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Pencicle of Praise

Martha Rosler

2018 00:12:40 United StatesEnglishColorMono16:9HD video
Tags:
Environment, Found Footage, Media Analysis, Politics, State, The

Description

Vice President Mike Pence eagerly plays cheerleader in chief for Donald Trump. In accepting the vice-presidential nomination in 2016, Pence proclaimed, “I'm a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican — in that order,” suggesting how we might understand his role. This ground-breaking, earth-shaking video begins with a pomp-ridden televised press conference, accompanied by uplifting music. Held early in 2017 at the White House Rose Garden, it showcased the president’s announced withdrawal from the historic Paris Climate Accord. As the video proceeds, we witness Pence and other minions enacting pious gratitude on behalf of the president. With the Vice President lurking in the shot, the video finally launches a takeoff.

The renditions of the Battle Hymn of the Republic and the U.S. national anthem in this work were part of the Rose Garden broadcast, which both begins and ends the video.

- Martha Rosler, February 2020

 Post Production: Marty Kirchner, Caroline Powell

About Martha Rosler

Since the early 1970s, Martha Rosler has used photography, performance, writing, and video to deconstruct cultural reality. Describing her work, Rosler says, “The subject is the commonplace — I am trying to use video to question the mythical explanations of everyday life. We accept the clash of public and private as natural, yet their separation is historical. The antagonism of the two spheres, which have in fact developed in tandem, is an ideological fiction — a potent one. I want to explore the relationships between individual consciousness, family life, and culture under capitalism.” 

Avoiding a pedantic stance, Rosler characteristically lays out visual and verbal material in a manner that allows the contradictions to gradually emerge, so that the audience can discern these disjunctions for themselves. By making her ideas accessible, Rosler invites her audience to re-examine the dynamics and demands of ideology, urging critical consciousness of the individual compromises exacted by society, and opening the door to a radical re-thinking of how cultural “reality” is constructed for the economic and political benefit of a select group.

Also see:
Martha Rosler: An Interview