David Choe’s digital artwork Group Therapy films the artist lying on his back covered in what looks like camouflage makeup, getting hit and punched by multiple hands and fists from all sides. Choe seems passive until he suddenly breaks out into a violent silent scream, spitting what looks like green blood. The video is shot in slow motion, allowing the viewer to follow every punch and its impact on Choe’s body in detail.
Group Therapy projects a combination of violence, humiliation, degradation, and feeling of entrapment simultaneously. The artist is defenseless, exposed to the battering of his unidentified torturers. And in all its simplicity, the work manages to capture the magnitude of human existential angst and range: the sheer hopelessness projected by Choe, and the complete agony and helplessness state he seems to be in, portraits humanity’s suffering in all but 135 seconds.