ArtReview
CULTURED Magazine
Document Journal
Hyperallergic
Bridget Donahue presents The Medallion, a solo exhibition of new work by Houston-based artist Kenneth Tam. The Medallion consists of a new floor-based installation, sculptures and moving image works. Cast rucksacks, splintered car parts, LED screens, blinking lights and hand-blown glass vessels correspond atop an unsteady floor composed of woven beaded sea covers. Tam’s forms and materials merge to establish a vocabulary of vulnerability and precarity by way of the automobile, while projected images show a collective identity bound together by shared adversity.
The Medallion pursues Tam’s focus on ritual, and how it can mediate and negotiate experiences of both bodily and economic vulnerability. The works take as their starting point the lived experiences of immigrant NYC cab drivers who have suffere through the taxi medallion crisis of the past decade*. Underwater scenes from the eponymous two-channel video suggest narratives of death and rebirth, juxtaposed with moments where the drivers talk candidly and emotionally about their struggles. The automobile, long a symbol of American freedom and mobility, has instead become a prison for those trappe by their medallion loans. Through recognizable symbols of transportation and transformation, Tam’s investigation unpacks the drivers’ arduous quest for liberation, while addressing the inherent contradiction of this pursuit that keeps them locked in their unending labor track. The sculptures and installation rawly present a ritualistic space that brings together traces of violence and possibilities for intimacy, placing the sacred next to the everyday profane. Sitting between strewn pieces of car debris, overnight bags and backpacks speak to both travel and migrancy, while their frozen, prostrate state resemble acts o silent devotion. Car reservoirs made of glass lit from below highlight their sensuous qualities, and bridge the space between the industrial, the organic, and the otherworldly.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/nyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html
Photographs by Jason Mandella and Gregory Carideo
