Upon entering the exhibition The Enemy of All Kind by Stan Douglas, currently on view at David Zwirner, the viewer is met with the finale of the series, a work titled Ghostlight. The Inkjet print mounted on Dibond aluminum measures 48 x 120 inches, and depicts seating rows facing the stage in a dimly lit classical theater. A singular lightbulb solemnly lights the scene, preparing the viewer for the theatrical photographs to follow. Rounding the corner, the accompanying nine dynamic photographs unfold into a retelling of the eighteenth century opera Polly written by John Gay (1685-1732), a cumbersome tale of colonialism, gender identity, and class struggles.
Following a narrative arc, the first work presented in the exhibition is aptly titled Overture: In which Convicted Brigand Captain Macheath is Transported to the West Indies Where He will be Impressed into Indentured Labour, 2024. The theatrical still directed and captured by Stan Douglas is set on a ship armed with cannons, perhaps hinting at the conflicts to come. Twelve prisoners are shown boarding the ship conveying an emotional range from confident, worrisome, to penitent. Two men shackle the prisoners while one catalogs those entering the ship, all in ornate tri-fold hats establishing a visual hierarchy juxtaposing those receiving punishment. This work introduces the viewer to the instigating character of the series, Captain Macheath. Macheath, an interracial man, stands confidently in imperial uniform with neatly cut hair in the center of the composition. Macheath is awaiting transportation to the West Indies where he, along with the rest of the prisoners shown, would serve as indentured laborers for their crimes.
In Act I, Scene V: In which Polly Peachum is Greeted at the Ducat Estate by Family Friend Diana Trapes, who will Ultimately Betray Her, 2024, Macheath’s wife Polly is introduced. In search of her husband Polly travels to the West Indies and is reunited with a family friend Mrs. Diana Trapes, who has embedded herself in colonial society. The scene, set atop a marvelous black and white tile floor, occurs in the colonial style Ducat plantation house. Mrs. Diana Trapes stands in an elegant maroon dress with upturned palms as she offers Polly the position of a scullery maid. Polly stands to the left of the scene in class-matching attire with a grateful expression but protective hand positioning, foreshadowing the unbeknownst knowledge to Polly that Trapes acts as a madame and sells young English women to wealthy landowners. A Union Jack flies outside the open house door, signaling this land in the West Indies is occupied by colonizers and stating their presence. Additionally, the juxtaposition between the colonial interior and this symbol of colonial enslavement makes the viewer reflect on where one's own comfort comes from, who it’s built on, and who benefits.
Act I, Scene VIII: In which Mr. Ducat Argues to Mrs. Ducat that Polly has been Hired as Her Personal Maid while She Suspects Polly will be his Live-In Mistress, 2024, depicts exactly that. The plantation owners, Mr. and Mrs. Ducat, strike conflict in Polly’s status of a courtesan, with Mrs. Ducat jumping to Polly’s defense. The scene unfolds in a symmetrical composition, with the two members of the Ducat family standing in front of a decorative triptych and ornate vase, communicating their excessive wealth. The outward sides of the composition hint to their individual studies each with a portrait of themselves, spatially facing each other, mimicking and magnifying the conflict of the act.
Unfolding in the following work, Act I, Scene XI: In which Polly Comes to Understand that Mrs. Trapes has Sold Her to Mr. Ducat as a Courtesan, 2024, Mr. Ducat informs Polly that she was indeed not hired as a scullery maid but as a prostitute. Mr. Ducat is seated to the left of the standing Polly, now dressed in a simplistic muslim gown, signaling a power imbalance between the two characters. Upon this delivery, viewers can only see Polly’s astonished expression in the mirror placed in the center of the scene. This may be a creative decision on Douglas to express Polly’s shame, accompanied with her hand on her chest illustrating her shock. Mr. Ducat then attempts to make an advance on Polly, but she is saved by the news that a band of pirates were attacking and robbing plantations. This band is led by captain Morano, who the viewers later learn is the transformed Captain Macheath, Polly’s husband.
