Matthew Buckingham
The Six Grandfathers, Paha Sapa, in the Year 502,002 C.E.
The installation is composed of two elements: A photograph of Mount Rushmore Memorial as it might appear in 500,000 years time. The effigies of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln have become unrecognisable. A text that spreads in space with 29 entries that relate the history of America and of this particular site. It describes facts that did occur but in a manner which is quite different to the official story. It indicates for instance that the Sioux tribes were violently chased from this region, that Mount Rushmore is arbitrary name given by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan… The photograph reveals what has been accomplished by erosion which has not only erased the facial features but also the political and cultural of the monument. This mountain was considered sacred by the Sioux whereas, for the commissioners, the artistic gesture was a symbol of the victory of man against nature. This artwork forces us not only to consider history but also public art or the interventions of Land Art artists. The presentation of the work as if it is in an ethnography museum also points to Buckingham’s interest on the display context of his propositions. Matthew Buckingham was born in 1963 in the USA of America. He has recently had solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Reina Sofia in Madrid. His critical approach reenacts real or fictional stories while interrogating their validity in order to clarify the present. He considers the construction of collective memory and individual memory. He asks how these memories can be diametrically opposed to the writing of History with a capital H dependent on the Modernist ideology of progress. Several of his works are linked to the exploration of the lives of significant individuals, such as important figureheads for Feminism. His work relates to the questions posed as a consequence of Cultural Studies in the 1970s, of Queer and Feminist theories as well as Postcolonial studies. In his articulation of reality and fiction, he is close to works which are already in the collection by Mario Garcia Torres or by Walid Raad.