NYAB Event - Carol Riot Kane “She Who Destroys the Light"

Carol Riot Kane “She Who Destroys the Light"

Jack the Pelican Presents

This event has ended.

“She Who Destroys the Light" is Carol ‘Riot’ Kane’s gothic cathedral of an exhibition, with rock stars as saints. The aritst is a diehard fan of Nine Inch Nails. You don’t have to be a fan yourself (Jack the Pelican most certainly isn’t) to realize that this art rocks. Fandom is usually insipid. Here, it's a monumental cosmology, fully realized.

Works in progress

NIN may be the inspiration. But it's not the reality. At the end of the day, this is Carol Riot Kane improvising a band that maybe could have been. Since 2001, she has been weaving a complex mythology inspired by her experiences following NIN. The larger than life characters featured in her work are all inspired by other fans, and the complex relationships within the band’s community.

Among the works on display is her epic tome about the band, years in the making. It's inspired by the band’s 20-year musical odyssey, but takes great liberties to go off on its own highly imaginative path. Riot transforms the fans into heroic figures, in the likes of Odysseus and Hercules. Rock Star himself is transformed into a rebellious Greek God, named Celestial, who is marked for death due to his alleged Hubris.

As her bio notes: “Riot is the gun toting, plaster casting, ass kicking, punk rock version of the Greek poet Homer, brilliantly translating pre-existing legends of the band she follows into truly epic works of art.” She does this, she explains, to give outsiders a sense of just how epic it is to be a fan

The focal points of the exhibition are two monumental statues—one of a ghostlike Celestial draped across a harp and the other of a towering female creator/destroyer figure, in her own signature purple. The moment depicted is a mythic struggle between Riot’s devotion to the Rock Star, and her desire to destroy all that she feels has become corrupt in the band.

She conjures a version of Rock Star in the last moment she felt respect for him. She must decide weather to burn away all that she was — or to keep the faith, and do all that she can to keep the fan community together in the absence of their hero. The sculptures take on a sublime, otherworldly presence, combining the verisimilitude of masterful wax portraiture with the gorgeous naturalism of Classical Greek marbles and the pale, deathly aura of Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Riot presents a further series of framed drawings as votive shrines, with candles. Each vignette depicts a pivotal moment in the history of her mythology, giving us a unique view into her vision. "She Who Destroys the Light " speaks to the collective emotional experience of all fans who feel so strongly about a band.

On August 24, The New York Times did a story on one of NIN’s final NYC appearances. There, in the accompanying image, front and center among the fans, is Riot, long red hair streaked with purple. Riot attends as many shows as she can, and she treats each with intensity, as though it were that her first or her last. She has even designed a signature NIN concert-ware dress, for which she is well known. Like many who have visibly and actively attended so many shows, she has acquired a level of infamy.

The fan community has been notorious for its online spats, but they are in the end a very tightly knit community, extremely devoted. It is one massive extended family, with Reznor acting as Guardian over his fans. This bond that leads fans to follow the band is what inspires Riot to bring us her wild vision of the world.