LONDON — Aye!, Lutz Bacher’s first UK solo show since her passing in 2019, howls into view. The lobby of Raven Row throbs with the noise of engines and car horns blaring. Inside is “Empire” (2014), where handheld video clips of the Empire State Building project through thin sheets of scratched Plexiglas. Image and sound bounce and refract. The work is as much a comment on media, digital space, and the circulation of images as it is on the American dream. Bacher’s piece refers to Andy Warhol’s 1964 eight-hour film of the same name, where the iconic tower appears stoic and singular. In Bacher’s version, the tower is lopsided, its image degrading and repeating ad infinitum. “Empire”’s roaring soundtrack blends into the adjacent room where an electric organ drones beneath a rickety structure of giant corroded metal pipes. In “Yamaha” (2010) the organ is rigged with a bamboo armature, like dental braces stretched over unruly teeth, programmed to play random notes for random durations.
Elsewhere, Bacher borrows audio from public figures. “PLEASE (LC)” (2013–15) sees a shy Leonard Cohen peeking from behind a curtain to beseech visitors, uttering “please” on an endless loop. His “pleases” fall on top of each other to create a kind of instrument, as the word loses its meaning from repetition. The unmistakable voice of Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) recites biblical genealogy in “Sweet Jesus” (2016), in which the untrained ear struggles to keep up with names known and unknown, assembled in a complex timeline. As religious ancestors in “Sweet Jesus” mix in and out of consciousness, nearby “KMS” (2016) transmits an edit of Roberta Flack’s ululations from a triptych of modified portable Sony radios — an earworm poised to burrow in for the rest of the day.
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The cacophony is stilled in a tender piece installed on the ground floor of the gallery. Upon a bed of sand (“The Book of Sand,” 2011–12) that carries the imprints of visitors’ shoes, and their pathways through the exhibition, sit four CRT monitors shifting slowly from black to white. The video, titled “What Are You Thinking” (2011), features an audio excerpt from the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being in which the character of Tereza asks her lover “Tomas, what are you thinking?” His response — “I am thinking how happy I am” — is imbued with poignance for audiences who know about the two characters’ tragic deaths.
Bacher often drew on the language of cosmology in her work, transforming the everyday into the otherworldly, as she touched on themes as varied as obsolete technologies, different types of media, fluidity of identity, and a skepticism regarding images.
While the artist trusted her audience to gather together the disparate parts of her constellations, Aye! makes space for gaps in understanding and sonic vibrations to cultivate cosmic wonder. Installed in the top room is “The Bus” (2011), a framed photograph of an American school bus, painted jet black, a swirling galaxy adorning its side flank. The show is a journey through Bacher’s universe, if only for a short ride.
Lutz Bacher: Aye! continues at Raven Row (56 Artillery Lane, London, England) through December 17. The exhibition was curated by Anthony Huberman.
Source: Hyperallergic.com