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This is a bitter, angry show made by a few angry, angry artists. Americans Jenna Bliss, Buck Ellison and Jasmine Gregory were born in the mid-1980s, growing up in a country that was at the peak of the economy, but as adults the financial crash of 2008 changed everything. They saw a world of opportunity and limitless possibilities, and then everything was taken out from under them. Surely they are angry; we should all be.
Jenna Bliss’s first video here sets the mood. Static, hand-drawn images of the New York skyline and public art in the city’s financial district feature slogans such as “We survived Y2K but now the real world is collapsing” and “Save the banks to save us all”. That’s the vibe: millennial frustration in a world built to keep the banks rich and the rest of us cool.
His other film is a sad sitcom episode set in a fictional 2007 art fair booth, all about cocaine, Vice magazine and the art market about to explode. It’s a classic image of a boring world, but it can be fun if you’re an artist.
Buck Ellison’s work is for Orlo & Co, a fictional financial consultancy and multinational bank. The three lighted boxes are like bank merchandise, including old paintings by Bronzino and Manet and stomach-turning inscriptions such as “In the hands of the few, for the good of the many”. It’s cultural tools, aesthetics value, the world built for them and certainly not for you.
In contrast, large vitrines are filled with the stuff of a young banker: pictures of luxury yachts, books by Machiavelli and Marcus Aurelius, luggage tags from luxury vacations. You know who Ellison is portraying here, the financier brother, the man of luck and unrequited success, the man made of glasses, khakis and polo shirts. It’s amazing how the image of this person is in your mind, the person you will never be, and the opportunity you will never have.
Jasmine Gregory is the third artist here. They photograph advertisements for luxury watches and are removed, leaving only images of rich men and their rich children who will receive the watches. A picture of the word “divorce” lies on the plinth, an empty champagne bottle next to it. Gregory creates videos of the prices of everyday items on a blank canvas, a striking portrait of the artist as a child with his mother in the background. Those days of beautiful shots and high aspirations are a thing of the past, and what’s left are worries about the price of the weekly shop.
The whole show shows a deep frustration with the stupidity and injustice of selfish, noble people who continue to reward the few at the expense of the many. This is not about a serious injury or political injustice, but about the daily life that almost all of us drag ourselves into. It’s the epitome of millennial rage, beating yourself to death in a dumb job over bad pay while bills go through the roof and oil companies make profits. You don’t walk away feeling like you’ve seen beautiful, deep art – a lot of it is ugly – but you walk away feeling like your world is coming back at you, in all its greedy, stupidity. You leave, rightly so, bitter and very angry.
