Nothing Stable Under Heaven at the MOMA: Contemporary Artists and Contemporary Reality

 Nothing Stable Under Heaven is a group show at the San Francisco MOMA, being held from March 3rd to September 16th, 2018. It combines the work of various contemporary artists across an array of media, most notably photography, sculpture and video, to present the hidden turbulence of the present. Technology, politics, war, social and environmental issues that run through our current reality are a few of the subjects these works examine. The ultimate result of these works is certainly unstable, giving the viewer a clear but almost dizzying presentation of the complexity of our world. 

View of the first room in the exhibit.

          

The show was presented in a large, moderately lit environment with white walls, light wood floors and a high ceiling that gave it a feeling of openness. The space was partitioned so one could be guided through the exhibit easily and the works could be grouped together appropriately. The first thing I noticed upon entering the exhibit was An Te Liu's Cloud, a formation of air purifiers hung high from the ceiling. Walking under this strange piece guided me further into the first room, where I was next drawn to noise coming from a printer as it spit out papers. This was the Hans Haacke's News, printing various news articles as they released in real time. I stopped briefly to scan an article about feminism. 

I examine News. 

    Other works, mostly photography, hung on the walls in periphery to these. In this room was also the entrance to another room, small and dark like theater, where Arthur Jafa's  video "Love is the Message, The Message is Death"  was playing. Around the next corner was a partitioned space to watch the exhibit's other video installation which featured children answering questions about the environment and the future. More works carried along the walls into the next large room, and another space was partitioned off to house the large installation by Jorge Otero-Pailos, a hanging latex cast of an old brick building. The show ended with a space for some larger sculptural works.

          I found that the arrangement of the works worked great. Many of the works that shared locality also shared similar aesthetics or themes. In the first room, the three most visible works- Cloud, News, and Simon Norfolk's photo of the BBC World Service Atlantic Relay Station, were all in grays or dull color. Cloud created an interesting rhythm of rectangular shapes, and Haacke's printer is also similar as they both use office-gray machines.  The printer alone lacks the interest of Cloud's arrangement, but the whole piece echoes it in the twisting pile of papers it creates. Norfolk's photo showed a grid-like system of wires, relating to the other pieces rectangular shapes. Most of the other areas flowed aesthetically  as interest was created in variation of use of color and arrangement.

        

An Te Liu, Cloud, Air purifies, ionizers, sterilizers, washers, humidifiers and ozone air cleaners. 2008.

     Thematically, many of the works held together. Most of the works in the first half of the show dealt with technology and how it interacts with our world, like in News, a steady output of  current information, Emily Jacir's linz diary that uses several webcam photos of a town square with herself somewhere in the scene, and Norfolk's  photo of the physical means of communication and surveillance. Nearby was the piece titled Autonomy Cube, a project by Trevor Paglan that provides an open wifi signal to access the internet anonymously. This piece was fascinating to me because it's function remained a part of the idea, but it also revealed the piece of technology that creates the connection in a transparent cube, allowing the viewer to contemplate the reality of the internet in a physical form. In this way it allowed for autonomy and literal "transparency" about the favorite pastime in our age we all tend to take the privacy of for granted.

Emily Jacir, linz diary, chromogenic prints, 8 in. x 228 in.. 2003.

Trevor Paglen, Autonomy Cube, Plexiglas cube with two functional motherboards, W-lan server,13 1/2 x 13 1/2 in. 2014.

           Other areas of the show seemed to follow a theme. In one space, there was the video of children as they discussed environmental issues and their predictions of the future.  The wall that extended from this area also held Richard Misrach's series of photos about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans , Tiffany Chung's piece about the future flooding in Ho Chi Minh, and Amy Franceschini's San Francisco Seed Library, an actual preservation of seeds from various plants in the city's biome. Across the way was Rinko Kawuchi's eerie photo of a burning hillside. Together, these works spoke to the anxiety of a future threatened by natural forces and humanities' own failing. At the end of the show, I noticed a theme in the sculptural works  combining comfortable domestic items with bigger ideas; Kevin Beasley's expansive sculpture of textiles items with a connection to African American identity, Jessica Jackson Hutchin's couch covered in newspaper's related to the election of Obama,  and Tobias Wong's bulletproof quilted duvet (also the title of the work) that responded to insecurities after 9-11.

