“Open Season,” which debuts today at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, is artist Larry Achiampong’s first show outside of the UK. The exhibit features 16 blackboards; each one contains chalk-written text in the style of a student being disciplined for a transgression; line after line is repeated for the purpose of being burned into memory. Inspired by various images, words, and sound clips mined from social media, Achiampong compiles each source to reflect a wide range of opinions, such as sentences that read “The people on the podium are black women” and “Build the Wall.” These texts offer glimpses into the multiplicity of selves found online and IRL, and Achiampong—who was born in the UK but also holds Ghanaian citizenship—references such notions of identity throughout “Open Season.”
Kate Sierzputowski: Why did you choose Grand Theft Auto V as the context of the second video in the Finding Fanon series?Larry Achiampong: My collaborator David Blandy and I were looking at various video games and considering which possibilities each had in terms of aesthetics, environment, and what its engine would allow us to do and not do. We considered Fallout, which is set in a postapocalyptic United States; Skyrim, which is set in a fantastical Nordic territory; and finally Grand Theft Auto V. On a social and political level, it made much more sense in relation to philosopher Frantz Fanon’s work, especially his writings on violence and decolonization, which worked well in comparison to the focus on violence found in GTA V. It made sense to use an arena of violence to talk about cultural violence, and the GTA V world was a space we could easily transform from a seemingly alive city into a depopulated dystopia, a postapocalyptic world, a clean state after the end of history.
I think the idea that joins Battalion with some of the other pieces in the exhibition is nostalgia. Skateboarding is something I used to do quite a bit as a kid. I was always fascinated by the underside of the deck and how people would create tags, paint, draw, and write on it to make it their own. These objects would become my friend’s shields—objects showcasing symbols to depict aspects of one’s own identity. I used this idea to consider my existence, being raised in the UK, whilst learning about my inherited culture, the various motifs and values within my Ashanti and Ghanaian heritage. Starting of with the sacred cloth called kente and considering the various patterns and meanings behind the use of color inspired a painting style that I employed on all of the skateboards.
Achiampong and Blandy appear tonight, 7 PM, Stony Island Arts Bank, 6760 S. Stony Island, 312-857-5561, rebuild-foundation.org, free.
