JENS KAEUMLE

There probably aren’t too many places in America where some coach, in pursuit of a high school amateur athletic association state championship, is quoting Lou Reed to his players in the locker room. Springsteen, maybe, but not Lou Reed. Why? Because the leatherjacket wearing, sexually ambiguous Reed could never embody that sense of aspirational masculinity, that tough guy, on the way up, always a winner attitude that you must have to fully invest in the power of high school sports, especially football. Yet Reed is best suited for the job. Who else could have so easily expressed what’s essentially aspirational longing in search of recognition and validation? So, the question shouldn’t be “how”, but rather “who else?”

What Reed distills is an understanding of desire. This becomes the motivation. Not so much because of a sense of need within oneself, but rather, as the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan explains, because “man’s desire is the desire of the Other,” or, more simply, that external validation is often not the cause - it is the result.

In some ways, this is because the road through high school football toward greater success, recognition, and money is paved with the blood, sweat, and tears of everyone who’s invested in the goal of being a winner, but who will, likely, never make it to the next level. But high school football is that American dream where anything is possible, where the last play always matters.

So, when Kaeumle synthesizes and reflects this singular phenomenon, it becomes clear he grasps the irony. Across a series titled, “Golden youth, stolen youth, ghosts of Freedom,” we see portrait after portrait of resigned players, staring as much into the abyss as into the stark plane of reality, of the future, of the fact that maybe that kid who’s the star quarterback in high school may not be such a star, or such a success, over the course of their life. Again and again, Kaeumle shows his subjects with that same flat stare, that same line for a mouth, that same expression that just adds to the impression that even when you’ve reached the mountain maybe it’s not all that important after all.

And the gold. The gold. That richness of achievement, that reflection of entitlement. In the words of Roots Manuva, “I’m boy king, so where’s my throne.” That fake luster, that veneer, that symbol of value, that unifier of every trophy, whether for a championship or for participation. That’s the thing. There’s a moment in which everything that should signify success merely reflects the irony that it isn’t what something looks like on the surface, or even what it says, that makes the artifact so very different from one gathering dust on a shelf in a garage. But that sense of potential is something America loves, particularly in high school sports. That’s what made Friday Night Lights – a series and a movie so surprisingly connective that the Guardian Australia described it as ‘soft and soothing’ – such a phenomenon. Here’s Coach Taylor, screaming at his players as they scramble through extreme drills at night in the rain:

 You think you’re champions because you wear the Panther uniform?

YOU’RE WRONG!

              You think you’re a champion because they give you a piece of pie at the diner?

YOU’RE WRONG!

Somehow, Kaeumle takes these types of blunt acknowledgments of the distance between dream and reality, then makes the materiality of each reflect that same conundrum. Every work is painted on gold foil, with craft paper and linseed oil…mounted on cardboard. It’s as if he recognizes these antitheses, that something gold should have value but in fact it might be nothing but pressed and molded paper. This isn’t to infer that the works themselves lack value, but instead to suggest that much like pyrite is “fool’s gold,” the idea that gold equals value in every instance is wholly incorrect. And Kaeumle’s subjects, these players sans helmets, are metaphors, tropes, everymen and everywomen, stand-ins he’s described as seen “from a distance.” These aren’t composed as up-close-and-personal, but seeing each grounds how the opportunities and aspirations that high school sports might could just as easily produce nothing.

There’s also this idea that in football everyone is equal. Every race, creed, and color can play, not that they necessarily do. But by making every ground the same, Kaeumle challenges us to see where differentiations occur. Every image, a reflection of infinite potential, but. Tempered by the various socioeconomic and cultural differentiators that drive - and divide - each team and each town every week during every high school football season. When they step onto the field and into the huddle, players must know that despite what they dream, they’d better be prepared for disappointment.

That’s what Kaeumle leaves on the surface – these moments where reality sets in, where there’s a clear realization that even the most victorious moment, the most seemingly significant achievement, is as fragmentary and as fleeting as those who experienced it, those who remember, and those who may or may not even care.

Of course, there’s always the opposite end of the spectrum. Imagine you’re not getting an inspirational speech from Coach Taylor, but rather sitting around late at night on your high school football field. You’ve been asked to sign a form that says are “not to indulge in any alcohol, drugs…or any other illegal activities.” That’s the conundrum star player Randall “Pink” Floyd faces in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused when he’s asked to sign a contract that he won’t drink, smoke, or engage in any other vices during the season:

DAVID

So, what are you going to do?

 RANDALL

I’ll probably end up signing it, I just don’t want to give in so easily.

DAVID

Man, it’s the same bullshit they tried to pull in my day. You know, if it ain’t that piece of paper, it’s some other rule they’re going to try to make for you. You gotta do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do, man. Lemme tell you this – the older you do get, the more rules they’re gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin’, man. L-I-V-I-N.

It's almost impossible to tell if the faces staring out from every work in Golden youth, stolen youth, ghosts of Freedom are on the way toward authentically living or already resigned to the fact that they’re basically done with it. Trophies in the case, memories in the recesses, and that next generation of young players, whose friends and families pack football stadiums nationwide every Friday night, taking the field on that endless quest toward becoming the next great star.