Negativland at Consolidated Works

Seattlest made it to the opening night of the new Negativland show at Consolidated Works Friday, February 17th. The email invite promised "wine and hors d'oeuvres," but all we could find were these tiny nut bowls of asian cracker mix with wasabi peas (yuck), and the wine was sparkling white (blech), but it was free so who's complaining?

There were at least three rooms of Negativland related program activities we could find: The first gallery had what was probably the original artwork for the Escape From Noise album cover (We're not sure, maybe it was just a print. The lack of labels made this hard to figure out), plus some creepy, meticulous paintings featuring your favorite politicians and some gross/hilarious meat-themed mixed media assemblages, along with an interactive sound/video piece called "the Booper". When we took a picture of Seattlest's meanest contributor standing next to one of the Rauschenberg-esque combine pieces, we drew the attention of the artist, the fearsome Mark Hostler, who demanded to know why we were taking pictures of his art, probably so he could sue us later for infringing on his precious copyright. He looked incredulous when we told him about how we once sent him a handwritten fan letter by way of the USPS way back in the 20th Century, back in the dark times when the infamous Casey Kasem/U2 hilarity was a lot more difficult to come by than it is today. He told us that we could just download it for free off his site, but he must have lied since we can't find it.

The second room had a running loop of videos for Negativland's most commercially successful American Top 40 hits. There were probably more videos of Dispepsi songs than we needed since all those anti-consumerism rants of the '90s seem so dated now, and maybe even full of shit. Probably the funniest video on display was the one for the song Christianity Is Stupid (as everyone knows, this song would later compell a troubled teen to murder his family with an axe), which samples everything from claymation crucifixion scenes to Mel Gibson's S&M fantasies. Titled "The Mashin of the Christ", the band's website offers tips on how to score some copies of this video by way of all the usual sources.

The third room featured, in addition to this weird sculpture pit of junk, an exhibition of their relatively recent book/cd compilation DEATHSENTENCES OF THE POLISHED AND STRUCTURALLY WEAK, a collection of large color photos of destroyed cars captioned with handwritten notes presumably found inside the debris, alongside typed transcriptions of the messages. You can't really go wrong with found art like this because disturbing voyeurism is always a good thing, but even with the abrasive, sample-heavy "soundtrack" playing not-so-softly in the gallery, this work represents a bizarre change of direction for a collective that has spent the past few decades focused on witty, Dadaist riffs on the manipulative cliches of pop culture.

The show will also feature a live performance - allegedly their first in five years - later in March, details/tickets here. So mark your calendars and "keep jammin'."