_Lives in New York
American
Fool,
1999 (remix of Molly Ringwald from "The Breakfast Club")
Digital video (color, sound), approx. 5'
Courtesy of the artist
view a sequence 994 KB
Beer with Chevy, 1999 (remix of Chevy Chase and Anthony Hall
from "National Lampoon's Vacation")
Digital video (color, sound), approx. 5'
Courtesy of the artist
view a sequence 1700 KB
Kentucky On My Mind,
1999 (remix of Bruce Lee from "Enter the Dragon")
Digital video (color, sound), approx. 5'
Courtesy of the artist
view a sequence 2100 KB
Amy Nelson
(..) The videos made by Danny Hobart, a young New York artist, reinstate
a certain ambivalence
toward popular culture yet without participating in the love- hate dynamic
so prevalent in similar works. Hobart’s work assures us that Hollywood
fare does not need a "resisting reader" who actively seeks the
fissures in the polished narratives but merely an observer, willing to
bring his or her own fantasies to the original texts. This kind of wide-eyed
reception is defined not by naivety but rather by an unwillingness to
claim its understanding as oppositional. The spectator is keyed to this
by one of Hobart's trademarks, his opening title sequences of "danny
hobart presents ...". While this recurring feature playfully nods
to the credits of feature films and toys with the notion of auteurist
ownership, it also indicates Hobart’s critical strategy of presentation
over and above re-presentation. In so doing, he forgoes the temptation
to engage in a cynical undoing, claiming instead to share with the spectator
his
own vision of how it was. Thus, the earnestness that remains despite his
whimsical, pixilated formal manipulations is a statement on both vision
and memory, the artist saying, quite simply, "This is what I saw."
The works included in this exhibition elucidate one of Hobart’s fundamental
obsessions: the production of sexed subjects through culturally-inherited
rituals. (..)
Please also
visit the archive of Basis-Wien at
http://www.basis-wien.at
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