Cover of catalog, courtesy of Museum of Modern Art

By the time this blog is posted this exhibition will have come down but this is still an artist you should know about. He is a young internationally acclaimed Dutch artist who works in video that often appears to be documentary in nature but is really carefully staged however, there are no real characters or plot. Though the films are silent and it is difficult to determine a narrative, there are definitely underlying social and political issues in his work. He assumes that the viewer brings his/her own database of knowledge from media images to the viewings. And he requires work of his viewers; we must use our brains and imaginations to surmise what is going on. Sound might possibly interfere with our own interpretations, giving context and or emphasis where it is not meant to be which is why he chooses to make silent videos.

The show at MoMA places eight different works throughout various areas of the museum interspersed amongst other shows currently on view. The videos are on a loop and so the viewer, already puzzled as to what exactly is going on in the work, is not sure what has preceded what they are now seeing in the work. But his works, usually lasting around a half an hour truly have no beginning. They begin with the participation of the viewer.

In “Fluff,” his earliest video work on view Asian and caucasian people appear to be in a warehouse with plastic wrapped furniture and bread hanging from pallets. The figures strip down to their underwear and it is hard to determine what is going on. This is a one screen video but it is being shown in 3 different parts of the museum.

“Scapegoats” from 2006 shows men in military garb in an arena. Fires are burning, people are wounded and there is a sense of isolation and fear.

A 2009 work commissioned by the museum called ” Schoolyard” shows the varied activities of a group of bored schoolchildren who appear to be out in a parking lot after a schoolwide evacuation. This work is shown on two screens and so we get two vantage points of the same scene.

Installation view of "Vacuum Room" 2005

“Vacuum Room” from 2005 is on six screens and appears to be some sort of trial or hearing in which men beat the desks with their fists or bang it with their shoes in disagreement. I would describe it as controlled chaos.

Film still from "Training Ground" 2006

A protest of some sort broken up by authority figures is the focus of “Training Ground” from 2006. Again there are two vantage points on two different screens.

Film Still "Osmosis and Excess" 2005

A large screen hanging above the lobby of MoMA screens “Osmosis and Excess” from 2005 in which a pharmacy is shown with an excess of products as well as workers. At one point it looks like it has been looted with mud on the ground, and then the scene switches to a valley filled with thousands of abandoned cars.

Film still from "Middlemen" 2001

Also in the lobby next to the MoMA store is “Middlemen” from 2001. The scene looks like a trading floor but nothing seems frantic, it is almost in slow motion. People read papers and seem to be looking off into space.

The only video on view that includes noise can be seen outside the Titus 1 theater in the basement. “Raw Footage” from 2006 appears to be just that. The noises are of gunfire and the imagery includes people in camouflage shooting machine guns. Tanks and weapons in the wilderness look like scenes from militia meetings but Mik uses actual footage from the wars that occurred in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. There are women, men and children with guns. The children mimic the older people and it is quite disturbing.