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Mike Weiss Gallery Takes On Crisis In Egypt (!)
By matthew rose
January 31, 2011 · 1 Comments
Unrest in Egypt? New York’s Mike Weiss Gallery has it covered. The boys acting up in the streets of Cairo? Christian Vincent is on the case. Well that’s the message received yesterday from the gallery’s director Anna Ortt. The urgent e-mail tunes us in: “Media Alert: Parallel between painting exhibition in New York and riots in Cairo.”
Is it cause and effect? Has the Los Angeles-based Vincent been working on these “riot pieces” in anticipation of a break out of street violence in the Middle East (or anywhere else?). Or has his paintings of boys with bats or boys lined up in graphic propaganda style launched a revolution across the Arab world? Try: Neither.
Source or result of Christian Vincent's Tunnel Vision paintings? Neither. Photo: Goran Tomasevic/Reuters.
Boys With Bats, 2010, by Christian Vincent. Anticipating mob violence the world over. Courtesy: Mike Weiss Gallery, NYC.
To be fair, gallery director, Anna Ortt, did write back responding to a request for elucidation.
“Let me clarify, the paintings are not about violence in the middle east,” she wrote. “The artist made these over the last year. It’s just that the images echo what is happening there right now – it could be anywhere. By calling attention to the parallel, I am just trying to open a door, and start a dialogue. It’s my job to get people to look, and talk. I think it’s interesting, regardless of whether or not you like the paintings.”
Ortt noted that many visitors to the gallery said Vincent’s “bat” paintings reminded them of “the Bensonhurst beatings.” And she qualified the entire media “alert” with the note: “The show is already almost entirely sold out so sales have nothing to do with the media alert. (I can’t imagine violence would ever help sell a painting.)”
Well maybe not, but the Mike Weiss Gallery is actually asking people to come in and examine the painter’s work to better understand the news, then. Or at least the surface of the news. Or the striking parallels. The bald pitch for publicity is a bit frightening. Why not just go to YouTube and check out the police beating of Rodney King (“Can’t we just all get along?”) Do we see an Egyptian flag of solidarity on the gallery web page? How about one flying in front of the gallery? It’s a curious strategy while the various Egyptian museums are looted and busted up.
Well, we gave the Mike Weiss Gallery 15 minutes. Mission accomplished. Now what?
Tags: Christian Vincent, Egyptian Museum, Eygpt, Hosni Mubarak, Middle East Crisis, Mike Weiss Gallery
It is interesting to note that the riot police are closing in on their prey with what looks like bamboo sticks and night clubs ( perhaps the Egyptian police have been funded for employing eco friendly riot control tools?).
The gang in the painting are enclosed and plotting to disperse ( perhaps against us, the spectator, as the two glaring boys each side of the central figure seem to imply). They are all carrying the same kind of club and suggest lower middle class american juvenile delinquants if not some kind of vigilantes that play baseball.
What either one of these groups is fighting , or about to fight, is unknown to us. We cannot tell who is right and who is wrong. Maintaining order and revolting against tyrrany are equally lofty actions.
Was this gallery exploiting the news. Yes and in a silly way. Waking up and seeing a current event similar to the show in your gallery is normal if you are showing art. Why? Because art is about us, humans. Life is a daily struggle. Some days the sticks are real and hard and other days they are just a metaphor.
Can we learn about what is going on in Egypt by seeing this show? I don’t think so.
The painting is violence about to unfold, forever. It will never come to be.
The photo depicts forces unleashed in reaction to people making history. Human will is on the march.
Looking at art to understand this moment is futile. Thinking about the moment you took on a tyrranical power greater than yourself would be more enlightening.