The Warm Up

At the beginning of the exhibition, you enter a bright, white gallery with a spare doorway at the center of the far wall, directly in front of you. Above the doorway, a mustard-yellow, vinyl banner extends wall-to-wall, and reads THE AIDS CRISIS IS STILL BEGINNING in bold, ketchup-red, all-caps, san-serif font. Below the yellow banner, the spare doorway frames a vintage wheeled derby car in the next room. Low on the walls, near the floor, a sharp, thin, red vinyl line runs the perimeter of the gallery. This red stripe, which might recall a racing stripe, refers to the derbycar. It runs throughout the exhibition.

In this next gallery, the derby car sits at the center on a white plinth or base. The bottom of the plinth is encircled by the same sharp, thin, red vinyl line that also runs the room’s perimeter. The plinth isn’t quite a standard rectangle; it is angled and leans backwards. The shape suggests the car’s forward movement and velocity. The top of the plinth, on which the car sits, is a dark gray.

I’ll describe the other items in the room, and then return to the car for a more detailed description.

On the gallery’s far wall, behind the car, hangs a small, framed newspaper clipping of a young Gregg Bordowitz racing another child in a derby car with the headline “To the Roar of the Crowd.” A navy blue first-place ribbon and red second-place ribbon flank the clipping.

On the adjacent wall, to the car’s right, hangs an analog clock under vinyl letters that read “CAPE TOWN.” Directly across from this, on the wall to the car’s left, hangs another analog clock under vinyl letters that read “NEW YORK.”

Face the wall where you entered, your back to the car, and two framed images hang to the left of the doorway. One is a flyer for the 2002 exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary art called Gregg Bordowitz: Drive. A graphic of the derby car predominates in the center.

The framed image to the right of this features text from the artist under the heading “The Effort to Survive AIDS Considered from the Point of View of a Race-Car Driver.”

The car’s shape recalls a phallus, with a long, straight shaft and rounded tip. It stands on sets of disk-shaped wheels at the nose and rear, about the size of dinner plates and attached to the car by protruding, rusty, brown metal wings. The body itself is composed of an aged, silver metal with a decal of three red lines running horizontally along both sides. The line loops around the rear and concludes with arrows at the car’s nose. The car is covered in a number of big, colorful decals with logos for pharmaceutical companies.

If we stand directly in front of the car, the first wheel on the left side is red, with the word PATENTS written in arched, bold, white, all-caps, san-serif font. The back wheel is green with arched text that reads GENERICS in the same font. On the car’s right side, these same wheels swap positions, the green wheel at the front and the red wheel at the back.

On top of the car, set back from the nose, a large, white, circular decal with a thin black border reads the number ‘40’ in a bold, black font. The metal wing connecting the front left wheel has a horizontal, white decal that reads HIV+ in a bold, red font, a sticker that reappears on the back right wing.

In this gallery, the thin, red, vinyl line continues along the perimeter. A neat row of six, medium-size, colorless self-portraits hang on adjacent walls, three on one wall and three on the other. Each portrait consists of graphite on paper, and was drawn on a different day in October of 1996—the year that a new lifesaving HIV medication became available. They are all self-portraits of the artist, who stares directly ahead, holding the gaze of the viewer. He made them while looking in a mirror.

Moving along the wall from left to right, the first portrait depicts the artist, a white Jewish man, wearing a shirt with a casually lax collar, his head turned slightly to his right, showing only his left ear. He has short parted hair that’s cut close on the sides, the graphite darker around his ear to indicate an undercut. His thick brows slant toward each other, as if in frustration or concentration. The bridge of his nose is vertical and narrow with a bulging tip, almost like a deflated balloon. One nostril flares. His lips are tight. Across his collar and neck the artist has written the date: 10-2-96.

The next portrait on this wall depicts the artist's head and neck as one, singular, rectangle-like shape protruding from his t-shirt collar. His head is turned to his left, in semi-profile, showing only his right ear. He has short, parted, combed-down hair filled in all over. Like the first portrait, his heavy brows lean toward each other, but only slightly. Wrinkle lines frame his eyes, mouth, and detail his neck. Sparse lines also indicate a sharp jaw. His lips are pursed, shorter in length than in the first portrait, his eyes closer together, his pupils big and dark. The date 10-4-96 is written across his chest.

In the next portrait the artist looks straight-on, his head tilted upward, his brows arched and raised as if surprised, his lips parted so that his top teeth peek out. His hair is short and messy, his nose upturned, showing his dark nostrils. Brief lines frame his eyes and chin, and his cheeks are smooth and blank. No shirt or top is depicted. The date 10-5-96 is written across his neck.

On the adjacent wall, the first portrait finds the artist again in semi-profile, his head turned to his left, revealing only his right ear. He leans his head slightly downward with his pupils raised, looking in front of himself. His hair is short and casually messy, and one long strand falls between his eyes. His brows are heavy. His nose is flattened, so that the curved wrinkle lines above his mouth seem to ripple from his nostrils. A trio of wrinkle lines stack on his forehead, and more wrinkle lines emphasize his eye sockets. His philtrum, the groove between his nose and upper lip, is pronounced with a single gesture. His lips are tight. Across the collar of his t-shirt, the artist has written the date 10-6-96.

