Krzysztof Wodiczko has always been concerned with vulnerable groups; his work has fought for the homeless, for immigrants and—as now—for war veterans. In his current show at Galerie Lelong, however, the conceptual and political rigor that gave his previous activism its strength is strangely missing.
…OUT OF HERE: The Veterans Project, an eight-minute loop projected on three of the walls of the gallery space, situates the viewer in a nondescript building in Iraq or Afghanistan. We are only able to perceive the “outside” through a few windows—too high to see street level—and sound, so as a firefight erupts outside, the viewer finds himself at a remove. As in Guests, his project for the Polish Pavilion in Venice two years ago, Wodiczko uses projection to play with the separation of the gallery visitor from the work’s subject. I get it: War veterans have experiences that, though instantly recognizable through their portrayal in the media, I am, necessarily and permanently, separated from. The problem is that while Guests used that separation directly to motivate a change, ideally the visitor was moved to connect with immigrants in Europe and attempt to understand their situation. OUT OF HERE is merely descriptive. We’re given no new information about veterans, no interesting interpretations or implications of known information, and we do nothing to interact with the work or the subject in a novel way: All we’re offered is the opportunity to listen to a too-familiar story in a slightly interesting medium. As a result, it’s too easy to compare it to any of the panoply of war vignettes we’ve seen on TV or in film over the past decade—a comparison for which OUT OF HERE suffers. As a descriptive piece, its narrative is hackneyed and the relatively low production values, compared to Hollywood, show through, offering content so bland no real meaning can adhere. Devoid of any functional call to action, OUT OF HERE is ultimately as powerless as its viewers.
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Through March 19, Galerie Lelong, 528 W. 26th St., 212-315-0470.
