something intimate about herself. At the same time, she exposes societal norms and cultural memory for what they are: collective and constructed.
Columbine Library
24 July - 21 September 2014
Columbine Library is Bunny Rogers's first exhibition at Société.
It takes as a backdrop the Columbine High School massacre, which occurred in Colorado, USA, on April 20, 1999. That school shooting, which left 15 dead and 24 injured, resulted in a media frenzy. Fear spread across the country, as did doubts about a culture that creates a spectacle out of violence and the use of firearms, to the point of normalizing them. Many wanted answers about what motivated the perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. What emerged were portraits of disturbed teenage boys – as well as sobering insights into the pains of adolescence and the trauma of being in high school.
In the media, Harris was portrayed as deranged, and Klebold as prone to depression. They were dehumanized, described as monsters. Psychologically, they couldn't be normal at all; they had to be aberrations, come untethered from social bonds. Any statement about identifying with them was taboo, repressed, tantamount to homicidal or suicidal tendencies, impossible to reconcile with the status quo that so many had put faith in, that was supposed to keep kids safe and alive and in school.
But the culture industry – the media included – thrives on the capacity of spectator-consumers to identify with the representations that it generates and regenerates. And there's a kind of unspoken romance to tragic cases in particular, an attraction to the pain of others, an idolization of those who die young (actors, musicians, artists; self-inflicted or not). Difficult though it may be to believe, that's been the case with Harris and Klebold, too: Rogers discovered a subculture of teenage girls who obsess over them, using the Internet as a forum to express their empathy with the shooters as well as a sexual attraction to them. Not only does this challenge the media's portraits of Harris and Klebold, it in fact forces us to face an inconvenient truth – that a death drive, rage, vulnerability, difficulties expressing oneself and integrating socially, and even a capacity for atrocities are categorically human traits.
Several cultural icons crop up in Columbine Library, setting up a chain of identification always in relation to Rogers herself – the artist, the tie that binds. Perhaps more than we'd like to admit, there's something that unites the perpetrators of a horrific school shooting, the victims, adolescent girls (so often typecast as innocent, pure, and non-violent), a cartoon of an angst-filled teenage girl, one of a rage-filled girl, a captive killer whale turned violent, a pacifist bull from a children's book, and a musician who succumbed to addiction and depression. As Rogers, a kind of medium for the subjectivity of the young girl, threads together uncanny representations of these cultural icons, she reveals something intimate about herself. At the same time, she exposes societal norms and cultural memory for what they are: collective and constructed.