Amidst the commotion of the dooming pirate attack, Polly asks Mrs. Ducat and her maid to release her, in Act I, Scene XIV: In which Polly, with the Help of Damaris, Convinces Mrs. Ducat to Punish Her Husband by Granting Her Her Freedom, 2024. In this scene, Mrs. Ducat is shown partially undressed exemplifying her distress. Her back is turned to the viewer, with her reflection in the opposing mirror revealing her terse expression. Polly stands to the left in the same muslim gown from the previous act with a pleading demeanor revealed in a second mirror, a testament to Douglas’s masterful sets. The maid stands between the two in a minimalist floral blue gown, her defensive face the only one directly visible to the audience giving her a sense of autonomy, otherwise ungranted. At the end of the act, Mrs. Ducat allows Polly her freedom and gives her the clothes of her deceased nephew so that she could travel safely and avoid molestation.
Outside of the plantation walls, Polly encounters the elusive band of pirates, dressed in masculine garb, and offers to join them in hopes of finding her husband Captain Macheath, the now captain Morano. In a bout of irony, Morano’s new wife, Jenny Diver, is attracted to the masculine presenting Polly and attempts a romantic advance as seen in Act II, Scene VI: In which the Wife of Pirate Captain Morano, Jenny Diver, Attempts to Seduce Polly, who is Disguised as a Man to Avoid Molestation, 2024. The Blue Mountains of Jamaica create a whimsical backdrop for the two women, with an overgrown tree branch grounding the top of the composition denoting their intimate seclusion.
Polly is next seen, still in disguise, with the pirates who have captured the Prince of their adversaries, the Maroons. In Act II, Scene XII: In which Polly Convinces Pirates Laguerre and Capstern to Release their Captive, Prince Cawwawkee, for a Prize Rather than go to War Against His People with Morano, 2024, Polly confidently stands with her hands on her hips urging the colonially dressed pirates to free the Maroon Prince, Caawwawkee. An important script change decided by Douglas is visually highlighted in this scene. In the original Polly, the pirate’s adversaries were indigenous tribes of the islands bound to fight for the plantation owners. Douglas switched the indigenous tribes for the Maroons, a historical autonomous group of freed slaves, giving them power unrooted in colonialism. This shifts the narrative from those who are oppressed, as seen in the original Polly, to a narrative who platforms those who fight back.
Polly takes a supporting role in the next act, hiding in the woods observing the fight occurring in Act III, Scene VII: In which the pirate Morano (aka Captain Macheath) challenges, and is vanquished by, the Maroon Queen Pohetohee, 2024. This act shows the climax of the play, a duel between the pirate and Maroon leaders. Captain Macheath is shown with unkempt hair wearing no colonial garb, representing his full transformation into captain Morano. He has a large gash on his chest inflicted by his opponent, Queen Pohetohee of the Maroons. Douglas modeled Queen Pohetohee after the historical figure the Nanny of the Maroons (1686-1733), who led the Maroons against the British in the eighteenth century. This allows for a feminist depiction that brings modern discourse into a historical narrative.
In the final scene of the play, Douglas depicts Polly with the victors of the duel, the Maroons, in Act III, Scene XII: In which Polly Reveals Herself to be a Woman Amid Discourse on Love with Pohetohee and Cawwawkee, 2024. Polly reveals to the Maroon’s Queen and Prince that she is indeed not a man but a woman, and they in turn reveal to her that captain Morano was Captain Macheath. Prince Cawwawkee is enamored by Polly and asks for her hand in marriage. Here, the narrative makes a complete arch from Act II Scene VI, when Morano’s wife advanced onto the masculine Polly, and the composition mimics that of the work presented for that act. However, this takes place in an unruly jungle rather than polished plantation grounds, evoking Polly's transformation into a truer version of herself. Polly stands with open palms towards the grinning Prince, communicating a true acceptance of Polly for the first time in the play. This beckons an air of self acceptance and liberation. Polly is finally self validated in the public realm, relating to Hannah Ardent’s emphasis on being seen.
