Abstract
It is an early spring night in 2012, within of one of the long, column-filled stretches of Washington D.C.’s now-shuttered Corcoran Gallery of Art. A man dressed in starched slacks, a crisp white buttoned down shirt, and a silver-clip-fastened black tie stands behind a deejay coffin housing two turntables. A vision of black respectability, he moves his hands eagerly and expertly between two red records, scratching them in opportune moments to fill the museum’s reverberant halls with sounds and rhythms that call to mind the pulse of hip hop while registering as sonically unique. Before the man sits a long, elevated runway with a seemingly simple but rather intricate apparatus affixed to the top of it. The complexity of the contraption, which is composed of, among other things, wood, metal, plastic, and water and includes multiple spots for sitting, doesn’t become fully apparent until six additional men clad in uniforms that copy the deejay’s march one by one toward the runway and position themselves atop the device. Hailing from various parts of the D.C. area, the men each strap their feet to the apparatus before grabbing ahold of the padded rods situated in front of their perches and pulling them as if rowing a boat. Their movements are synchronized initially. However, as time passes and individual commitments to sustaining the action waver, that synchronization disintegrates. Collaborative effort morphs into intense competition, in fact. And, after minutes upon minutes of immense exertion, not even the thrill of victory can motivate the men to continue to put their bodies on the line. The action comes to an end accordingly. But not before throwing into sharp relief the tremendous energy often expended to maintain hegemonic masculinities. And not before inviting spectators to reflect on the exploitation and expropriation that are constitutive of racial capitalism. With his time-based endurance piece Ben Hur (2012), interdisciplinary artist Jefferson Pinder both powerfully explores and draws viewers to grapple with such complex themes.