(Mirar lo que no ver—from a drawing by Goya.)
Looking and laughing, and drinking in a dark, red haze, like in some convivial basement party in hell, this is Rich Ziade’s Basement Bin celebration, at Bobby’s place in Bay Ridge.
This celebration is of a video collection itself a celebration of life, a celebration of human beings in moments of extreme self-expression, a celebration—of some pretty weird shit, caught on, fabricated for, and otherwise lovingly exposed in front of, the video camera.
So, Looking at what they can’t see: in Goya’s drawing people are taking pleasure in broad daylight looking into a dark box, out of which emerges the smiling head of a kind of private exhibitionist; in the basement bin we are in the dark, also in a kind of a box, heads smiling, and looking at figures acting out in an illuminated box in another kind of private exhibitionism.
I think also of Godard’s remark about cinema being a place where an individual joins the many to be alone, and TV as being a place where people go to be alone to join the many.
Right, and then there’s the basement. There’s something down there.
* * *
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn: November 2014.