THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
October 25 – November 11, 2020
Single-Channel Version of a 3-Channel Video Installation
WhiteBox
New York, NY
Curated by Raul Zamudio and Juan Puntes
The second installment of TOMORROW PEOPLE, The Man Who Fell To Earth depicts iconic moments of powerful men whom have lost influence over the masses they once inspired, tyrannized, or subjected.
Introduced by footage of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Caeusescu’s deadly fall from power in December of 1989, the video proceeds to images of Saddam Hussein’s subsequent demise, George W. Bush’s visible decline in political influence, the cracks forming in Kim Yong Ill’s reign in North Korea and the political tumult resulting from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2009 re-election in Iran. Interspersed throughout dreamlike images of mass spectacles and military processionals are clips from Nicholas Roeg’s sci-fi classic of the same title, in which a humanoid alien who lands on Earth in search of a way to save his dying home planet becomes lost to despair, embitterment, and alcoholism. By comparing the end games of contemporary heads of state to the dejected alien of Roeg’s film, The Man Who Fell To Earth reflects the transient nature of power and it’s ability to corrupt, while serving as a harbinger to the politically ostentatious... and to lonely aliens.
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