The history of the original Polly by John Gay, underscores the importance of the narrative themes brought forward during the time of its creation. Polly was censored by the British government for these ideas, and was never enacted during Gay’s lifetime. This relates to Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space, as Thiong'o's performance was also censored by the Kenyan government. He found that "the state has its areas of performance; so has the artist. While the state performs power, the power of the artist is solely in the performance. [...] The struggle may take the form of the state's intervention in the content of the artist's work—what goes by the name of censorship—but the main arena of struggle is the performance space: its definition, delimitation, and regulation” (Thiong'o, 12). This explains how the institutional space legitimizes the impact of the art and artist, comparatively to a court or bureaucratic building that retains States dominance and power. By denying both Thiong’o and Gay’s work, the governments recognized their ability to create change within social discourse and cultural identity. The exhibition, The Enemy of All Kind by Stan Douglas, is a direct counter response to this censorship as it has been given a platform within a prominent institution, David Zwirner. As Hannah Ardent theorized in The Public Realm: The Common, “only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, so that those who are gathered around them know they see sameness in utter diversity, can worldly reality truly and reliably appear” (Arendt, 57). By bringing the often overshadowed experiences of colonialism on gender and class into the public sphere, it allows them to be recognized and validated.
Experientially, the exhibition appeared grand. Each work served as a window into an act, and the titles Stan Douglas appoints the photographs allowed for one to easily understand and follow the narrative. Additionally, the gallery offered annotated checklists and press releases that helped the viewer to fully grasp the concepts presented by Douglas. These elements called for an active engagement with the narrative, rather than passive consumption, recalling the themes brought by Jacques Ranciére in The Emancipated Spectator. Douglas’s ability to capture movement within the works furthered the need for viewers to “observe, select, compare, [and] interpret”. In order for the viewer to be included in the frozen dialogue of the act, “he [has to] connect what he observes with many other things he has observed on other stages, in other kinds of spaces” (Ranciére, 18). The element of photography brought into performance art does not make the viewer uncomfortable by entering a physical space, but still requires, and almost forces, one to read into what is going on to begin to understand what they are seeing. However, this could also serve as a limitation of this presentation of performance art as the coded separation of the frame between the canvas and the viewer is introduced, as referenced in The Case for Performance Art by The Art Assignment at 8:13. The artist and performers are anonymous to each other, enforcing traditional hierarchies of what is deemed institutional within the arts. Personally, I do find this to be an affordance of the exhibition as performance art tends to make me uncomfortable. Subjectively, this grants more legitimacy to Douglas’ work as more individuals in positions of power may see this exhibition, rather than an obscure play.
The exhibition concludes with the uniquely untheatrical work, Africa Rock, 2024. The composition illustrates a mossy rock with the continental shape of Africa carved into it that Douglas happened upon while shooting the series in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. It is theorized that the Maroons carved this rock out in the wilderness that they used to hide from the British, serving as a motif of Jamaica’s colonial history. This emblematic ending serves as a testament to Douglas’s broader commentary on the persistence of colonial legacies that are essentially carved into modern discourse. It causes the viewer to consider the ways power is engraved into their personal landscapes, culture, and identity, beckoning the question: is colonialism the enemy of all mankind?
Sources
David Zwirner. The Enemy of All Mankind: Annotated Bibliography. David Zwirner, 2024. Print.
Rancière, Jacques. “The Emancipated Spectator.” ArtForum, 2007, pp. 270-281.
The Art Assignment. “The Case for Performance Art.” YouTube, uploaded by PBS Digital Studios, 18 Aug. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl3Bi8Nz8uI. Accessed 19 Sep. 2024.
Arendt, Hannah. "The Public Realm: The Common." The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, 1958, pp. 50-58.
Thiong'o, Ngugi wa. "Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space." The Drama Review, vol. 41, no. 3, 1997, pp. 11-30.
Douglas, Stan. The Enemy of All Mankind. David Zwirner, 2024. Exhibition.
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