GCC,

Whitney Biennial 2017

17 March 2017 — 11 June 2017

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Installation View

GCC
Whitney Biennial, 2017
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

GCC’s sculptural installation for the 2017 Biennial dramatizes a bit of tabloid news: in October 2016, police were called to a beach in the United Arab Emirates when a melon—covered in talismanic inscriptions and punctured by nails—washed ashore. The object was considered a vessel of so-called black magic, which is illegal in the UAE. “While the governments of the Gulf countries have selectively chosen to revitalize certain aspects of the region’s cultural heritage, sorcery is relegated to the fringe,” GCC noted.

Such contradictions of modern life in the region animate the work of the eight-member collective, whose name co-opts the abbreviation for the Gulf Cooperation Council, the political and economic union of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. By monumentalizing the magical melon in the center of a traffic roundabout—which the group sees as a “ubiquitous remnant of European colonialism and postcolonial influence”—GCC questions the primacy that certain traditions are accorded over others.

GCC

As opaque in their referents as they are blatant, GCC exploits the rhetoric around false utopias of transnational bureaucratic bodies, exploring the constructions of such identities through clever articulations of their own. When they appropriate the gestures and self-mythologizing imagery involved in diplomatic proceedings, they seek to uncover them as rituals with no real meaning. GCC stands for many things, but primarily an acronym synonymous with a political and economic union, the Gulf Cooperation Council.

For their debut exhibition at Project Native Informant, GCC presented photographic outtakes from their first annual summit in Morschach, Switzerland. A sinfully beautiful confluence of lakes and mountains is the backdrop for the handshakes, iPad deliberations and tea services that serve as glimpses of the collective’s diplomacy at work. This performance for camera lampoons the convening of the Council, held in a similarly luxurious setting and with similar jockeying between leisure and statesmanship.

Previous solo exhibitions include their first year survey of work at MoMA P.S.1, 2014, which traveled to the Sarjah Art Foundation and participation in group exhibitions as the Future Generation Art Prize and the New Museum, 2014, the UCCA Beijing and Whitney Museum of Art, 2015, and Berlin Biennial curated by DIS in 2016. In 2018, GCC were commissioned by Art Dubai to produce the fair’s extensive programming outside of the gallery halls as a large-scale immersive installation. Titled GOOD MORNING GCC (.صباح الخیر جي. سي. سي), GCC created a working television set, using the tropes of daytime talk shows commonly featured on TV stations across the Arab world as an anchor for the programming.

Founded in 2013, current members include Abdullah Al-Mutairi, Amal Khalaf, Aziz Al Qatami, Barrak Alzaid, Fatima Al Qadiri, Khalid al Gharaballi and Nanu Al-Hamad.

The basic objectives of the GCC are to effect collaboration, transformation and inter-connection between artists in all fields in order to achieve unity between them:

Being fully aware of the ties of special relations, common characteristics and similar systems founded on the creed of Art which bind them; and

In conformity with the Charter of the Federation of Gulf Artists which calls for the realization of closer relations and stronger bonds; and

Having the conviction that coordination, cooperation, and integration between them serve the sublime objectives of the GCC; and,

In order to channel their efforts to reinforce and serve Gulf and Artistic causes.

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Installation View

GCCWhitney Biennial, 2017Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

GCC

GCC
Whitney Biennial, 2017
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York