Allora and Calzadilla, Serpentine Gallery
Clamor (2006)
17-29 April 2007
It’s never a pleasant experience when the first reaction to a work of art is an overwhelming sense of nausea. The hostile attack of sound, generated by Jennifer Allora’s and Guillermo Calzadilla’s, Clamor (2006) pierces the stomach, even before the solidity of the artillery bunker is encountered. The pair, having built their reputation on their socio-political and global opinions have framed the work at a time where a multitude of political crises fill the news. The aural assault of highly charged, military music is persistent in its aim: pushing the spectator to despair.
The two, helmet-like roofs and angular precipices (of the bunker) extend beyond the circumference of the rock like construction (hidden behind the permanent partition wall). Provocatively poised, patriotic, gleaming trumpets and trombones protrude, unmanned, out of the bunker cavities. The sounds of resistance hymns of Viet Cong and music used by American forces for the purpose of torture create a 40-minute melee that incessantly slices the environment, weakening the strongest of defences.
The atmosphere, oscillating between subdued melancholia and authoritative aggression adopts a place of simultaneous refuge and attack. Regardless of being heavily immersed in such a tormenting environment, you are still only an ignorant outsider; curiosity alone compels you to test your own potential breaking point. Denied access into the sanctuary of the caverns and fearing assault, I exit the gallery finding my freedom outside tainted for a while at least.