The ‘city of a thousand and one cities’, Dubai, sells itself on dreams. It seems that all the oil dollars in the world can help build a bizarre amalgamation of reverie and reality, an alternate universe in which anything is seemingly possible. The people of the Emirate can oscillate between the differing spheres in their lives – canal trips in a mock Venetian scene, surfing on artificial waves, or skiing down faux mountains– until all geographical reference is lost. Dubai is, therefore, a city-wide copy/paste exercise, a pastiche of dream and reality all underpinned with the aim of creating some form of utopia.
Dreamlands at the Centre Georges Pompidou would suggest this thinking is not as modern as first thought. Taking its name from a theme park in Coney Island, New York which opened in 1904 and was seen as the pioneer in the creation of dream and entertainment, the exhibition presents various visions of utopia and cityscapes with largely indifferent results.
Just as one quickly grows tired of the pounding music and the traces of neon lighting left upon the retina from a night spent in the city, an exhibition dedicated to art of which the crux is this same visual and aural punishment is far from pleasant. That said, whereas certain elements of the exhibition seemed like a curious and ill-fitting sub-section – the room in which Mike Kelley’s Kandor Con, a series of work relating to Superman, was staged – there were some elements that weren’t without their charm.
Kader Attia’s Untitled (Skyline), in which 19 fridges of differing heights have been turned into skyscrapers through use of mirrored tiles cleverly questions the notions of the banal and the spectacular, as well as the dichotomy of East and West through use of recycled materials and the obvious allusion to skyscrapers. Equally clever, Malachi Farrell’s exhibit Nothing Stops a New Yorker, and its seven wooden skyscrapers dancing to the sound of a workout video begins innocently enough, until the audio track of the September 11th attacks is spliced into the music. While some may see this as insensitive, there is no doubt that Farrell has attempted to almost pay tribute to the resolve of New Yorkers within this work.
But the devil, as ever, is in the details, and the problem is that there are too many details to appreciate. We flit from a video discussing the science behind the Las Vegas strip to a shrunken city skyline in a suitcase, and again from photos of the Eiffel Tower through to Hollywood signs placed in the desert; there is little coherency among the exhibits, with pieces presenting specific visions or notions in various forms, but with a very thin narrative holding them together.
Dreamlands runs at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, until the 9th August.
Alexander Britton
