Kenneth Tam’s Requiem for the Shattered American Dream

Kenneth Tam's Requiem for the Shattered American Dream

Lowered over a dark room are objects that remember the wreck of an airplane. While I investigated the scene of the catastrophe, I saw fabric bags with battered metal beams and headlights or, still ominous, nothing at all, open their mouths open as gaping emptiness. Glowing forms that resemble melted milk cartons offer the only light source. The beaded tan-and-black carpet, made of interlocking car seat cover, rattled and slides nervous under the foot, grinding as a protesting snow. In the middle of the disaster, something that is reminiscent of a spontaneous street writing consists of a lonely shoe, a gold watch, a hanging Guanyin-Charme and Caste Epoxy-Resin molds of coffee kids lit as candles. In the midst of these items is a metal badge with the text ‘licensed taxi’.

Kenneth Tam’s exhibition The medallion At Bridget Donahue records the destruction of those whose lives have been crushed by the falling value of the medallion, a permit to operate a taxi that is unique to New York City. Marketed by the Bloomberg administration as a way to “Owns a piece of New York“These medallions seemed a way to realize the American dream; More than half of those who scrimed, saved and have become deeed to reach them His immigrants. Rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft Values ​​Careening once were worth around $ 1 million; In 2021 they were worth around $ 80,000 each.

On the other side of the room is the type of wide format screen on top of a taxis. The title “Solved Personal Archive (2015-2024)” (2025) suggests that the images in this fast-moving slide show were drawn from life, galleries, domestic institutions, even personal data such as what I thought were backpacks were burned . The Center for Art, Care and Alliances-Logo but a further look reveals them as AI-generated. In every slide, the human figures in Refik Anadol-like feathers of digital swirls disappear; One generated figure almost seemed to resist this disintegration, to spread a few steps before he collapsed. The message is clear – tides of technology that is exercised for personal enrichment instead of social improvement, will destroy us with cold ease. Nevertheless, the experience is disturbing.

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The two-channel video “The Medallion” (2025), projected on opposite walls, continues this criticism more Elegiacally. In some shots, people spoil their bodies as if they have swept into a slow-town; In others they are immersed and struggle to a slightly saturated surface, as if they are going to salvation. In this submarine context, the word ‘medallion’ gets an almost mystical connotation, which suggests that Sunken Treasure of Pirates’ loot. Taxi medallions were of course about as valuable, focused and rare, until they were not.

The projected video also contains a close-up interview with a man who has deposited his savings to acquire a medallion before they were heard in value in value. It woke him up at night, he said; The fault, the interest let him throw from one side of the bed to the other. On the floor in front of the video is “Fear Clock” (2025), a piece of those carseat beads that are rigged to glow red and flash between random numbers and unhealthy symbols, such as a hellish with where your number will never show.

Kenneth Tam: The Medallion Continues in Bridget Donahue (99 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan) until 8 March. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.

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