“There’s moments where you’re laughing so hard you’re crying,” remarks curator Sara O’Keeffe, about the art collective Shaboom. Their show, “Presumed Ignorant,” is at Art Omi in Ghent until January 26.
The show lampoons Court TV, which began in 1991, and reached its apex with the O. J. Simpson trial for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1995. One of the more unheralded American inventions, Court TV combines the justice system with lowbrow entertainment—hence the exhibit’s clever title. Televised trials were one of the precursors of reality TV. Now that a convicted felon is president-elect, this exhibition is particularly timely. (Followers of Court TV—which was rebranded in 2008 as truTV—are known as “gavel groupies.”)
Court TV is based on the theory that adjudication can be a fun competition. And indeed, a trial is a bit like a football game: There are two teams; one loses, one wins. Viewers choose their allegiance, and hope for victory.
When you walk in “Presumed Ignorant,” you enter a courtroom made of cardboard. “They wanted to play with the notion that everything could fall apart at any time; that things are really just Scotch-taped together,” O’Keeffe explains. Also, the low-cost art mirrors the low-tech video of voyeuristic TV. The judge, on a high platform, is a red-eyed monster with an English-style white wig. Behind him, instead of “In God We Trust,” is a LED display with phrases like “99 cent wings w/ bottomless shrimp shooters” and “staff member orgy in breakroom.”
Shaboom is influenced by Arte Povera, an Italian art movement that found beauty in simple materials like stones and rags. The collective is also inspired by punk, and in fact two of the members are in bands. Lex Vaughn has been a drummer for a number of groups, including Lesbians on Ecstasy. Paul Soileau has performed as the “drag terrorist” Christeene with Faith No More, Peaches, and Suicide. This is Shaboom’s first East Coast show.
Videos by Samara Halperin appear in the exhibit, including three advertisements for a mythical law firm, Popper, Jape, and Huh—played by the three members of the collective, in clownish outfits. “Have you recently been divorced and were not even married? Are you currently seeking a restraining order on yourself?” asks one of the ads. The three lawyers, all brandishing shiny gavels, vow to help hapless litigants. Two outdoor billboards also advertise this giddy law firm (“Sullied the Family Name?” one of them asks, before adding parenthetically: “Us Too”), then gives an actual phone number, 1-888-54 SHABOOM, on which to leave desperate pleas. Recordings of these phone calls play in the Art Omi restrooms.
Another video montage, of actual TV commercials for lawyers, is even more absurd—including one where a Dallas attorney named Brian Loncar deliberately wrecks an automobile, then emerges, proudly reciting his contact info.
There’s a longtime relationship between the justice system and visual art. Sketch artists capture the emotional moments of a trial, creating pictures to fill TV screens and dominate newspapers. Two prominent artists, Nayland Blake and Scooter LaForge, made sketches of Shaboom’s performance at the show’s opening on October 5. These colorful, impulsive “courtroom drawings,” including phrases like “I Hate My Life” and “Obviously Guilty,” are now part of “Presumed Ignorant.” (Another Shaboom performance is planned for January; stay tuned to Art Omi’s Instagram account for more details.)
We’re used to musicians collaborating—for example, the Miles Davis Quartet—but visual artists working together is less common. It makes gallery goers nervous to see a neo-expressionist painting of a sinking sailing ship (one of the pieces in the show) with no name beneath it. But Shaboom is an entity in itself, with its own comedy and wisdom.
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This article appears in December 2024.
