Rethinking history and investigating what has taken place, what has been regarded as the milestone of a historical narrative, the reconsideration of what is established and what is untouched by represented values are important aspects of Mario García Torres’ artistic practice.
The Kabul Golf Club: Open in 1967, Relocated in 1973, Closed in 1978, Reopen around 1993, Closed again in 1996 and Reopen in 2004, 2006, is a kinetic sculpture, which is an organic mapping of a golf club in Kabul. The intensity of the events taking place in that golf club such as being opened, closed, relocated and reopened continuously during the last 40 years is a sign of the instability of social and political domains of the Middle East. Nonetheless, the Golf Club is a venue for the rich – that is for a group with a high level of social power, who manages to keep the club in Kabul with a fragmented continuity. By employing one of the outstanding aspects of modern art, the kinetic sculpture, and relating it to this content, García Torres shows the abstracted state of information concerning this geographical area. The sculpture also stands for the impossibility of understanding and representing the current social and political situations, and thus displays a clear illustration of western influence on Kabul, specifically, or on any other place that is under the domination of western culture, in general.
Garcia Torres’ other work in the exhibition is entitled Moonwalk Lesson (Rigo Style), 2006, and is a slide show, which has been produced by the students of a dance course. The dance course is specialised in teaching the moonwalk and the story is concerned with the process of learning how to do the moonwalk with its little-known history: The first moonwalker was in fact the Mexican pop singer Rigo Tavar, and not Michael Jackson.