Although Charles Maggs show, Zombie at the AVA, didn't feature a single brain-eating reanimated corpse, it was a good choice of title. Zombie films, since being basically invented by George A Romero with Night of the Living Dead in 1968, are a varied and inventive form of social critique (as well as being damn gory and scary). In some the zombies provide the horrifying impetus for humans to show their bleakest sides, violent and authoritarian. In some, especially Land of the Dead, the zombies become symbolic of an Other, an evolving sub-class, oppressed and hated by the humans who want to protect their possessions (in this instance brains, but you get the idea) and standard of life. Even the classic structure of the zombie film reflects this symbolism, where a small group of insiders fearfully defend their perimeter from those outside who look the same but are different. It can be seen best in Dawn of the Dead, in which the main characters find their sanctuary in a shopping mall. After clearing up the zombies already living there, they settle down, indulging all their material desires while the zombies scrape at the doors (Read a full synopsis on Wikipedia). Essentially, these zombie movies are a criticism of power structures, capitalism and Western hegemony. Of course some, like Resident Evil are just about how sexy Milla Jovovich is, but as she's the doyenne of all of the above the point is the same.

In Charles Maggs Zombie these zombie ideas are strong. In the video piece Protection the visual language of defensive aggression is distilled from clips from an old TV series. In this instance, two police officers circle menacingly on motorbikes. More significantly than the language uncovered is its source: an innocent light watch on the box contains the posturing and signifiers of a latent exclusionary and correctional force.

A clearer relationship is visible in the series of prints, half titled Suspect, the others called Victim. (read how Charles created the work on his blog. It's important)
Those outside the perimeter are made into the either the silenced Victim of the fear of those inside, and the violent response to that fear, or are the shadowy Suspect, evil and unredeemable. Zombies, of course, are sub-humans and don't deserve rightful recourse to the law. He'll eat your brain unless you act swiftly and with extreme prejudice.

And just in case you believed the Cranberries when they said, " But you see, it's not me, it's not my family," Charles has a final work on the show Monologue, in which he speaks to himself from two screens. The talking heads speak to each other about fear echoing the type of paranoia that I think many of us viewers will find creepily familiar. Indeed it is the symptom of living on the inside. Somebody is going to eat your brains.

Labels: ava, Charles Maggs, contemporary art, south african artist, zombie