Sous les plantes les plages II, 2018
Busan bienale “Divided we stand”
Description
Sous les plantes, les plages (Under the plants, the beaches, 2017), on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art, might call to mind a provisional utopia, constructed on some distant island. The title of the work plays on a slogan of the student movement of May 1968 in France: “under the cobblestones, the beach”, which created a provocative connection between street-fighting and hedonism—towards another utopia. Here, on a metal scaffolding apparatus atop a patch of grassy soil, thirty two light bulbs—with fixtures made from brass, bakelite and porcelain—blink a Morse code. These messages continue Bajević’s preoccupation with the way political messages become increasingly delphic, as time and progress pulls them out of context (and as the standard Cold War capability of reading Morse code becomes a rare skill). Near the central construction, while musical fragments hover in the air, a monitor plays montaged political and pop-cultural clips, from 1950s United States.