1999/2010s
9 digital Duratrans print in circular LED lightbox (19” diameter)
1 digital Duratrans print (Jan Rambo) in circular LED lightbox (19" diameter), surrounded by red bulbs (total 30” diameter)
Titles:
Che
Gandhi
Genghis Khan
Empress of China
King of Siam
Malcolm X
Mahdi of Sudan
Geronimo
Zapata
Jan Rambo
All legends, all mythologies, and all myths ... await their celluloid resurrection, and the heroes are pressing at the gates.
- Abel Gance (1927)
Our sense of history is recuperated most effectively in the imaginary of media today, and is impossible to recall without being haunted by filmic narratives. In They Made History, diverse non-Western figures from Hollywood films loom as icons against visionary landscapes. The very idea of the great man or (less-commonly) woman, energizing the march of civilization, or the gifted human subject busy creating and shaping the dynamics of history, eclipses all other conceptions and structural understandings of apprehending the play of historical forces. These epic narratives now constitute a universal norm.
Jan Rambo, the only larger work in this series, serves as a kind of pendant or exclamation mark, and is the Lollywood response to Hollywood's rendering of epic history. The Urdu text in the work records the title of the film, Hero, in which Lollywood film the actor "Jan Rambo" has starred.