Aria Dean’s “Abattoir, USA!”: technically skilled but preaching to the choir

Recently, I saw “Abattoir, USA!” a new instalment across two rooms in the Institute of Contemporary Art by Aria Dean, an artist, critic and curator who at 31 has been published and exhibited globally in well-regarded institutions. Dean is well read, and everything about this exhibition makes that clear.

The exhibit runs across two rooms with a film in one and a sculptural display and poem in the other. Both are technically artful. The film brings you through a suspenseful 3D rendering of a modern slaughterhouse via a maze that I’d describe as The Shining’s lovechild with Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget. The score, composed by Evan Zierk is brilliant, the right amount of sound-effects and musicality that builds suspense until it breaks into a haunting instrumental rendition of the Shondrell’s “I Think We’re Alone Now.” The rendering fades to black with flashes of light on screen that through the room’s butcher’s doors appear like violent electrical shocks.

In the second room, four glass boxes that look more like empty caskets than display cases. The poem on the wall in this room which refers to being “felled by wars not fought” is, in my opinion, the strongest part of the entire exhibition, perhaps because it’s the only piece that hints at its bigger ideas without serving it to you on a plate.

The description of the exhibit is dense with theory- the film in the first room was inspired by Dean’s research into the industrialisation of the meat industry. I’m one to take curator’s notes with a grain of salt, however, when it comes to an artist like Aria Dean who is just as known for her writing as for her art- I take special note.

According to Dean, “Abattoir, USA!” is about the relationship between humans, animals and machines, violence towards Black Americans, modernity, colonialism, industrialisation, fascism, and bio-politics.

The connection between the structural violence of the industrialised slaughterhouse and the systematic subjugation of Black Americans is genuinely thought-provoking and could easily expand to an Orwellian Animal Farm-like novella. But that list of topics, taken directly from the exhibit’s accompanying text, felt like too much to be explored properly in these two small rooms.

The slaughterhouse seemed like an opening metaphor to a thesis rather than a work that could stand on its own. There is no indicator in the film that the subject is race- you only know this from the accompanying text. Without this, the works lack space for viewers to make any connections between race and industrialisation themselves.

Who are these exhibits for?

I end with a brief thought on who exhibitions like this are for. Most museums must make an attempt to appeal to the masses- tourists travelling to see the famous Van Gogh Sunflowers, students on school trips learning about Turner, and yearly museum goers are all part of the mix.

Places like the ICA and exhibits like “Abattoir, USA!” attract a smaller crowd. A niche group of art-informed, well-read types who went to colleges like Oberlin (Dean’s alma-mater) and have a basic understanding of critical theory, race-politics, and anti-capitalist ideas. To such a group, Dean’s exhibit may provide a genuinely helpful analogy for understanding an oppressive system they already have accepted exists.

But as someone who finds myself arguing that systematic racism exists with unconvinced family and friends, I can’t help but think art should do more than preach to the well-read choir. I would love to see Aria Dean further this metaphor of the slaughterhouse in a form that allows one to take the class without having completed the pre-class reading.

Alexandra Kytka-Sharpe




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