Lost Art: G8 Protest as Art

A small screen on the wall at eye level, on the top floor, next to a window facing the street and the park opposite the gallery. This is where the work is shown. The art itself is a video of the clashes amongst protesters and ‘the authorities’ at the Genova G8 summit.

Never having enjoyed video art much, I had low expectations of wanting to spend much time in front of this exhibit, by an artist whose name, as you might have guessed, I cannot remember. However, I got sucked into this alternative view of the events, which some time earlier had appeared on the news around the world. Easily 20 minutes must have passed before I even regained consciousness of my body in an art gallery. The viewpoints of demonstrators, the wanton destruction, the government control of a whole city, the camicie nere… The artist, who I think was an Irish man, showed me the belated news with so much detail, it took on life.

If you were in the Hugh Lane Art Gallery in Dublin between, say 2000 and 2002, you may have seen it too. I remember they were playing Gotan Project in the gift shop, not that that is an indication of anything.