Video: Among the crowd: aggression and mass unity in the works of Dan Witz
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Of all the previous centuries, the twentieth was by far the most massive … Revolutions in squares, rallies and demonstrations, rock concerts and marches of dissent are all part of one grandiose revolt of the masses … The invention of the new century - flash mobs - continues the same tradition. Among the crowd each person is transformed, becomes a part of something else … What then? Maybe some of the answer to this question will be given by the works of the "street artist" Dana Witz.
Dan Witz (born 1957) is an American street art veteran, renowned realist painter and author of many unusual art projects related to the streets of Brooklyn and New York. Articles and even monographs are written about the works of Dan Witz, his paintings are exhibited in the largest museums in the USA and Europe, and he himself studies city birds and … crowds … At least one of his most famous series of works is dedicated to the crowd.
This series of photographs is called " Mosh pits". The name itself says a lot about the project: mosh - This is one of the most aggressive dances in the world, which can be seen at punk and hardcore concerts. And can you even call it a dance? Mosh is waves among the crowd, the movement of hundreds of intertwined bodies to the beat of furious music: sometimes it looks indistinguishable from a mass carnage. It was from this "dance" that the slam, known to many, grew. A Pits are pit bull dogs.
Apparently, the artist's intention was to "dissect" crowdsat. Here we see a lot of people hugging tightly in one impulse of will. How can one fail to recall the collective utopias of the socialist dictatorships of the beginning of the century? But then the crowd gets smaller - and we begin to distinguish between individuals. The circle narrows even more - and finally we can see the facial expressions and individuality of each. Among the crowd appear people … What unites them? If Sigmund Freud could not answer this question, then perhaps art will find the answer.
In the finale of the series of photographs, the artist placed paintings with a huge pack of pit bulls: from afar they seem to be a single colorful carpet, and close up - a furious fight of dogs is going on. Yes, apparently Dan Witz has not very warm feelings for the crowd; after all, an artist is always a person.
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