The existence of detention facilities like Guantánamo Bay has prompted artists Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri to develop “Camp Campaign,” which Art in General commissioned. Last summer, the artists toured internment centers and other types of campsites across the United States, where they met with fellow artists and activists interested in examining the current American political landscape. Anastas and Gabri built the website campcampaign.info to expand upon their project by regularly posting accounts of their activities, related essays, and other information. The “Camp Campaign” exhibition culminates Anastas and Gabri’s journey and features a visually and aurally engaging display composed of, among other components, videos on TV monitors, slide projections, vinyl records playing on old stereo equipment, free copies of a map tracing their field trips (Fear Is Somehow Our for Whom? For What? + Proximity to Everything Far Away, 2007) that was initially printed in the Art in General newsletter, and a large banner that states LET AMERICANS KNOW THAT THE WORLD IS AGAINST TORTURE (it currently rests on the floor). Related buttons, distributed during the artists’ travels, read LET THE WORLD KNOW THAT THERE ARE AMERICANS AGAINST TORTURE.
The installation often mutates, changing according to a movie-style script written by two fictional artists, RL and VL—initials that evoke two communist avatars. Titled Project for an Inhibition in New York or How Do You Arrest a Hurricane?, it offers metatextual commentary on the process of exhibition-making in general and the topics addressed by “Camp Campaign” in particular. Possessing a multifaceted aesthetic in order to address critically the pertinent questions of our time, Anastas and Gabri’s proposal thus constitutes a step forward for the active inquiry into exceptional governing principles.
