‘Static Friction: Burning Rubber’, is a solo exhibition by artist collective ‘The Propeller Group’.
This body of work responds to a central theme that revolves around motorbike culture. Viet Nam has the most motorbike usage per capita in the world. Over 85% of the population uses this vehicle as their main means of transportation. Touching on issues of economy, global urban growth, industry, individuality, rebellion and speed, ‘Static Friction: Burning Rubber’ is an attempt to discuss these larger issues with one simple act — the burnout used primarily in street racing culture.
‘What we are interested in specifically with the burnout, especially in the context of Viet Nam, is how this simple act can be perceived as disruption, the defiance of authority and the expression of one’s self.’
Within Viet Nam, the ubiquitous ‘xe may’ or motorbike is the most common utilitarian machine. Customized and modified to carry a family of four, or moving an entire lounge suite in a carefully constructed ensemble behind the driver, such ‘weight and safety’ defying practices are an accepted norm. The relationship between the system of a machine and how one can innovate its usage is a test that is also central to these bike-racing youth who marry themselves to the speed of their machines. Risking their mortality for the sake of velocity, modifying technology for ultimate effect, these ‘burn-out painters’ seek to individualize these tools that dominate the urban landscape with uniform industrial branding. Though motorbike culture is an international social phenomenon, the relationship between the individual and the collective is a particularly pertinent subject in a culture struggling to govern social growth, innovation and mobility.
In this sculptural video installation, we witness a rider pushing the technological system beneath him to create a series of gestural marks in rubber on the ground. By refusing the ‘stop’ of a brake, by pushing its engine to its limit, we witness a mechanical system producing a mark, a ‘burn-out’ that is permanent — not dissimilar to the way social systems of control are being tested to new limits, to produce new forms of expression across the world that leave lasting effect.
The Propeller Group is an art collective based in Saigon and Los Angeles, comprised of Phunam, Matt Lucero and Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Drawn to television, film, video and the Internet in its ability to make information attractive and desired on a mass scale, ‘The Propeller Group’ are manipulators of media language keen to reach a larger audience that takes the presentation of art beyond the world of gallery spaces and museums. Working with local and international film, television, music and artistic producers, ‘The Propeller Group’ helps to realize collaborative statements that re-define the social and political understanding of contemporary sub-cultures and popular cultures. Recent exhibitions include 'The Ungovernables', New Museum Triennial, New Museum, New York, 2012; 'Made In LA', Hammer Biennial, Armand Hammer Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2012 (forthcoming); 'Six Lines Of Flight', SF MOMA, San Francisco, CA, 2012 (forthcoming).
‘Static Friction: Burning Rubber’ is open to the public from 30 March – 20 April, 2012 @ San Art.
This show runs in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Static Friction’ @ Galerie Quynh, from April 5.
