This PSA (Public Service Announcement) trilogy, produced 10 years after the 2008 global financial crisis, is composed of three chapters drawing on the missed opportunity for economic revolution.

By the time the teen drama Gossip Girl first aired on September 19, 2007, the subprime mortgage crisis that triggered the Great Recession of the early 21st century was well underway. One year later, as the Bush administration announced a bailout plan, four million Americans tuned in to watch the aspirational lifestyles of the show’s wealthy characters. This was the same year that then-candidate Barack Obama campaigned on a promise of hope. Obama Baroque explores the decadence that thrived in entertainment media during this period of economic upheaval.

Giving the exhibition its title, A Good Crisis features the Night King from HBO’s Game of Thrones discussing the missed opportunity for economic revolution following the mid-2000s global financial crisis. He explains how financiers and CEOs now revel in the feudal frenzy of the “new rentership society,” a term propagated by private equity firms to explain the economic shift that has seen the renter population of the United States soar in the aftermath of the 2008 housing crash.

The future of sexual liberation is cyborgization. IUDs blur body and device; Truvada’s chemical logic muddies the negative/positive bifurcation as part of a brave new world of the undetectable and the uninfectable. Does this pharmaceutical realism make us more reckless, promiscuous? Do we care? There is no sexual freedom, nor any freedom at all, without access to base material needs. But perhaps there is a PrEP for economic insecurity. Proponents of Universal Basic Income suggest giving everyone enough cash to get by might inoculate us against the global pandemic that is capitalism—but if money stays in the equation, is this virus going anywhere?

Works:
A Good Crisis
A DIS PSA. Written in collaboration with Moritz Shularick and Drew Zeiba.
Directors of Photography Alex Gvojic and Rory Muhlere, Edited by Anthony Valdez, Score by Aaron David Ross, SFX Supervisor Zanzie Addington-White, SFX Makeup April Townes, Featuring Brett Benowitz, and Jason Kappus.
HD video
4 mins, 39 secs
5 + 2 AP

Obama Baroque
By DIS. Written by Sean Monahan. Directors of Photography Alex Gvojic and Rory Muhlere, Edit and Score by An- thony Valdez, Costumed by Vaquera, Sets by And or Forever, Casting by Midland Agency, Assistant Camera Kyle Taylor, Sound Technician Joseph Watson, Hair by Sean Bennett, Makeup by Ingeborg. Featuring Dese Escobar, Bailey Stiles, Milina, Syrena, Juliette, Enya, Kat, Maria, Heajin, David, Alex, Harley, Chad, and Donovan.
HD video
4 mins, 2 secs
5 + 2 AP

UBI the Straight Truvada
By DIS. Written by Christopher Glazek, Director of Photography Alex Gvojic, Edit and Score by Anthony Valdez, Post Production Rory Mulhere, Sound Technician Rob DeBruin, Hair and Makeup by Marcelo Gutierrez. Featuring Christopher Glazek, Ada O’higgins, Judith Lados, Justin Backus, Chris Gonzalez, Gabrielle, Becca, Hope, Yvesmark, Jeff Moorhead, and Abigail.
HD video
3 mins, 48 secs
5 + 2 AP

Posters designed in collaboration with Christian Velasquez.

Special thanks to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Ssense Montreal, Baltimore Museum of Art, Leilah Weinraub, Jezebel Leblanc-Thouin, Darryl Natale, Valley Forge Park, and Pier59 Studios.