Enrique Jezik

Enrique Jezik video-documents two of his sculptural political performances that incorporate macho brawn and big machinery. In Referendum, his performance addresses the continuing Quebecois separatist struggle in the province’s long-standing attempts at secession from Canada. Raw in articulation, the video footage shows the artist taking a chainsaw to a drywall schematic map of Canada, carving out the province,physically removing it from the wall, and hammering it crucifixion-style to a support on the floor. The aggressiveness of the machined removal underscores the political tension and separatist vitriol that divides the country periodically when referendums are called on the issue. A second raw video of his documents another performance that took place at Ex Teresa Arte Actual, a deconsecrated church turned art space in Mexico City that has developed a reputation for presenting progressive performances and artistic interventions. In this work, the artist has two front loaders equipped with street jackhammers dueling loudly in a spectacle both comic and political, yet not without a touch of pathos. The machines evoke animals battling for territory or prey and can be read on numerous metaphoric levels.