​

Date: 2014

Media: Video installation 

Locations: Produced between Chicago and Port of Spain 

Most recently exhibited in the travelling show ‘Forecast Form’ originating from the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) Chicago 

​

Gas Men explores the presence and impact of multinational oil companies in various international locations. Filmed on Lake Michigan—a site that in recent years has witnessed repeated crude oil spills at BP’s Whiting plant in Indiana—this work address the politics of the global oil economy. In each video, men in business suits draw fuel pump nozzles and hoses like pistols, swinging them in the air in a manner reminiscent of cowboy-style rope tricks or the whip cracking of carnival performances. These figures’ actions play out in the staccato rhythm of a crude stop-motion animation, their standoff recalling a Spaghetti Western set to a haunting soundtrack of sitar chords, live vocals, and sirens. In this take on what he calls “B-movie male heroic spectacle,” Cozier calls attention to the power dynamics of an economic paradigm that has grave effects on seemingly anonymous places, lives, and histories.

 

WRITE UP FROM ‘ENTANGLEMENTS’ EXHIBITION  / ELI AND EDYTHE BROAD ART MUSEUM AT MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY 2015