Jonathan Horowitz, Your Land/My Land (installation view), 2008. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York. Photo: Thomas MĂĽller
Jonathan Horowitz’s Your Land/My Land: Election ’12 (2012) depicts an epidemic that was and still is worryingly relevant in today’s society. His installation comments on the divide of a nation caused by political parties; he splits the space in half with blue on one side and red on the other thus manipulating the colours of the American flag. The colour divide not only addresses the clash between traditionalists and mavericks, but also refers to America’s cultural divide. This separation is further heightened by the back to back television monitor (located at the centre) which airs broadcasts of Fox News and CNN. Each monitor leans towards endorsing either the Democratic or Republican presidential candidates; whilst the audience observe a monitor, they are forced to face the people supporting the opposing candidate. This composition forces the audience to physically divide thus reflecting upon the dangerous and formidable face of the media’s propaganda. Ironically, the democracy of the nation that stands for freedom and equality is contorted into a form of tyranny that has fractured the nation. This face of politics (to different degrees) has survived since the dawn of civilisation and it continues to repeat itself; the fracture has only widened since the 2016 US election which deemed Donald Trump as the new president. Horowitz’s work is timeless as his art will continue to be relevant for years to come, as declared by Giorgio Agamben: “The contemporary is not only the one who, perceiving the darkness of the present, grasps a light that can never reach its destiny; he is also the one who, dividing and interpolating time, is capable of transforming it and putting it in relation with other times.”
Your Land/My Land: Election ’12, (2012) [Exhibition]. Houston, TX; Raleigh, NC; St Louis, MO; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Salt Lake City, UT; Savannah, GA.
Agamben, G. (2007) What is the Contemporary? In: (2009) What is an Apparatus? and Other Essays. (trans.) D. Kishik & S. Pedatella. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. pp. 39-54