Hili Perlson
No. 108 – fall 2014

If You Are So Smart, Why Aint’ You Rich?


Conceived of as a parallel exhibition to the 5th Marrakech Biennale, the group show If You Are So Smart, Why Aint’ You Rich?  sought to examine, as the title suggests, the growing discrepancy between the nebulous notion of quantifiable knowledge (as well as its production and dissemination) and the individual loss of economic value thereof in the so-called global Knowledge Economy.1

The show’s title is borrowed from minimalist composer Julius Eastman’s 1977 piece. The African-American artist was active from the early sixties until his death, in near obscurity, in 1990. The titles of his compositions became increasingly provocative, politically engaged and downright angry in the late 70s, with names such as Evil Nigger and Gay Guerrilla. However, the titular reproach the curators quoted in this show could very well have been something the ingenious composer directed at himself; despondent about the precariousness of his profession and the lack of opportunity or greater recognition, Eastman developed a fatal dependency on alcohol and substances, and experienced a devastating low point when he was forced into homelessness and joined the derelicts in Tompkins Square (NYC).

First and foremost, as curators Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and Pauline Doutreluingne stated, the show paid homage to Eastman. Sound was featured as a key element in the exhibition. However, beyond the direct homage to the recently rediscovered and newly appreciated composer, the choice to focus on aural experience also dovetailed with the challenges posed by the exhibition’s—indeed, the entire Biennale’s—location itself; especially


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