I am making Bart. A tribute to John Baldessari.
Exhibition display.
I AM MAKING BART
Self-parody is one of the several possible mechanisms to convey a message, and it is especially interesting due the empathy it generates on the receiver’s side. The exercise of the absurd, introduced as an invitation to reflection, forms the basis of this artwork, where I directly and bluntly pay tribute to John Baldessari formally remixing the current aesthetic values.
In an appropriation gesture, in ‘I'm making Bart’ I borrow the audio of Baldessari’s ‘I'm making art’ video —an artwork where, through his conceptual video, the artist questioned those who, in turn, questioned conceptual art, thus laughing at himself and therefore at everyone else.
My video takes an ad hoc hypothesis of a mass critical with video artwork that doubts about its usefulness as a contemporary artistic expression medium as a reference point. Staged by a toy —an image within the urban popular iconography offered by street vendors—, it transports through its mantra —‘I’m making Bart’— not by making any assertion, but generating an ambivalence between what we see and what we think.
The paper toy, which usually and allegedly dances to the music, does it here to the locution of the conceptual art mockery master.
Being self-convinced in order to keep the illusion, the assumed fable denied by unwarily falling into the trap, becomes in this minimal and austere artwork the basis for a proposal rendered provocative through repetition and insolence.
Technical specifications:
Video created to be projected in an extra-large format where the figure becomes oversized on the projection wall. At both sides of the projection (the figure touches floor and ceiling), two high-format high-fi speakers are placed. In this case, however, the figure breaks the common sense and is three times bigger than the speakers. This magnification and disproportion becomes thus the key element in its projection.
The video is conceived to be looped.
Filming format: HD
Mono-channel video.