In the second portrait on this wall, the artist looks squarely at you with a blank expression. His short hair is swept back, and his jaw is handsomely defined, almost geometric and nearly in line with the width of his wide, nacked neck. His brows are heavy, angled toward each other slightly, and hook at his temples. The vertical bridge of his nose concludes with round nostrils and, below them, a small oval-shaped gesture defines his philtrum. Soft, sparse lines detail his forehead and cheekbones, and shading across the lower half of his face suggests a five o’clock shadow and pronounced chin. The date 10-9-96 is written across his neck.

In this next gallery, the thin, red, vinyl line continues along the perimeter. Though most of the gallery is white, Bordowitz has painted a large section in the right-hand corner with red-ish brown paint, a color calling to mind a dark terracotta or rust, or blood. The color extends from the corner of the gallery to fill about one-third of the two adjacent walls. It stops abruptly with a sharp, clean edge.

In this corner stands a short white sculpture of stacked paper plates coated in a thick white plaster. The sculpture stands about 3 feet or 1 meter tall, comparable to the height of a young child, on a disc-shaped platform of the same dark terracotta color. The platform’s rim is encircled by the same red line.

The sculpture has a wide base and narrows at the top. The tip resembles a large bone protruding from the pile of plates.

On the walls around the sculpture the artist has made a freehand drawing interpreting Scottish philosopher David Hume’s essays “A Treatise of Human Nature: Book II: The Passions.” The drawing is based on a diagram Bordowitz made in his notebook.

The artist’s diagram consists of big, scratchy, all-caps text and wobbly curves and lines in mostly royal blue, with flashes of white and gray.

An infinity symbol hovers at the center of the drawing, about two-thirds of the way up the wall. Its curves are an overlapping of gray and blue and its intersection point is exactly where the walls meet. Down the center, bisecting the halves of the infinity symbol, a wobbly line extends from just above the symbol to about a third of the way to the floor, stopping at the top of the paper-plate sculpture. Here, the vertical line diverges into two wobbly horizontal lines extending about halfway across both walls' dark terracotta sections, creating an upside down T. At the top point of the upside down T, a skull is drawn, like the head of a scepter. Above the skull, near the gallery ceiling, the artist has written SYMPATHY, in a scratchy, white all-caps with royal blue accents.

A series of words encircle the infinity symbol’s loops, including the words PRIDE, SELF, LOVE, and OTHER. Cradled inside both loops are the words HUMILITY and HATE. Along the T’s spine, the artist has written the word SENSATION. At the end points of the upside-down T’s horizontal line are written the words AGREEABLE and UNEASY. In the open space between the infinity symbol and the horizontal line are royal blue left and right handprints with white specks. The handprints, nearly parallel to one another, look at each other from their respective walls.

On the left terracotta section, along its edge, a column of individual scribbles transitions from dark royal blue, to a brighter royal blue, to turquoise, to white, like a vertical color scale. In this same section, the words “BOOK II OF THE PASSIONS DAVID HUME A TREATISE OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING NATURE” are written in large, all-caps, royal blue and surround the curve of the infinity symbol. The word “UNDERSTANDING” is struck through.

On the right terracotta section, a column of word pairs run along the edge. The words in each pair are separated by greater than and less than symbols between them, resembling butterfly wings. The word pairs are: VICE>

In this final gallery, the thin, red, vinyl line continues along the perimeter. At the center of the gallery stands an elaborate vertical monument standing about 7 feet or 2 meters tall and surrounded, at its base, by neatly laid white sand bags that form a circle. The monument, combining religious and protest imagery, consists of a tall, wide, flat, column, curved inward around an elaborate scene made of fragile materials such as papier-mâché, bandages, polystyrene foam, chicken wire, and plaster of paris. The scene swells up on a craggy, foamy mountain with protruding, tambourine-like disks and large spheres.

In the scene, a baby-size, winged cherub hovers near the top of the column and drives a long spear into a fully inverted, human figure with their arms and legs flailing and their back arched. The figure, representing a demon, wears casual pants and a long sleeve t-shirt.

Beside the demon, slightly higher on the mountain of shapes but below the hovering cherub, sits a figure in a medical mask and casual pants, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and shoes. The seated figure holds a large, blank white protest sign that nearly touches the ceiling, extending above the curved column, and rests one foot on a large, protruding sphere about the size of a beach ball.

The monument is predominately a cold white that verges on an icy purple, with abundant strokes of navy blue that suggest shadows and add dimension, like a three-dimensional graphite drawing. A flat, bright yellow shape similar to a torso with large, padded shoulders and topped by a basketball-sized sphere, looms over the scene, part of the curved column like the back of a throne and popping against its white and navy blue surroundings.

Circle the monument, and a cluster of large spheres and piles of tambourine-like discs protrude from its otherwise smooth, curved back. At one point, a bare foot protrudes. While, like on the rest of the monument, white predominates, the back of the curved column features abundant swaths and splashes of bright yellow and navy blue. Foamy shapes gather at the base, touching the sandbags.

Standing in front of the monument, the left wall of the gallery features a protruding row of white spheres all large but varied in size. While one sphere, about the size of a beach ball, is single, the others are clustered together like conjoined bubbles or bulbous clouds.

To hear more from the artist on this work, scroll down the next audio track.

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