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Paul Garrin: «Free Society» (1988)

Paul Garrin's short video «Free Society» is the result of spontaneous camcorder recordings made in the night of the 6th to 7th August, 1988, as the video and media art artist in the vicinity of his apartment bore witness to rioting in Tompkin's Square Park when the New York police violently evicted homeless people from the park. His recordings of the crushing of the resistance were shown on television for a number of days. In «Free Society», Garrin combines recordings from that night in August with digitally edited images of military and police parades, high society receptions and race riots and unrest from around the world. The music composed for the video by the US American avant-garde musician Elliot Sharp repeatedly refers to a statement of the television preacher Pat Robertson: «In a free society, the police, the military are God’s special envoys». Other works by Garrin such as «Yuppie Ghetto with Wedding» (1989-90), «Reverse Big Brother» (1990) or «Home(less) Is Where The Revolution Is» (1999) are also of a social-critical nature and combine images from the entertainment industry with documentary recordings of violence and social ills which were subsequently electronically processed by the former Nam June Paik’s assistant so that in contrast to the images of the decadent bourgeoisie they even to be appear more powerful.

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Biography of Paul Garrin in the imai online catalog >> (click on the text for better view)
More works of Paul Garrin in the imai online catalog.

Kathrin Becker

Kathrin Becker is a curator, author and art historian based in Berlin. She is currently managing the Video-Forum of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and is curator of the 3rd Moscow International Biennial For Young Art 2012.

www.k-becker.org

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