By Susana Cabrera
At the last moments before the 2024 presidential election in the United States, Winnie van der Rijn and Ryan Bock presented NIGHTMERICA, a three-days-only exhibition, at Mooncalf New York, the new place for emerging and off-institutional artists.
In the exhibition, both artists combined their pieces on the walls in a way that some of them overlapped each other, creating a dialogue where their historical and political concerns are revealed and recognized.
Ryan Bock is an interdisciplinary visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Utilizing the ancient craft of puppetry, Bock questions the patriotic stories, and its symbolism with American characters and archetypes that are inspired from the faded decadence of 1920’s era Hollywood art deco set design, clown carnival faire and old Americana.
The puppets represent key characters in American mythologies, such as Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty, with a caricatured approach, but with sharp strokes that distance them from their original beauty, and charge them with an exaggerated histrionic intention that borders on the grotesque and disturbing, just like an idyllic dream, where morality and spirituality go so far as to become a nightmare.
Naomi Falk, from Juxtapoz, said on his “I’m afraid of Americans” exhibition in Paris, that his work “tell us that there is always a residual history that must be named before it can be solved, that must be constantly fought so that it does not rise again”.
Winnie van der Rijn is a multidisciplinary artist from California and born into a family of nationalist and conservative ideas, mainly from her father, who was in the military. For her family, the U.S. flag has been a symbol that has surpassed its meaning to touch the emotional and personal. Her mother could cry at the sight of a flag. Nevertheless, Winnie developed her own revolutionary ideas, allowing herself to confront them with those acquired at home through art. Her questioning of nationalist narratives and the incompatibility of real facts has led her to capture this in her work and to explore the American symbolic attributions and meanings.
Van der Rijn calls herself an artist of opportunity, that collects materials and resignify them with an artistic and respectful approach. She got once a bag of old and distressed American flags, and started to treat them as they would talk to her. The artist didn’t put damage on the flags, but reacted to those wounds.
Was she metaphorically trying to mend the history? Actually, she didn’t cover up the holes, nor fixed the flags; instead, hand stitched around every hole, protecting them and giving the distressed flag another life, because, as Winnie said “Denying the reality won’t change it’.
One of those flags were missing the white strings. In her own words, “it has intentional cuts in addition to traumatic wear and tear. It appears anguished. Most of the wounds are in the white stripes—the white in the flag represents innocence (lost?) and purity (an idea that is deeply problematic), the fading and discoloration is primarily in the red stripes—the red represents hardiness and valor (hmm), the blue field is slightly wounded and slightly faded—the blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice.”
The works of both artists unveil the backyard of “the beautiful” that is disseminated in the nationalist mythologies and propaganda created by the institutions. The sacred and untouchable patriotic codes break down and fall into the realm of the absurd, at a point where discordance floats to the surface, and incredulity grows stronger.
About Ryan Bock’s exhibition “I’m not funded by CIA”, he said “The propaganda machine is time-tested and well-oiled. To combat it, we must mount defenses against it where it stands and meet it head to head. We must beat it at its own game. Artistic resistance, via routes like counterculture and protest, is the power governments fear, covet, and ultimately seek to usurp. Independent artists have an obligation to constantly reclaim their language and original intent of creation. To face the machine with moral strength, to uphold freedom and truth against a shadowy culture war.
Thus, prior to the voting in the United States, three days of Nightmerica unveiled a historic moment, in which more and more voices are raised to express—with a critical and desperate voice—the immense lack of political representation. Hence, the abandonment of the political class to its people is the gestation of a growing wound, which finds relief in art, the union of forces and action.
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