Output details

Comic Battle

The multi-channel video Comic Battle (2008) was commissioned by Hou Hanru for EV+A, Limerick, 2008. Hanru is an internationally renowned critic having curated the biennales of Istanbul, Venice and Lyon and is a member of curatorial committees to the Guggenheim Museum and Tate Modern.

In the context of the exhibition’s thematic exploring the local and the global, Comic Battle addressed three related issues; the efficacy of comedy in the construction of ‘local’ identity; the potential of art to represent labour as a commodified form, and the capacity to create reflective conditions of spectatorship within a gallery context. Comic Battle drew upon and interrogates the status of stand-up comedy as a form of popular entertainment capable of incisive reflection on the complexity of everyday life. Comics’ observations are driven by their own social experience; informed by a sense of who they are and how they relate to a world they share with their audience. Their local perspective on complex social issues marks their stories as funny and potentially insightful.

Adopting the familiar format of television, three British comedians were filmed performing on stage together in an empty comedy club; deliberately exploiting the competitive rivalry and tensions between the individual comedians. Although performing together, each comedian’s routine was separately recorded and then simultaneously re-presented on individual screens creating for the spectator a heightened awareness of the raw competition inherent in all forms of consumption, including that of art and a recognition in the spectator of their own status as privileged consumer. Comic Battle was subsequently exhibited in 'Grin & Bear It – Cruel humour in art and life' (2009), Cork; revised and subtitled in Portuguese when exhibited in Portugal (2009), opening a new set of issues concerning the translation of humour which informed the development of Campbell's (as Common Culture) The New El Dorado (2010).