CHICAGO, IL.- The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presents Can You Hear Me Now?, an exhibition drawn largely from the MCA Collection that deals with breakdowns in communication and the challenges of hearing one another in todays polarized political climate. The exhibition invites audiences to consider the creation and amplification of messages today, and the ways some voices are supported while others are cast aside. Artists such as Marina Abramovic, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Ann Hamilton, and Mona Hatoum explore communication on levels ranging from the personal to the governmental, surveying a world that struggles to engage in meaningful conversations without succumbing to political apathy. Can You Hear Me Now? is organized by MCA Barjeel Fellow Bana Kattan and runs from April 27 to September 29, 2019.
Several works in this exhibition heighten our awareness of communication with visual cues, for example M.W. Burns installation of industrial-sized megaphone speakers. The artist invites visitors to stand in the middle of the installation and immerse themselves in its erratic, strange sounds. Though the speakers convey a sense of authority and clarity, the installation requires intense concentration to discern the conspiratorial whispers of six different voices, questioning the proliferation and validity of public messaging systems.
Another set of works, The capacity of absorption and linings by Ann Hamilton, investigate the systems and limits of language. The videos show water overflowing from body parts that emit and receive soundthe ears and mouthcreating a stifling effect that recalls a polarized political climate. While some are given permission to speak, others are forced to not only remain silent but also to listen to sustained, suffocating language. In artist Mona Hatoums So Much I Want to Say still images of hands restrain the artists face, preventing her from speaking.
Other works explore the ways government officials and religious leaders communicate to their audiences. The All-Hearing by Lawrence Abu Hamdan shows two Islamic religious leaders giving sermons in Cairo in 2014, the year that the Egyptian government ruled that the topics of religious sermons must be formally approved by the Ministry of Endowment. The artist traveled to Cairo and convinced these two religious leaders to instead preach on the secular topic of noise pollution. Their speech is delivered at the same time the government-sanctioned topic is being amplified via loudspeakers into the streets, prompting viewers to consider the role that noise plays in shaping public opinion.
In AAA-AAA, Marina Abramović and longtime collaborator Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen) test the limit of noise in a performance in which they yell at each other with seemingly no end. As the shouting grows louder, their bodies move closer, until Ulay finally retreats and any resolution becomes unlikely. Abramović continues shouting until she too reaches exhaustion, demonstrating that shouting the longest and the loudest is futile.