Nick Currie, an artist/musician who usually goes by uni-moniker Momus, is offering his insights at the Whitney Museum. CORTNEY HARDING follows along his tall tale trail.
Above the din of the opening weekend crowds at the Whitney Biennial, a celebrated event at one of the premier contemporary art museums in the country, a slightly distorted, amplified voice rises.
"Your cell phone is ringing."
Immediately, heads start to turn and patrons examine their communication devices, hoping they haven't committed the cardinal museum-going sin of letting their ringtone run wild.
"Bill Clinton is calling."
The eyes of the ever-more confused crowd now settle on a gangly man, outfitted in suspenders and an eye patch and carrying a megaphone. "Tell them I'm not dead," the man says, addressing a large mockup of Bill Clinton's fictional New York Times obituary, one of the art pieces on display. "But Bill," the voice continues, "I saw your obituary in the Times." He concludes: "Bill Clinton hangs up." The mysterious man wanders off, leaving a perplexed crowd of museum-goers in his wake.
The fellow holding the megaphone is Nick Currie, an artist/musician who usually goes by uni-moniker Momus. For the duration of the Biennial (it runs through May 28) Currie will play the part of the Unreliable Tour Guide.
Currie says he based the performance on a piece he did last summer at a gallery show with Mai Ueda, titled "I'll Speak, You Sing" at the LFL Gallery in Manhattan.
The deeper roots for the performance go back far further than just a year, though.
"I was raised in Scotland and there was a strong Puritan culture when I was growing up. Puritans are fascinated by the concept of the truth and have strict standards about lies. As a result, I am filled with anxiety about the truth," he confesses. "I really wanted to explore the notions of what makes someone trustworthy, and I thought that I would be as truthful as possible and present myself as the Unreliable Tour Guide."
As Currie continues his tour of questionable veracity, he says things such as "Your haircut may infringe on someone else's copyright." And while standing in front of a photograph of a hooded Iraqi prisoner, he claims the man's black garment is actually part of designer Hedi Slimane's fall collection. At other times, he sits in a darkened room where film is being projected and mutters a nonsensical monologue to the crowd. One thing he doesn't do is sing or incorporate music, an odd choice for a man who says he considers himself to be "first and foremost, a songwriter."
He is quite a prolific songwriter, at that. As Momus, Currie has released twenty albums since his first in 1986. While none have been chart-toppers, he did cause a stir in the British music press with his 1991 record "Hippopotamomus," which featured songs about animals and sex.
In 1999, in order to raise money to fight a copyright lawsuit, he offered to write a personalized song for anyone willing for pay $1,000, and released the tracks as an album titled "Stars Forever." Currently, he is working on a new album, to be called "Ocky Milk."
If that wasn't enough, he contributes to magazines such as Wired and Index, and also writes a frequently updated blog (http://imomus.livejournal.com ). On his blog, Currie ruminates on his love of Japan, his adopted hometown of Berlin and those perennial shopping mall installations known as teenage "fashion goths." Given the origins of his name, his pointed critiques seem apt: in Greek mythology, Momus is a critic of the other Gods.
Currie also uses his blog to muse about the concept of a parallel universe. When asked to expand on this, he tells me, "Every lie that is told creates another world, in a sense. There is a universe where that lie is the truth. I like to believe in imagination and that I have the ability to suspend my disbelief and think that something can be fact when it is fiction."
He goes on to say "The concept of truth today is so loose. I would much rather have someone present themselves as biased or unreliable up front, rather than presenting themselves as a speaker of the truth. Everyone has biases and opinions, even people who claim to be experts. Most people are just willing to be taken in and follow the narrative presented to them without questioning where it came from."
Indeed, many members of the crowd at the Whitney seem to buy in to his tricks. "He seems like a tour guide," one woman shrugs to her companion. "I mean, he must be some sort of leader; all these people are following him."
Toward the end of the day, Currie is followed into a room by a group of schoolchildren. They watch the tall man who looks like a pirate with a mixture of awe and fear. One brave girl creeps forward to say hello. When he offers her the megaphone, she asks his name. Upon hearing his reply, she booms into the megaphone, "I am Momus!" One by one the other children in the group also step up to claim their identity as Momus, as the man himself just smiles with satisfaction.
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asap contributor Cortney Harding is not Momus.
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