Andy Warhol Chairman Mao Russian Salad
Despite being created over 40 years ago, Andy Warhol’s reproductions of Chairman Mao remain potent: a recent retrospective of his work in China excluded the several hundred or so pop-art images Warhol created of The Great Helmsman out of “cultural sensitivity”. Here’s the thing though: if anything, Warhol’s various Maos were a bit tame. All he really did was colour in his face a bit, spruce up the backdrop and add the odd squiggly line. If Warhol really wanted to be provocative he should have gone far further: he should have depicted Mao in the form of a potato salad. This is another entry from #ReviewAnything’s old mucker Elen Ghulam, last seen reading the most boring insult in the history of the world. #ReviewAnything isn’t America though; we do allow second acts, and Andy Warhol Chairman Mao Russian Salad (Pop Food Art) may be the most explosive work in this feature’s brief history. Sure, on the face of it, it’s a video of someone making a Russian salad, but the subtext is clear: just like everyone else Mao was disposable, perishable, flawed. It’s a heady gesture, but the video’s final moments are where things really get inflammatory. Ghulam picks up a fork and starts to eat Mao. She puts Mao in her Mao-th, and in doing so deconstructs the icon in a way that Warhol never could. GM
Tom Medwell
Tom Medwell is a photographer who specialises in portraits, but instead of giving us one of those to cast our censorious eye over, he’s asked us to review this group shot of some trees. I can’t say he’s managed to capture the same amount of character here as he has in, say, his portrait of “dub music legend” Mad Professor, but for that I’d place the lion’s share of the blame squarely at the trees’ respective feet, rather than Medwell’s. Put it this way – if these trees were people, there’s no way anyone would be giving them the time of day, let alone asking them to pose for a carefully composed portrait. For a start they all look distinctly wimpy, every one surrounded by one of those trunk-protecting fence things, despite the fact they’re all basically fully grown and should by now be able to handle themselves in any situation this park should throw at them. Secondly, that a few have decided to fade almost completely into the background. This, coupled with the fact these trees have precisely zero discernable characteristics between them, gives me the impression they really can’t be arsed with this whole photoshoot. If I were you Tom, I’d find some trees more deserving of your time. RA
Pierquin – Sun Daze Part 2
Last month, we reviewed Pierquin’s “spoken word rap” EP Sun Daze, which Paul MacInnes called “gloomy and miserable”. But it turns out he was only getting half the story – Sun Daze has a second act, the yang to part one’s yin, the Morcambe to its Wise. Is it any more uplifting? Well, Pierquin doesn’t appear to have left his sordid bedsit, but he is high on coke and tequila on a Sunday night, leading him to consider jacking in work forever while dropping in references to Muriel Spark and periods. It’s The Weeknd meets Arab Strap, but not as good as that makes it sound. Ultimately, do I want to hear part 3, the mother of all self-recriminatory hangovers? No. SR
The Japanese Cockneys by Fourfoot
I...erm... okay?...Right. Irony, yeah? Post-irony, even. Post-post or something? Yeah, it must be. HAS to be. Of course it is. In terms of irony, this is serious stuff, like that bit in Inception when they’re in the fourth layer of Cillian Murphy’s brain and no-one knows what’s going on. I... don’t know what’s going on. I don’t get the joke. You’ve gone too deep. Is it an indictment of racial stereotyping’s alarming correlation with substandard Microsoft Paint skills? Is it deeper than that – a subversive polemic on big business’s orchestration and proliferation of stereotyping as a means of population control? IS IT SAYING THAT EAST AND WEST SHOULD COME TOGETHER AND PROVE WE’RE ALL, BENEATH THE SURFACE, ONE AND THE SAME?! IS IT?!! That’s it. I’ve had enough. Someone kick my chair please. I want to wake up. I’ve got a horrible feeling The Japanese Cockneys is none of these things. It’s just incredibly shit. LH
