Violence takes many forms and is particularly
insidious when it is most widespread and familiar (compassion fatique sets in,
or denial runs rampant eg. in genocide or domestic violence). But it is no less tyrannical,
devestating and personal when institutionalized at home or abroad, through
legislation (racism, corporation rights, economic austerity measures), the
judiciary (inequities in sentencing and leniency discernable among social, racial, religious demographics),
and execuative decision, whether promoted or coherced (paramilitary and
military support, economic sanctions).
The following submissions speak of the violence that erupts from the clash between our professed concern for human rights at home and abroad and the actual political and economic policies we knowingly institute, assist, or remain complicit in. A majority of the rights protected for US citizens under the first ten amendments of the US constitution are addressed: namely, the rights of free speech, freedom of the press, a people to peaceably assemble, due process of law, speedy and public trial by jury, keeping and bearing arms, and protection against cruel and unusual punishment as well as against cruel and unreasonable searches and seizures. The works, frequently grounded in the specifics of international injustice, point with bitter irony to the hypocrisy of our high moral proclamations, of our wanton rhetoric, and our even more stifling silences.
1.
Razed, 2001,
5Ó x 5Ó , acrylic and double layered
transparency, glass
2.
Raised,
2001
5Ó x 5Ó , acrylic and double layered
transparency, glass
3. Capitol Flight, 1999
28Ó x 22Ó, acrylic on
newspaper
4. Reparations, 2001
16Ó x 12Ó,
oil and acrylic on panel.
5. Charge:
Redefining Genocide 1999, altered bugle, black flag, marble sarcophagus lid, 60Ó x
24Ó x 6Ó.
Undertaken Duty
The mouthpiece grew the bellÕs
attraction
The air still blew
No fee to view
Ethnic cleansing with
satisfaction.
6.
Wishing
Well,
1999,
40Ó x 24Ó x 30Ó, tarnished copper
patina on plastic mop bucket, 13 min. sound loop. from the installation just
another market mop-up, 1999.
(absence of the right to a fair and speedy
trial and protection against cruel and
unusual punishment)
Justice, being blind but not deaf, DonÕt
blink,
Finds unacceptable DonÕt
strike,
Sounds of suffering, laughter, breath DonÕt
breathe,
Justice is terribly swift.
The enforcement of international justice strikes
out while the physical intimidation of opposition voices drives home. (A recent reaffirmation: the June 17,
1999 National Public Radio report on British paratroopers finding a torture
chamber in Pristina, Kosovo which contained a baseball bat inscribed with the
label Òmouth-shutterÓ.)
8. (absence of the freedom of assembly)
Blameless: The Hegemonic Break, 1998, 3" x 30"
x30", 15 cue balls, wooden pool rack, white felt.
Welcome or Blameless
I accept market liberty. The
collective contained, like to like,
I accept corporate law let be. on
a level field, in a pure land,
I accept neighbors just like me. with
nothing undone, the winnerÕs won.
I accept GodÕs white supremacy.
So whatÕs your big
fucking problem?
Frequently, freedom of assembly is tolerated
only among the homogenous. The
rack constricts, keeps things in line, prevents the break.
9. Spring: Let them keep their children --- tethered, 2000, (dimensions variable),
Installation view, Ten panels: 4Õ
x 8Õ x 1Õ each, concrete, chalk, metal traps, 14 min. sound loop.
Ten
panels: 4Õ x 8Õ x 1Õ each,
concrete, chalk, metal traps, 14 min. sound loop.
In
SPRING the snares that interrupt an elegant formalism
are both literal and psychological.
Land mines from wars long over still maim and murder, now and for
generations to come. And we
continue to produce, sell, and sow, not ban, them (while animal traps are
highly regulated, if not illegal).
Recent floods in Mozambique have redistributed these indiscriminate
devices, ruining all safe zones that had been cleared. Abroad such dangers are often
invisible; at home, they are often disguised. The poor know danger lurks where
help is offered. ÔSocial agencies,
social workers, schools and welfare offices, in fact, usually double, today, as
sites of scrutiny and surveillance. In such contexts, those most desperately in
need are those least likely to receive assistance.Õ* Such traps exist within
our own boundaries regardless of class, as inequity reaps violence to the point
that parents harbor their children indoors, tethered to television, to avoid
the dangers of the street. SPRING laments the
impossibility of innocence on many levels, in our hearts and minds; yet, it
also seeks to restore the purity of heart we associate with childhood. The temporality of chalk games is made
permanent, inscribed in concrete.
These particular traps are welded open, rendered harmless, in a gentle
gesture toward disarmament.
Concrete
Choices: Permanent Protection from
Spring: Let them keep their children --- tethered, 2000, 4Õ x 8Õ x 1Õ,
concrete, chalk, metal traps, 14 min. sound loop.
The suppression of
protest accompanies the selective denial of arms.
10. (corporate
rights without responsibilities)
Ruse rabbit (cloaking tarnished piranha)
9"
x 15" x 3", acrylic on
copper on plastic, 1999
From
the installation "Just Another Market Mop Up"
just another
market mop up
is an
installation in which predator and prey, beneficence and need conflate. Painting cloaks the sculptural, yet the
physical can not be denied. The
material flees deception, yet illusion chases on. Ruse carrots and corn, rabbits and ravens, are stratagems of
confrontational, consumptive sharks and piranhas.
