Desert X 2023 Begets Apathy and Heartbreaking Magic (Review)
Coachella Valley hosts the biennial’s fourth U.S. exhibition
I have feelings about Desert X.
Launched in 2017, Desert X presents artworks — predominantly large-scale, site-specific sculptures — in the desert landscape. For the first two years, I was captivated. But I found myself at a crossroads in 2021 when a new partnership with the Saudi Arabian government generated ethical questions and board resignations. Similar concerns about other Saudi partnerships were voiced as recently as last month. The art world’s lack of open debate is problematic, particularly so for a nonprofit such as Desert X, an organization that claimed it “welcomed” community-driven dialogue about its Saudi deal.
Still, I’m rooting for Desert X. My conflicted feelings and I drove to Coachella Valley for the 2023 biennial. I wanted this year’s exhibition to live up to the promise of Desert X’s mission.
So did it?
Co-curated by Neville Wakefield and Diana Campbell, DX 23 explores “our structures of survival… [through] physical adaptations of climate [and] social formations.” Of the four U.S. iterations, DX 23 is the smallest in scope with just 12 works, 10 of which are sculptures. For comparison, DX 19 had 19. That said, unpredictability is a core variable for Desert X. Exposure, vandalism, and environmental concerns have impacted artworks, both temporarily and permanently.
Starting with DX 23’s largest misstep, Gerald Clarke’s Immersion feels like anything but. A basket-woven game board, Immersion photographs beautifully from above — which is not how audiences experience it. In actuality, it’s an earthbound structure with minimal interaction (viewers are invited to walk on it). Engagement is driven via mobile devices; scanning QR codes pops up lengthy audio files and an online quiz. This lack of dynamic integration is antithetical to the premise of Desert X. Immersion’s design isolates participants from the natural environment, forcing them to retreat into their phones despite gale and glare. The artwork’s ancestral significance, its sense of place, history, and culture are minimized. The result is contraction rather than expansion.
This is not a sweeping condemnation of digital elements or virtual works. Far from it. Nancy Baker Cahill’s augmented reality pieces from DX 19 (Revolutions and Margin of Error) were spectacular examples of integrated technology and how it can be transformative. Cahill’s art could only be experienced in that landscape, at that moment in time, with those contextual details and sensory input. The digital components of Immersion lacked such specificity or intentionality.
While Mario García Torres’ Searching for the Sky (While Maintaining Equilibrium) may not be a misstep, the work seems underdeveloped. A “reflection on ‘cowboy culture,’” the kinetic installation plumbs the “promise to harness/ control nature.” Metal panels serve as stand-ins for mechanical bulls, gyrating against chossy hillsides. The installation’s humorous tension with the landscape is compelling, but left me wanting more. The panels themselves felt oddly inert and bland, despite their movement. Other options, such as solar (emphasizing the thematic fallacy that we can harness or control nature) or fully mirrored surfaces (a playful, more literal take on its cultural reflection), were left unmined.
In title and in form, Sleeping Figure, by Matt Johnson, references a classical odalisque. Industrial shipping containers are positioned to resemble the shape of a reclining figure. Its head is traced with a sweet, sleepy expression and the result is charming. Despite its massive size, the sculpture feels relatable and inviting, while its proximity to active train tracks adds a compelling echo. And then…
The sculpture’s curatorial notes provide more context, with an emphasis on “the time when a Japanese-owned, Taiwanese-operated, German-managed, Panamanian-flagged and Indian-manned container behemoth found itself for six days under Egyptian jurisdiction while blocking the Suez Canal [speaking to] the crumples and breaks of a supply chain economy in distress.” This litany creates tonal dissonance between the figure’s casual pose and childlike expression, the work’s reference to depictions of female nudes (historically sexually exploitative and made for the male gaze), and messaging about how “the invisible hand of globalism now connected to its container body has come to rest in the Coachella Valley.”
I stood at a distance from Sleeping Figure, taking in the scene. Robert, a local, struck up a conversation and we talked about the sculpture’s extensive annotations. He then mentioned New Shimmer, a parody product from a 1970s Saturday Night Live sketch. In it, Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd debate whether New Shimmer is a floor wax… or a dessert topping. A salesy Chevy Chase slides into frame declaring, “It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!” Art can mean more than one thing, that’s the beauty of subjectivity. But in Sleeping Figure’s case, its incongruous artistic explanations sound like a New Shimmer ad.
Rana Begum’s maze-like №1225 Chainlink sits in the same location as DX 21’s The Passenger, another maze-like sculpture. Constructed of industrial fencing and painted sunny yellow, №1225 spotlights a material which has been “meant to protect but also carries associations of violence.” Standing outside the piece, I was unmoved. It seemed devoid of mystery and without complexity. When I entered the sculpture, however, I was almost immediately squeezed with claustrophobia. Sheets of wire mesh revealed a partial view of other people moving through internal rows. The pathways were narrow, but loaded with sky above. I couldn’t continue inward — I had to flee. Chainlink’s unassuming deception was glorious.
Torkwase Dyson’s Liquid A Place is “a poetic meditation connecting the memory of water in the body and the memory of the water in the desert.” There is a liquid quality to experiencing the sculpture, which can be moved through, walked around, and climbed on top of. A monolithic portal, it seems unknowable, like the sole relic from a lost civilization or a mystic technology rendered from the cosmic future. Dyson describes herself as a painter and, from a distance, Liquid appears two-dimensional. On approach, the viewer’s depth perception becomes deliciously distorted as the artwork blocks and reframes the surrounding desert.
Finally, is Originals, a series of billboards along the Gene Autry Trail. Perfectly, horrifically placed next to a highway, the outsized photographic captures of sunsets and spanning bridges are by Tyre Nichols, a Black man brutally murdered by Tennessee police after a traffic stop on January 7th, 2023. These billboards honor Nichols and showcase his talent as a photographer; they also stand as an “advertisement” of this country’s systemic racism and institutionally sanctioned killing of Black Americans. Originals is everything right about Desert X: vital, devastating, and vibrant art, brilliantly produced.
In the past, Desert X has been transcendent. DX 23 was less than I hoped for, but it offered a glimpse of what it does best. I’ll keep looking.
Desert X 23 is free and open to the public. Located in Coachella Valley, CA. Note: The Smallest Sea With the Largest Heart is on view during select days and requires a reservation. Ends May 7, 2023
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[Original publication: No Proscenium, 4/6/23]