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Stacy Davies of OC Weekly reviews our video Park Avenue...Shit..., part of the exhibition "Cult of the Ruin: Strategies of Accumulation" at the Universiy Art Gallery, UC-Irvine:
"Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly transport us through the halls of history in their video installation, Park Avenue . . . Shit; I’m Still Only In Park Avenue Every Time I Think I’m Gonna Wake Up Back In the Jungle,a play on the opening lines of Apocalypse Now. The video is an exceptional split-screen trip through what appears to be a Southern gentlemen’s club circa the Civil or Revolutionary War. Hallowed halls where straight, white soldiers danced with straight, white ladies are quickly taken over by a co-ed team of performance artists of various ethnicities who prance, dance and play off the décor while an elderly woman narrates the history of the site. Far from desecrating the landmark, these young people (sometimes wearing military uniforms) are more like visions of freedom and progress transported backward from the future—and while they are no doubt visions that would have scared the beejezus out of our ancestors, they are, in fact, the very results of our forefathers and mothers giving up their lives."
