Bloodshed, disaster, end of the world — it’s all part of Swiss artist’s work

COURTESY of CHRISTOPH DRAEGER

Christoph Draeger’s “The Last News” is a television broadcast that details the end of the world. It will be shown tonight at the Fifth Street School.

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Friday, Sept. 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Swiss artist Christoph Draeger delves into the absurdity of contemporary media culture through photos, paintings, installations, videos and sculpture.

Using found and manufactured footage, his hard-core videos of disaster in the media age showcase the world in the same style of spectacle that bombards us daily through our televisions.

The artist and five of his video works will be at the Fifth Street School tonight in a program curated by Alise Upitis, formerly with the Las Vegas Art Museum.

Draeger’s work is jarring in its upfront look at the exploitation of nihilism in contemporary society, alerting us to the growing callousness of our voyeurism.

One of the short videos depicts a possible lone survivor playing soccer in an underground bunker. The video is interjected with juxtaposed images of his home life and the devastation that led him there. One overlays a Cold War-era film found in a Hungarian disaster prevention camp with subtitles of George W. Bush’s 2005 inaugural speech. Another documents a tourist selling apocalyptic souvenirs on the Mexico City Metro.

“The Last News” is a fictionalized up-to-the minute television broadcast that details the end of the world and incorporates images of destruction and bloodshed, including footage of planes on 9/11 flying into the World Trade Center.

“Black September” blurs fact, fiction, past and present to address the death and spectacle of the Olympic Games in 1972, when Palestinian terrorists killed members of the Israeli Olympic team. For this video, the room where hostages and terrorists watch media coverage of the attempted police intervention was re-created.

Upitis originally intended the program for the Las Vegas Art Museum, but the museum closed this year. The program is co-sponsored by the city of Las Vegas in partnership with the Contemporary Arts Center and the Swiss Arts Council.

Details: Christoph Draeger videos and lecture; Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth St.; 7 tonight; free, 229-4631

Portrait of two artists

Trifecta Gallery pairs the work of artists Sush Machida-Gaikotsu and Brian Porray in an exhibit that places mentor and artist side by side at a similar period in their lives.

The exhibit features the work of both artists as graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in fine art. Machida-Gaikotsu is a successful artist whose vibrant pop art paintings, which reference Japanese prints from the Edo period, are in museum collections.

Porray is still in school and beginning his career.

Machida-Gaikotsu, a Japanese-born Las Vegas artist, studied with Dave Hickey at UNLV. He graduated in 2002. The bulk of his work in this show features the artist’s interest in toys and comics. One piece incorporates the ocean wave that goes on to be pivotal in the artist’s work.

Porray’s abstract paintings of Japanese anime racing games are dynamic in color and motion. His collages in the exhibit place various architectural structures in tidy new compositions and landscapes.

Details: Sush Machida-Gaikotsu and Brian Porray; Trifecta Gallery in the Arts Factory, 107 E. Charleston Blvd.; First Friday opening from 6 to 10 p.m. tonight; gallery hours are noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and noon to 2 p.m. Saturday; free, 366-7001

American music

Nevada Pops launches its second season tonight with “Under the Lights,” a performance of jazz and standards featuring pianist Scott Holshouser of the Houston Symphony and the Gypsy jazz ensemble Hot Club of Las Vegas.

Nevada Pops was formed by Richard McGee, associate conductor of the Las Vegas Philharmonic.

The concert includes a tribute to George Gershwin.

Details: “Under the Lights”; 7:30 tonight; Artemus Ham Hall, UNLV; $18 general, $14 for students, seniors and military members, 895-2787