Wild Vision

“This document is proof of a night spent as little humans enclosed by white walls in the bowels of Los Angeles surrounded by the screams of organisms as they loved, hunted and died.” Foreboding words for a ticket stub. Moments into Poncili Creación’s Our Name is Moving, staged at Hauser & Wirth in mid-November, more unease set in, as the crushing crowd was thrust headlong into the primordial soup. Over the course of a dizzying, panic-stricken hour, scavenged-foam-and-cardboard puppets (transitional objects par excellence), derelict set fragments, and polycystic costumes articulated the writhing indeterminacy of subject and object, human and animal, audience and performance. Draped in white and sprayed with loose polka dots, the unifying camouflage of the figure-ground brought into proximity the mawkish and orgiastic vibe of the event. The frenzy came to an exquisite close when a lone figure, strapped to the bare mechanism of a discarded pop-up tent, slowly collapsed center stage, cathecting a heartbreaking crucifixion on the detritus of the world. While the overall effect was unnerving, the component images were arresting in their wildly imagined vision of the Anthropocene.