          Throughout the show was a variety of photography- there was images of military training, drones, massive crowds taking part in political protests, and portraiture. One photographic work, however, outshone the rest- if you'll excuse my pun - if only by scale alone. This was Penelope Umbrico's massive collection of sunset photos. Somewhat in the tradition of appropriation art, it's compiled from the amateur photography of various people on the internet. It filled an entire wall in vivid colors. Everyone has witnessed the beauty of a sunset and  might feel tempted to snap a picture and share this common yet fantastic experience with the entire world. All of these images shown together speak to the common threads between humanity and how the internet allows us to share these things. It's documentation of humanity as well- the things we find beautiful as a collective, and the impulse to capture it forever. It was a notably light-hearted thought in the often serious  messages of this show, though amid everything else these fiery symbols of the end of the day might have a hint of apocalypse.

Penelope Umbrico, 5,377,183 Suns (from Sunsets) from Flickr (Partial) 4/28/09, Chromogenic Prints, 2009

           One thing I wish was different about this show is the variety of media of the works. It felt like the majority of  the pieces were photographic. It makes sense for a show about contemporary issues, seeing as photography has always been an effective way of presenting troubling realities. However, I felt like the amount of photography ended up being bland, and I found myself gravitating to the sculptural installations and only looking at the photos as an afterthought. Works like Kerry Jame's Marshall's Memento and Tiffany Chung's One Giant Flood 2050, some of the only non-photographic 2-dimensional works on display, were very exciting in the way they poetically represented society and culture. I would have appreciated seeing more works like these- but perhaps I'm biased as someone who draws and paints. However, I actually felt like the photographic works were strengthened when presented in contrast with other types of work, as it emphasized the unique qualities of each. Marshall's collage draws on a variety of beautiful imagery to honor the memory of those involved in the civil rights movement, using here the visuals of flowers, wings, portraits, and the dark figure of the African American woman. This piece was a good example of how the personal relationships to identity and political issues tend to converge, and the important trend of how contemporary art addresses that relationship. 

Kerry James Marshall, Memento,lithograph with gold powder, 30 1/8 in. x 44 1/8 in.1997

    Chung's looks to the future with a colorful, almost whimsical drawing of a map of Ho Chi Minh with a

troubling meaning; it imagines the pattern of flooding that is expected to happen by 2050, using beautiful 

splashes of color and texture imposed over cartographic lines. With no road names or specific places marked,

this map has a feeling of detachment from the reality the people that live there, but the lines of course are the 

result of human socio-political activity. Put up against the marks that represent natural forces, the lines fade, 

and the fragility of society becomes clear.

Tiffany Chung, one giant great flood 2050, ink and oil on paper 43 1/8 in. x 27 1/2 in., 2012.

Another drawing also stood out to me, though being a drawing didn't have much to do with it considering I thought it was a photo initially. This was  a graphite drawing by Andrea Bowers. It pictures a woman holding a sign that reads "Dignity. Safety. Justice" against a plain white background. The figure is very small in proportion to the rest of the picture, and seems to be removed from the context the title provides- she was part of a blockade at the Beverly Center in LA in 2015 by the Trans Latina Coalition.  The visual of the lone figure had a strength to it, drawing me in and highlighting the purpose of a single person in a movement of many. Meanwhile, the empty and open space around the small figure gave a feeling of distance, and this seemed to emphasize the way in which these deeply personal issues are viewed by a public who doesn't care to look closer and see the faces of the individuals who makes up these larger groups of oppressed people. After learning this was a drawing, I could especially appreciate the way the artist was extremely caring and focused in rendering the figure.

Andrea Bowers, Dignity Safety Justice: Woman With Sign Overhead (Trans Latina Coalition, Blockade at the Beverly Center, L.A., CA, March 20th, 2015), graphite on paper, 15 x 22 1/4 in. 2016.

This show had so much to look at, and every work of art came with a load of ideas about the state of our 

world. They carried ties to each other, but also to time- historical moments that ring today, the web of local 

and global information that makes the current moment, and the anxiety-ridden haze of the future. Had the 

show not been presented in such a clear way, it would be easy to get lost in, just as one can get lost on the 

internet in the bombardment of news- changing ideas, confusing political developments, stories of gun 

violence and air-strikes. This show came off as a reflection- a shattered mirror showing many angles at once. 

True to its name, it conveyed a feeling of instability, and didn't offer many clear solutions. But little threads of 

hope did seem to tie through all the representations of unrest- celebrations of identity and the power of 

protest, preservation of nature for the future, and the potential of technology to help rather than harm could 

be found in some of the works I discussed. I feel like opportunities like this are rare, to get to open your eyes 

to the mess and take all in. For that, it was a show worth seeing.