THE DEMISE OF CHRIST AND THE RISE OF THE CELEBRITY IN ART
(page 2 of 2)
Foucault and Barthes struggled throughout the twentieth century to identify another type of author-god/Genius not necessarily equated with the singular, male, often portrayed as starved or melancholy. Society, they argue, is obsessed with the biography to the extent that the content is no longer qualified. What happens then when we are deprived of the singular biography and it is substituted with multitudinous stories, all similar but different? It reminds us of the clichés of 'life' and the uncanny familiarity between the different stories, serving to undermine the autonomous single one.
In her 2005 16-channel installation, King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson), artist Candice Breitz does just that. The video features several members of the public who answered her adverts to perform as Michael Jackson in a studio setting. Their ‘auditions’ were later pulled together so it appears that the impersonators are side-by-side, as one chorus line, enacting their favourite pop star. Though Breitz’s work is often argued to demonstrate the power of pop-culture and God-like presence of pop-stars and actors through its avid and awestruck fans (who we keep at an arm’s length), I believe its success is actually in the compelling yet cringe-worthy experience for the viewer whom, I imagine, more often than not, has done something similar at home. Therefore, King, and her similar pieces on Madonna and Bob Marley, act as compassionate glimpses into the power structures inherent in mass media and us, its passionate consumers. Impersonation indicates a momentary desire to become another and a level of escapism, but the repetition of the desire and its participants points out a collective psyche that begs the question: Though we are different, are all trying to be the same individual? The 42minute video ironically pulls together a unified portrait of the King of Pop, as seen by us. After all, what is a celebrity, but our own fabrication? In appropriating blockbuster films and famous actors and editing age-old monologues, Breitz is able to destabilise the ideas, imagery and icons of Hollywood and its utopist gloss whilst highlighting our ironic desires to be that someone and somewhere else; perhaps that of our new iconography, the Celebrity.
The pilgrims who flock to Graceland and Lennon’s memorial, do not so much honour dead-gods, as proclaim the presence of living secular ones in popular culture. More tourists visit Oscar Wilde’s and Edith Piaf’s graves than they do Notre Dame’s memorials to the saints. Lennon’s song, The ballad of John and Yoko, contains the lyrics, ‘the way things are going, they’re gonna crucify me.’ With reflection upon these words and his death, and that of Princess Diana and the late Michael Jackson, do they not have an uncomfortable resonance? The universal language of the spectacle, while commonly praised for its accessibility, in fact comes at a hefty price. It seems to me that we have replaced one God with others, less mortal, and it is our duty and that of the artist to continue to question our system of beliefs.
References:
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Emile Durkheim, 1915
Death of the Author, Roland Barthes, 1977
What Is An Author?, Michel Foucault, 1977
Celebrity, Chris Rojek, 2001
Illustration:
Installation Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, Berln, King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson), Candice Breitz, 2005, 16-Channel installation