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Matthew McGaughey
ARTIST
"Staged" is an exhibition that transforms the gallery into a space of layered reenactment and structural critique, using the figure of Kurt Cobain as a lens to explore how capitalism absorbs and commodifies resistance and dissent. While Cobain may be the entry point, the exhibition is not merely about him as a musical icon. Instead, it's about the broader ways in which our cultural and economic systems turn acts of defiance into marketable surfaces. Through a combination of video, sculpture, and installation, "Staged” interrogates how normativity and capitalism co-opts acts of opposition , leaving us in a loop of reenactment that feels both inescapable and eerily relevant to our current moment.
At the heart of the exhibition are two video works presented in the gallery’s back room. The main video is a restaging of Nirvana’s "Nevermind" performance, rendered in a stripped-down, almost flattened aesthetic. Alongside it, a miniature version of the same performance is projected, using small-scale sets and finger puppetry to reenact the scene. These videos highlight how rebellion can be downsized into something like a children’s toy toy, a commodity that can be bought and sold, and how the act of reenactment itself becomes a lens for talking about how opposition is neutralized.
In the front room, sculptural installations further explore these themes. A fiberglass amplifier hangs from the ceiling, held by silicone ratchet straps, while cast aluminum clothing lies on the floor. Beneath the amplifier, an opaque silicone figure, an interior void, weighty in its objectness yet somehow empty . Photographic wallpaper transfers on the walls show images from the video production, blurring the line between the gallery as a viewing space and the gallery as a production environment.
Thematically, "Staged" invites viewers to consider how capitalism and normative forces transform acts of defiance into consumable products. It’s a meditation on how opposition can be co-opted, and how even the most transgressive figures can become part of the system they actively resisted. Without explicitly stating the darker undertones, the exhibition allows viewers to draw parallels to today’s struggles against political, economic, and gender norms. It’s about the loops we find ourselves in, and how the fight against hegemonic forces can feel like an endless cycle of reenactment.
In the end, "Staged" is not just about Kurt Cobain. It’s about the structures that contain us all, and how our attempts at resistance are often folded back into the system. It’s an invitation to look at the surface and see the structures beneath, to question how we can break free from cycles of commodification and find new ways of imagining opposition.