an arts & culture magazine for discriminating smart asses
We alter time and space. We change things even if no one knows it. – Taku Schan Schan
Approaching the work of the Los Angeles based arts action group, Taku Schan Schan, requires letting go of pedestrian thinking with regards to art production and its place within the safe confines of pre-determined cultural institutions, like museums or galleries. Or an expansive mindset that can accept the paradoxes and intentional ironies that arise from the type of work they create: the type that defies easy categorization and plunges head long into contradictions. A more fruitful approach would be a philosophical one, as with the riddle of the tree falling in the forest – if you aren’t there to witness it, does it make a sound? Members of TSS would answer the question with a question: who cares if it made a sound or not? The tree is said to have fallen and so it did. This type of metaphysical logic is the basis upon which Taku Schan Schan creates, “We make art that isn’t for publicity of any sort. Its only intention is to birth itself into the physical space and resonate its energy into the world. The rest is what happens to the leaves after the wind knocks ‘em off.”
Founded in 2005 the group consists of musicians and visual artists well known in the downtown Los Angeles art scene. Over the years they have organized off-the-grid actions like a pre-recorded concert transmitted through a television locked behind the gates of an abandoned parking lot that may or may not have had attendees, a ceremonial boat burning that occurred in the early dawn under the 110 Freeway, of which nothing but this video remains, and a night hike through the remote areas of Elysian Park – a terrifying proposition for less spirited souls. Their most recent action was a tree house they built in the same park where they did their Nighthike, and for no other reason than to have a tree house in the park; the construction of which could be framed as a political action, but members say they’re not into making political statements. If any political discourse results from their work it is unintentional on their part. Of course, that is exactly what happened! The tree house, constructed in the spring of 2008, was recently discovered by the president of the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park who immediately reported the illegal structure to the Parks and Recreation department. It was slated for removal but not before the L.A. Times ran a story on it – evidently, the tree house was quite a hit with the parks workers! A polarizing political discussion of the “homeless and migrant worker issue’ ensued via the comments section for the article. But it is these sorts of contradictory ironies Taku Schan Schan naturally manifest, “The action might challenge (the city of) Los Angeles by there being a tree house in a park but the tree house was built and we enjoyed it. That is what is was – nothing more. But it did confuse the city, and it did bring up the issue of homeless…we did something we did not have permission to do and we had fun and people liked it and we turned negative space into positive space. That is Taku Schan Schan.”
Taking their work outside, placing it within the urban landscape is an organizing principle for the group. They are unhampered by a desire to engage an art-savvy audience, nor even to include the community at large, so their singular installations and one off performances offer a unfiltered commentary regarding the misuse of scarce natural resources, the isolating effects of the urban landscape on its inhabitants and the misanthropic management of public space. Of course, their commentary is not political by design. Or so say TSS, “Doing shit just to do it is the most out-going anarchist thing some one can do. It isn’t about ‘how it will be perceived’ because the intentions are purely engaged by action, true creation without an agenda. That is the most anti political thing going on.” Yet the tree house manifested a political discourse and could be framed as an inherently political action. That is the contradiction by which TSS take action.
Another interesting paradox is that while at first blush the actions do not lend themselves easily to categorization they are most definitely performance based. Yet even that is a subjective definition. Members would argue that they are more ‘ceremonial’ than performance oriented. In any case TSS does not fit the art market’s requirement for easily digestible and marketable (read: reproducible) art production, nor is it ‘grant-worthy’ in the standard tradition of say, public arts or earth works a la John Turrell ‘s Roden Crater. If one could make comparison, Taku Schan Schan is the New Millennium Ant Farm making works that are intentionally outsized, requiring intensive construction (all with found materials) that, ultimately, leaves no ephemera. Definitions shift, and categorizations are defied, but one thing is for certain, TSS makes transgressive work that challenges the status quo, challenging the accepted notions of what art is, where it is to take place and how it functions (or doesn’t) within culture. In fact, TSS functions best as a medium for questioning what is observable, quantifiable and real.
FLABmag is a monthly arts & culture magazine for discriminating smart asses.
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