Fiasco Press

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Journal of Swarm Scholarship

An ensemble of Inter-Galactic Techno-Tribal Saltimbanques

Nauman Humayun

Whereas Ever After, concurrently up at Jack Shainman gallery, finds Nick Caves more minimal,

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Journal of Swarm Scholarship

mystical side of the creative endeavor, the artist, for now, indulges in a more effulgent imaginary realm in For Now, at Mary Boone gallery, where he reveals himself as a veteran voodoomixologist, pulling together a rich variety of media, found objects, upholstery, fabric, sweaters, animal toys, buttons and beads, and brewing a splendid psychedelic cocktail of colorful alien beings that are visually inebriating to the eye.

Who or what are these creatures? A beginners glance may comprehend something close to oversized, popsicle-shaped alien acrobatics, or some configuration of their fruity hard-ons. That they are inter-dimensional flavored beings is my clumsy guess. Then, I remind myself, they are supposed to be Soundsuits, as intended by the artist; suits that express and encompass the realm of sound in one form or another, and link its elemental properties to the body, the being, the presence, the spectacle, and ultimately, to the invigorating theatricality of a TechnoTribal carnival. The Soundsuits may also function as talismanic defense encapsulations, camouflaging, concealing and embellishing the creatures body, race, gender, class, and identity, thereby enshrouding inner fragility and endless accumulated cultural and societal typecasts and labels.

Cave proclaims his congregation of wacky personalities as a psychedelic, functified freak show that is an accumulation of the decades from the perspective of voodoo woo-loo. Voodoo magic and Shamanic ritual conjuration a concocted exposition of tribal-visual incantation: these are themes central to the show, and in a strong way draw us back to our ancient past, nearer to some sort of an imaginary re-actualization of the primitive, an Archaic Revival,

Fiasco Press

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Journal of Swarm Scholarship

where ritual and magic played an important part in the Cromagnon ceremonial festivities. Caves performers are not demure by any means, but radiate the rococo, the ornate, and are unabashedly resplendent and unrestrained. One hardly misses the ancient megalithic connection here (think Stonehenge, the Callanish Stones, the statues on Easter Island); however, the artist reaestheticizes his version of the ancient tribalesque relic through a full palette of color, sound and radiance a spectralized, organismic, libidinal splendor; a turbo-charged visual cacophony of psychedelic-relic glossolalia.

While scanning the stage where these Soundsuits are assembled, I am funnily reminded of Terence McKennas Self-Transforming Machine Elves rumored by the legendary psychedelic explorer as alien inter-dimensional beings that appear before the psychonauts inner perceptual field during hyperreal DMT flashes of otherworldly proportions. These elves, or let us call them a band of nomadic, peregrinate acrobats, plant their tents somewhere in the middle of a vast surreal dreamscape, and from time to time, as a gesture of compassion, love and joviality, put on a carnivalesque display of florid bright colors, song and dance. This is the artists affirmation, realization and celebration of a Dionysian utopia.

Fiasco Press

www.fiascopress.org

Journal of Swarm Scholarship

Fiasco Press

www.fiascopress.org

Journal of Swarm Scholarship

Fiasco Press

www.fiascopress.org

Journal of Swarm Scholarship

Photographs by Nauman Humayun For Now is up at Mary Boone Gallery, 541 West 24 Street, and will continue through 22 October 2011. For further information, contact www.maryboonegallery.com

Fiasco Press

www.fiascopress.org

Journal of Swarm Scholarship