The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death, 2011

A man is standing in the corner, as if a disciplined child, facing the wall. It is a performance which takes place each Saturday between 3 and 6 pm. The performer is a war veteran and he is put there by Santiago Sierra (*1966).

The man’s deeds are not questioned by the artist, nor are his aggressive actions morally taxed. The war veteran is exposed to our voyeuristic gaze. In good tradition of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan it is clear that the subject, the war veteran, loses his autonomy from the moment he realises that he is a visible object, reflected in the spectator’s eyes.

Another cluster of works which strikes us, when we enter the building, is giant wall stuck up from floor to ceiling with Sierra’s photos of eighty nine Mexican Huicholes’ backs (Huichol or Wixáritari, are a native ethnic group from western central Mexico, said to be the direct descendants of the Aztec). The room is divided by a steel fence, which calls for associations with prison or state border. Facing the photos, are two works by Cady Noland (*1956), Enquirer Page with Eyes Cut Out (1990) and 8 objects (bullets, hand grenades, as well as coke and beer cans), encased in plexicubes; her art work from 1986. These objects lie around in the furthest corner, forgotten cubicles of a children’s game, alphabet of an aggressor.

The conflict nature, aggression and violence are main elements in the oeuvre of both artists exhibited at KOW, their drive our attention to the profound putridity of, not just American, society.

• Lecture by Georg Imdahl, Schwarzer Minimalismus, weiße Folter (Black Minimalism, White Torture), on 09. June 2011, 19:00
• Release KOW Issues 8: General Strike with Lee Lozano, Charlotte Posenenske et al.

Photo Credits: Cady Noland, 8 objects (bullets, handgranades, coke and beer cans), encased in plexicubes, 1986. Collection of Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann. Photo: Alexander Koch