11. Pinata
72" x 48",
chalk, distempera, wax, collage/handmade paper, 1991
With
a stick's crack against a paper mache hull,
or daintily set adrift like daisy petals
to the wind,
hotels
are scattered from a youthful Asian
body without organs.
12. Tripe
72" x 120",
distempera, ink, chalk, rabbit skin glue/canvas, 1993.
Hungry
ducks?
Stab a
mosquito.
Drink
blood from the cuts.
Save the
tripe for
a treat
or tomorrow's cold cuts.
(Ecuadorian
peasant's song)
13. Host
18"
x 24" oil and acrylic on panel.
1996
In
the nursery where we all carry on.
In
the nursery where we're all carrion.
14. (absence
of the freedom of speech; protection against cruel and unusual punishment)
Shutdown: The Nap
of Equity
18Ó x 24Ó, oil on wood
panel. 1998
ItÕs still the same
old story.
Pervasive surveillance thwarts freedom of
expression. The eyes that watch in
the name of the state subjugate, becoming the wounds inflicted during illegal
and covert interrogations.
15. Absence
of the right to trial by public jury and due process of law.
Retribution Stains, 1998, 22 hand-painted
baby bibs, dimensions variable, 20Õ long.
This spring, the first twenty-two Rwandan Hutus
convicted of participating in the slaughter of 1994 were wearing white bibs
with black squares painted to locate the sternum. They were executed by firing squad in public at a one-meter
range. The United Nations, which
set up its own court in Tanzania to judge those suspected of genocide, has yet
to deliver a single verdict.* The
minority Tutsis, backed by the West, led a repressive government for decades
before their overthrow which led to the genocide. The black squared bibs here serve as the remembrance of
myriad moral stains we nightly (take to) table.
7.
Alfonso
Rojo in Kigali from a Manchester Guardian Weekly article of May 3, 1998
16. Retribution Stains, 1998, (detail)
The unacceptable is accepted from a babe at table
For the unacceptable we accept
Only to table.
17. On Social, Economic and
Aesthetic Trappings,
2001, Color Photograph,
6Ó x 8Ó
18. Blind Spot: Bit by
Bit, Man by Man
84" x 48", contains some or
all of the following: One gallon of human blood, one gallon of Heinz catch-up,
two vials of Dr. Martin's dyes, synthetic human tissue, cellulose, rabbit skin
glue, liquefied chrome, metallic powder, polyurethane, on raw cotton. 1995.
Even the
sincerest and most complete of binary imaginings perceive not the root of their attachments.
I violently tug the retinal arteries binding my
optic nerves.
How small the area insensitive to light?
How plastic our biology tonight?
How binary this plan so tight?
X O X O X O.
Blind Spot: Bit by Bit, Man by Man is a ritualized play
among levels of abstraction.
Undeniable connotations of tic-tac-toe are frustrated with the regular
and repetitious characters unengaged.
Upon raw cotton, each chrome calligraphic stroke shimmers, hovers, and
excites individually. The
perspective that isolates the individual "X" or "O" loses
sight of the enormity, centrality, and unity of the bloodbath. The differentiation of lettered signs
ceases when analyzing the entire arena.
The limitations of diametric opposition, the violence inherent in
systemic exclusion, and the economic and political contexts that produce our
technological progress are best appraised at a distance.
Blind Spot: Bit by Bit, Man by Man is a contested treasure
map or revised battlefield chart.
As such, it serves thrice as locus, in designating where the myriad buried
lie, in becoming the sum of their set, and in ordering the position of
chromosomal lines. It records raw
struggles over stripped international fields. It solemnly stains the terrain where one fell and what
arose, where they stiffen and decompose, where we knew well and decidedly
froze.
Where drains the blood and genes below?
What net caught in the undertow?
Whose entertainment taps the flow?
X O X O X O X O.
19. Number
One Exporter to All Sides, 24" x 18", sterile gauze bandages, oil and acrylic
on panel. 1996.
Cross the
dirt line and pass the ammunition.
20. The
Resurgence of the Domino Theory, or 47 drops of a wise man's blood, 16
drops
of a homosexual/ bisexual male's blood, 13 drops of a heterosexual
intravenous
drug users' blood, 13 drops of a male homosexual/ bisexual IV drug
user's
blood, 11 drops of a heterosexual's blood, 8 drops of a transfusion
recipient's
blood, 7 drops of a hemophiliac's blood, 6 drops of an intravenous
drug
user's blood, 4 drops of a sexual partner( of a an intravenous drug user)'s
blood,
4 drops of a sexual partner( of a homosexual/ or bisexual man)'s blood, 3
drops
of a sexual partner( of a person with hemophilia)'s blood, 339 drops of a
heterosexual(
born in a country where heterosexual transmission is
endemic)'s
blood, 2 drops of a mother( of a pediatric AIDS patient)'s blood, 0
drops
of a woman's blood, and unquantifiable undetermined sprinklets.,
24"
x 18", oil and acrylic on panel.
1996.
+
-, + -
pitter
patter, pitter patter
what
matter the splatter, what matter the splatter?