Jordan Wolfson debuts at Beyeler in Beyeler

In the middle of a room filled with workers, there is a large bird cage-like structure made of cameras and cables. Someone is inside; the flash goes out. Just next to this structure, there is a dummy similar to a crash test. On both sides of the room, there are four plots marked with black tape. In each episode, the couple wears VR goggles. Their arms stretched out and walked forward, and were directed by black assistants.

This is your first introduction to Jordan Wolfson’s new work, Small roomBeyeler in Basel, Switzerland. This VR job requires two people to scan their bodies – although this kind of scan was not used exactly in the virtual space at first. The text on the wall is rarely revealed, telling the audience that what they will experience will be “morally and emotionally challenging.” With Wolfson, this disclaimer is certainly a problem.

Wolfson was named after him in the 2010s after puppets, violence and controversy. Female image (2014) Features a sexy animated witch who dances in front of a mirror and locks eyes with the audience through a glass. Colorful sculptures (2016) is a nasty little boy doll, repeatedly throwing on the ground, Body sculpture (2023) takes the form of a titanium cube with clear arms on it, and seems to have encountered myself on its cube route, even a pantomime. Small room It is a clear combination of tactics derived from Wolfson’s puppet-centric art, and one of his most iconic works, namely VR True violence (2017).

In this work, the audience is sent into the urban environment on a sunny day. The appearance of the two characters Wolfson and another man kneel on the ground, holding hands, holding hands and raising hands, interrupting the stillness. Wolfson holds the bat. He started beating the man in front of you. Blood splashed. Looking back at the controversy after the Whitney Biennale, I approached Small room fear.

Although the process of being scanned is similar to the gestures of going to a doctor or passing the safe route through the airport, it is a movement into another reality. Just like the launch ceremony, the work begins with crossing many thresholds. The first threshold is finding a partner. Fortunately, I quickly paired with another lonely audience of artists with elves. “We’re going to be very close,” I told him. I have no idea.

We were told to prepare to enter the full-body scanner and our profile would be very important. Near the queue, there is a simple black wash basin with double-sided mirrors, wipes, headbands and tape, and a basket for personal effects. Encourage long skirts or skirts to wear a pair of gray sweatpants. I was instructed that I should tie my hair up by an assistant who is pressing on someone’s knees to the flowing shoulder cult bone. Then, I was sent to the next assistant responsible for the scan. The platform inside the cage was slightly calibrated and slightly improved, responding to my measurements. In the cage, many cameras point at me. I was told to prepare for the flash.

After our respective scans, my partner and I sat at the table and had a small chat as we looked at the room of the clues we were about to go through. In a square in front of me, a man and a woman have begun this experience, their eyes being covered by heavy VR headphones. They just finished calibration. The woman suddenly took a step back, was startled, started laughing, and then cried. An assistant wiped a pair of headphones on her ears and wiped her tears with her T-shirt. It suddenly appeared on me, maybe it was too late: she responded to herself. Wolfson lets each couple wear each other’s skin, making each of his audience members make puppets and animators.

when True violence The work premiered at the Whitney Biennale, with Wolfson as Edgelord’s reputation. Wolfson insists that the work and others are not political, his art is just about violence (though facts True violence It does contain a culturally specific element: Hanukkah prayer occupies importance in its soundtrack). Given the nationwide campaign against gender- and ethnic-based violence and focusing on defining representation and identity politics in the 2010s, he refused to answer these terms, making him a provocative. However, this is a role that Wolfson seems to be happy about.

The pandemic, during another Trump presidency, it’s hard to find his Edgelord character so sexy or subversive – there’s enough fear between the rise between the alt-right, ice, ice and more. The mid-2010s was about debating what violence – mini aggression, a work of art, a policeman wrapped his biceps around the black man’s throat and choked him. By 2020, the horror of fascism and genocide has already had a fever, completely changing that discourse.

If Wolfson was an artist of the time, what was he now? I wondered if my headset was placed on my head. A white void, lined with a liner that seemed to extend into the infinite grid, began to appear. My partner in this piece was told by an assistant to calibrate the headphones by walking and flipping the palms so that my skin fits my body. Have technical difficulties. Expectations are hard to bear. I’ve always wanted to know what I’m seeing myself like others. The opportunity to do this has finally come, and I realize I am scared.

My hands appeared in front of me on my knuckles. I looked at myself and saw my partner’s clothes: striped shirt, beige pants, white sneakers. A character – self-righteous – shows up on my periphery. She was there, her eyes widened in a blood-thread demon staring, malfunctioning, and her body folded and unfolded. I don’t make sense, I shouted the word “stop”.

From my hips, my feet are smaller than mine, shorter, wider, and very small. I’m trying to find my clothes, but it doesn’t work. Even if I wanted to back down, I couldn’t look away. Then, a rectangular mirror appears in the gap. I could see myself wearing my partner’s skin. His face and gaze were wrong, I couldn’t get his arms to work, and sometimes they completely disappeared. I tried dancing and his body trembled.

The voices of men and women begin to recite poems with flat emotions. My mouth opened and closed to match its words: “God harasses you.” The word “transparency” was chilling when I looked down at my partner’s body and saw the outlines of his pants and sneakers ringing. The mirror flips, passes through us, and we follow it. When I put my hand away from the surface of the mirror, it was like trying to grab a beam of light. The poem continues, “Look at your hands, I love you. Looking at your hands, I hate you.” We circle each other in that eternal gap. VR goggles suddenly start streaming reality. it’s over.

After removing the VR headphones and headphones, my partner and I sat down and drank a glass of water. He said, “You have spots,” I rolled up the sleeves of my sweater and I had taken off my sweater when I was scanned. I looked at my freckles and felt a little drowsy. I realized that my internal monologue had been completely silent during the deadlines of my experience and had to readjust my own thoughts for the moments thereafter. My partner’s experience is not that appealing. The audio in the headphones broke – he heard nothing.

It turns out that the experience of body transformation makes you a good bond. My partner and I lingered around Beyeler for the next few hours talking about work. The intensity of the experience, like the light of physics, eventually fades away, and any frustration with the friction of technology. What remains is the powerful encounter image, like that twitching, incredible body appearing, and then I see the face on his face, stiff, engraved and twisted. I was left with new memories.

Small room It is easy to be understood as an overly self-referential work, remixing the most obvious medium and thematic aspects of his practice. But, making this work a graceful continuation of his work is a quiet, compelling response to the criticism he has received over the years. exist Small roomHe tried to solve a problem: Can artists bypass the moral requirements of representation?

Wolfson often uses white characters (including versions of his own body) to create allegedly unpolitical scenarios in which violence is not racist. However, by incorporating the audience’s body into the work, several specific things can be achieved.

VR is often touted as a “transfer machine” and has the potential to build understanding and care among different groups, as pointed out by anthropologist Lisa Messeri. On the illusory land. It seems like Wolfson is too neat to use VR this way. But with Small room He seems to give what the imagined critic wants – no longer think of the representative of the artist, but rather experience ourselves, and we are all obsessed with that entity. As for your character by chance, it’s a good luck as it’s no longer on Wolfson. If there is violence in that room, it is what you bring. Can you handle it?