Bound

Bound (stylized in all caps) was a 2013 solo art exhibition by Wasalu Jaco, held at Anonymous Gallery in New York City. It featured photos, film and sound from famous museums, and ran from December 13 to December 21, 2013. The exhibition was organized by Anonymous Gallery and Wolf Studio.

Biography

Anonymous Gallery and Wolf Studio are proud to present BOUND, a project created by WASALU MUHAMMAD JACO.

The definition of the word "Bound" is to confine and yet also to progress towards something. To limit to a specific place or duty but also to traverse to a distant point. The exercise within BOUND is to transgress institutional limits but in a manner both wholly meaningful and wholly absurd. The seriousness of the subject matter is at once paired with the trivial action applied to disarm it. A sort of direct indirection that represents the opposing duality present within the title itself.

Inconspicuous situated and installed behind a jewlery store in Tribeca, nyc, the project is anchored by works of photography that capture powerful moments of irony and provoke evaluation by investigating institutionalism. The exhibition also features film, sound recordings and mixed media installations under the banner of "A.R.T. (Area Restrictive Technology)" produced by a company called APS (Art Protection Systems). APS was started specifically for BOUND. APS is a company that specializes in producing effective deterrents used to keep works of art from being molested or tampered with in any way. Each photo is partnered with a corresponding piece of A.R.T. which acts as a physical/psychological barrier, or Boundary if you will, between the photo and the observer. The addition of "A.R.T." to BOUND creates another layer of absurdity and yet strong purpose. WARNING: The "A.R.T." is real and fully operational. Physical harm can be inflicted if one chooses to cross the set boundaries and tamper with or molest the photos in anyway deemed unfit by the artist and APS.

The photography, film and sound of 'BOUND' were all captured within art institutions and museums across 3 continents (North America: MOCA-LA, MOMA-NYC, The Geffen-LA, MCA-CHI; Australia: MCA-SYDNEY; Europe: Centre Pompidou-PARIS)

Background

One rule Jaco disliked was the "Do Not Touch" signs, and he admitted at the opening night, "I got busted at the Warhol Museum." He added of more effective ways to make people comply with signs, like with captions 'This picture is protected by the stigma homosexuality' or 'This picture has 1980's AIDS'. He explained, "I thought, 'Let me do museums a favor and create things to keep people from touching.'"

In an interview with EBONY, he said of the presentation:

Well, at once its an exercise in duality, recognizing duality, that's how I work. Working in irony and in ironic situations. This one particularly had to do with museums so all the photos are taken at museums around the world. And specifically, photos that are taken of me "breaking the rules" of that particular museum. So I might touch something in a "do not touch" zone—you're kinda breaking the rule on the surface, but you're not really [breaking it]. You're not because the sign is meant to say 'don't touch the art, don't touch this… don't touch the picture, don't touch the sculpture.' For me, I took it as more like, I'm going to just touch this..and it started off as personal joke for myself and then as I started going out to different museums, seeing different signs, different versions of different signs, different fonts of signs and logos and etc and then just completely off the wall instructions for you like yo, keep 18 inches away from all the paintings et cetera, et cetera. Its like, c'mon! Ok, now I came up with different ways to kinda break those rules, so if it was a 'do not cross' [sign], for instance, I would create a little cross, then put the cross down then take a picture of that. If it was a 'do not photo' sign, 'no photography allowed' sign… I would take a photo of the 'do not photo' sign. That would break the rule in a sense. Then it became to provide a service where it was like, hmmm…maybe if the museum had done this, then this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have touched this, ya know. I wouldn't have even touched this sign, I wouldn't have even broke the rules in a light-hearted way, I wouldn't have been able to do it all if that 'do not cross' line was a mouse trap or if it was barb-wire or if it was broken glass or if it went to the point to be a little more absurd, if this picture had AIDS. Just imagine walking up to a painting [that said] if you touched it that you'll have AIDS. And then kinda take those methods of how to protect the paintings and them create them. So that's why you have the "do not photo" section protected by a "voodoo, alter situation." You have the crucifixes 1 and 2 protected by the power of Christ. You got the "please keep off" protected by mouse traps..rat traps or what have you. So its all of these pairings of these kind of photos and you see me personally breaking the rules. You actually see the hands of the artist breaking the rules, touching the 'do not touch' sign, but then coming back and trying to reinforce for you not to touch it, but in a very real way. By saying 'hey, this photo is actually connected to this car battery and if you touch it it'll electrocute you.' Maybe if the museum did that in the first place then I wouldn't have touched it. So that's the crux of it, but within that there's a deeper meaning about institutions and the institutions of the art world. Why do these things have value? Are they valuable because they are protected? Or are they protected because they are intrinsically valuable.

Every piece, whether it be the title of the piece, what I use to execute the piece with, what I paired the installation piece with it, has a deeper meaning beyond that. It all has layers to every piece if you choose to investigate and sit there with it like you would sit there with a piece of art. But what you're looking at as opposed to looking at a painting, you're looking at a rule that was used to protect the painting. Now that floor got put on the wall. Now take this floor as art. Are you willing to do that? Can you do that? Is it accomplished because its in a gallery now? And its framed, and its behind a mat, and it has lights on it and their is a critique off it and there is art critics and collectors, is this now art?

Reception

ARTnews reported, "it's an absurdist response to some of the more absurd efforts museums make to keep art secure." Gary Suarez of Noisey wrote in their review, "From the start of this personalized tour of "Bound," Fiasco's temporary art exhibit fixated on museum rule-breaking and creative approaches to enforcement, it's hard to imagine why anyone would even desire to touch any of these pieces in the first place. Yet absurdity seems to be Fiasco’s aim, a cute attempt at transforming vaguely criminal mischief into art. [...] Museum signage, those posted strictures requesting some modicum of civility, turned into challenges to Jaco, creating opportunities to test these limits in 'very specific, superficial, kinda pussy ways.'" He continued, "Photos were accompanied by corresponding pseudo-solutions dubbed Art Protection Systems, creative yet mostly vacant threats ranging from the physical (barbed wire, broken glass) to the spiritual (voodoo curses) to the absurd (a 'mafia services agreement' purportedly signed by a contract killer)." He added, "Perhaps the intent of these over-the-top measures was to strip security of its intended seriousness, a meta comment on the farce of art valuation, though at no point during Jaco’s exhaustively candid tour of the work was such a motivation even alluded to [...] If anything, the adolescently straightforward "Bound" comes across more as the one-note dalliance of a bored museum patron than a crusading artist."

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