In the Main Gallery: True Diplomacy - JIMMY & JIL BAKER
At a time when America's optimism about the war in Iraq is exhausted, we have just witnessed the unveiling of the largest US embassy in the world in Baghdad. With $592 million dollars of emergency funding, the embassy will house 21 buildings, a water treatment plant, and an electrical plant on 104 acres within the Green Zone of Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris River.
Artist Jimmy Baker and architect Jil Baker set out to comprehend the US embassy project with only scraps of data found on the internet. Their interpretations of the heavily fortified hermetic complex expose the disparity between U.S. foreign policy�s ideology of �democratization� and this new war-fortress approach to diplomacy.
A dark figure looms in the painting Succession, which features a hybrid portrait of L. Paul Bremer [Director of Postwar reconstruction, 2003], and ambassadors John Negroponte, Zalmay Khalilzad, and Ryan Crocker. This mutation shows an uneasiness and uncertainty toward the factual progression of oversight in Iraqi relations. This uncertain future in Iraq prompts us to imagine a Kafka-esque vision of further metamorphosis for the figure in Succession. The architectural site model, Invisible Fortress, employs a three dimensional replica of what the complex might look like based on layout images that the architectural firm Berger Devine Yaeger leaked on the internet before being shut down by the State Department. This model is a saturated solid gold city cast into a mass of clear resin. Many reports have described the design to be 'suburban' in nature, in keeping with many accounts of life in the Green Zone. The other walls include framed images combining computer renderings of the embassy complex and screenprinted imagery depicting the turbulent existence outside of this bubble. They contrast visions of development and disaster, as they look beyond the construction phase of this behemoth site, and into its placement within the origins of human development in the Fertile Crescent.
In the Plus Gallery: GEOFFREY TODD SMITH Geoffrey Todd Smith Will Romance You When He Is Good And Ready!
Geoffrey Todd Smith's abstract drawings mix beauty and danger in equal measure, enticing viewers into fields of beautiful psychedelic patterning only to reveal wickedly spiked and thorny shapes. As viewers, we recall the moments when we began asking questions like: Why are my parents inspecting my Halloween candy? What was that high school boy in the Ace Frehley t-shirt distributing on the playground if not stickers? Influenced by nature documentaries on gorgeous carnivorous plants, great white sharks and razor sharp coral reefs, these colorful and trippy hand-made drawings are both seductive and threatening.
Smith uses a series of small geometric shapes to form fields of brightly colored images drawn with gel pens on a variety of colored papers, often including collaged elements or shapes painted in gouache. This limited vocabulary of mark making presents a range of images that evoke a mood of sentimentality for activities of his youth: jigsaw puzzles, video games, sticker collections, and doodling as well as his youthful fascination with simple geometry and one-point perspective.
A key drawing in the show, "Please Don't Lick the Pollock," was inspired by a story Geoffrey was told about a girl who had the odd desire to lick a Jackson Pollock painting on a trip to a Washington D.C. museum, a story that made him want to arouse a visceral response to the viewing of his work. Hence, Geoffrey Todd Smith will reward the patient viewer by turning them on!
In the Drawing Room: KRISTEN ROMANISZAK
Kristen Romaniszak's comic books (masquerading as artist books) about parasites, fecal matter, bad dreams and awkward social interactions travel the line between dark humor and bad taste, marrying whimsy with disgust. Bookmaking allows her to share stories -- often autobiographical -- hilarious, weird stories, that just might embarrass her if she were to tell them in person
This show will feature 4 new books and a set of trading cards. In "Small Talk" two old friends, a moose and a bear, run into each other and catch up in that awkward small talk way. "Joe: Nature's Misfortune" is a chronicle of the physical and mental issues of her sister's dog Joe. "The Likes of Tim Biedron" and "The Dislikes of Tim Biedron" are two books cataloging the likes and dislikes of tattoo artist Tim Biedron (information for the books was gathered through interviews and eaves dropping). "Little Levi's Guide to Canine Parasites" is a set of 15 informational trading cards about parasites.
