Nicole-Antonia Spagnola

The Amateur

You can think of this show as a sequel to a video called “Ragged Dick” that was shown earlier this year in Berlin which stars our godson. In “Ragged Dick” he plays an early 20th century shoe shiner trying to earn enough cash for a ticket to the movies, an effort which eventually leads to his death. This time around he plays a modern day busker, like one you’d see on the Venice boardwalk or in Haight-Ashbury, presented as two projected digital slideshows. Another video shows two quickly alternating stills of a spinning lantern, one of which says “DIY” and the other “DIE,” in shitty cut-up letters. The exhibition is soundtracked by a lo-fi recording of Nikki playing the guitar on top of a loop of a Syd Barrett song, and is furnished by an assortment of folding tables draped with cloth, like merch tables. “DIY or Die,” once a call to arms, now reads as a warning. A promise rather than an appeal. The idealism of an alternative is made to face its present reality as a necessity.

Bedros Yeretzian

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Photography: kunst-dokumentation.com