I once only semi-jokingly suggested that contemporary artists could build a very fruitful practice entirely around the seemingly never-ending police procedural “Law & Order: SVU.” More people suffer from “SVU” addictions than you might expect — normal, intelligent, well-adjusted individuals who just happen to find something soothing or gently exhilarating about this formulaic show, with its cast of cops punning away as the bodies and tragedies pile up. I also continue to have a personal interest in what might, in International Art English, be termed “an ‘SVU’-catalyzed aesthetic”: I’m in the midst of making a series of paintings inspired by the show’s producer, Dick Wolf, who I tend to depict as an abstracted sad clown, simultaneously omnipresent and powerless to stop the eternal flood of awfulness that Olivia Benson and her crew must confront. And I’m certainly not alone in trying to tap this most stalwart of television institutions for something highbrow — or at least weird. Last year, in the “American Reader,” Carmen Maria Machado presented “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU,” an experimental novella built from concise, poetic recaps of specific episodes. For example:
“Misleader”: Father Jones has never touched a child, but when he closes his eyes at night, he still remembers his high school girlfriend: her soft thighs, her lined hands, the way she dropped off that roof like a falcon.
Earlier this year, Rhizome supported a project by Jeff Thompson for which he watched “all 456 episodes of the American crime drama ‘Law & Order,’ tracking the representation of computers throughout the series.” This is, mind you, not “SVU” — and many “SVU” purists simply don’t have time for the other branches of this dysfunctional tree — but the point is that there is indeed a nascent recognition of what the creative community could or should do with “Law & Order”’s raw material. That’s why I was especially thrilled to hear from artist Tommy Kha, who’s working on a video called “Guest Appearance” (below). The short work-in-progress is a Christian Marclayesque collage of clips from “SVU” in which an individual named Tommy is referred to by the cops and other characters. This first cut includes moments from 16 episodes across 15 seasons of “SVU.”
“The various characters who portray a Tommy ranged from victim to perpetrator to bystander, sometimes a suspect, sometimes an innocent child,” Kha said. “They were never the same person, but I’ve changed that in the video, implying that it is the same person: the same Tommy — with many issues.” While the much-discussed character is never seen in the 1:21 clip, we learn a lot about this adaptable chameleon: Tommy had an alibi, Tommy knows more than he’s telling, Tommy’s pretty traumatized, Tommy’s dead, Tommy was alone for six hours watching her die, Tommy almost died for you, Tommy’s not charged with a crime, and Tommy needs you.
Kha’s not sure when he first began following the show, but, he said, “it’s something that has been on peripherally, and with anything I watch, I start to invest in its mythos by accident.” He went on to cite forensic examiner Melinda Warner as his favorite “SVU” character: “She had the best lines, like ‘I got shot in the chest, not in the head.’” The future “SVU”-related contours of Kha’s practice are still to be determined. “I do [have future plans to] use ‘SVU’ again,” he said, “perhaps after I figure out how to appear in an ‘SVU’ episode.” That sort of artistic TV-infiltration would put him in good company, of course, part of a lineage that includes Mel Chin, who once created 200 props that were “inserted on the set” of “Melrose Place,” and even James Franco during his “General Hospital” phase.
So open-minded curators take note: “The SVU Show” is something the world might need, without really knowing it. If exhibitions can be organized around comparatively niche concerns — like cats, or Drake, or pizza, or the color pink— then why not the horrifically heroic efforts of America’s favorite Special Victims Unit?
