Ejercicio de percusión
Enrique Ježik
Percussion Exercise
Some meters away from Mexico City’s Palacio Nacional [National Palace], the headquarters of the executive branch, a squad of riot police burst into a museum: the Ex Teresa Arte Actual. The startling soundtrack produced by the clatter of their shields and clubs sparked tension and unease among the spectators, who shrank back as they passed.
Sowing doubt as to whether the police charge was an artistic action or an actual repressive strike, the piece alludes to suppression and intimidation tactics, as well as to the violence and imposition of power so often faced by dissent and protest. The formation of the security elements and the sound of their armored bodies activates the social memory of a choreography of terror, one we associate with the dissolution or dispersion of demonstrations through the abuse of force and the argument of “restoring public order.”
Ježik produces a diverse range of artistic registers that are generally formalized in photography or video. As records, they tend to seek direct images to express the state of acts involving confrontation and force. In this case, sound is a crucial protagonist in the action.
ENRIQUE JEŽIK (1961)
Ejercicio de percusión, 2006
Percussion Exercise
Video
3’ 52”
Acquisition of Amigos del MUAC, 2019
