Installation view
Terrorism has entered into popular culture. The fear that the acts and anticipation of potential violence remains palpable but fades into the background of a media-saturated culture where the Twin Towers' collapsing, the horrifying beauty of shock and awe bombing and the charming Geico gecko, have equal shares of our attention as they are perpetually repeated. These concerns seem to be principle in the "Useless Weapons" group exhibition at the Green Lantern. In "Useless Weapons", Green Lantern Director Caroline Picard and Philadelphia painter Hiro Sakaguchi have assembled paintings and installations from Chicago and Philadelphia to explore this theme.
Entering the gallery space, the orange spinning light and scattered debris of Duncan MacKenzie and Christian Kuras' installations dominate. The detritus (distressed plastic, foam, cement, etc.) acknowledges the realness of the fear of destruction. However, placed in a gallery space these objects highlight the entertainment value that violence and disaster has in our contemporary culture. These pieces help set the tone for reading the other pieces in the show. Although many pieces clearly depict a popular interest and understanding of war and terrorism, some seem distant from the subject and need this additional context.
Nancy M. Sophy's pastel and poppy oil on paper works look decorative. There is a pleasing quality about the pieces that resembles clumsily printed gingham that has faded over time. But these pieces - 'Lebanon, July 12, 2006 (cluster surprise)'; 'Lebanon, July 12, 2006 (friendly fire)'; 'Lebanon, July 12, 2006 (don't worry about the bomb)' - are some of the most poignant in the show as it becomes apparent these patterns aerial views of cities during bombings.
Sakaguchi's paintings hover between a lyrical reading of reality and an obsession with the fantasy of war play. In his "USS New Jersey", the watery acrylic bleeds through the abrupt sketches of hands. The making of a model is shown juxtaposed to battleships at the docks. The equation contains is efficient and objective, neither condemning nor glorifying the innate violence in war play. This ambiguity, this ambivalence, is even more evident in "Puling Tank." Here the tension between play and reality is taut as a rhinoceros beetle and a tank engage in a tug of war across a minimal canvas damasked with a pale purple and green.
Jaime B. Treadwell
There is none of this tension in Jaime B. Treadwell panels. Her oil is glossy and adds additional hollowness to the pop quality of this work. The depth of the work is an almost single minded intention of her figures. In "Training Camp", Treadwell brilliantly captures a self-contained contentment and chilling potential brutality of a girl in a camouflaged one-piece sitting in an inflatable pool. The glossy void that surrounds the pool reflects the vibrant color, only to pull the reflection into nothingness. She wears a pink helmet - half swimming cap, half Kaiser helmet - which suggests a total unification of play and destructive capability.
In the varied work of "Useless Weapons", the linguistic tension of that title becomes more apparent. Certainly, it is a larger political cry of the futility of recent American war mongering. But it is also a more nuanced comment on our reactions to the violence relayed by mass media. It recalls World War III as J. G. Ballard described in 'The Atrocity Exhibition': "The blitzkriegs will be fought out on our spinal battlefields, in terms of the postures we assume, of our traumas mimetized in the angle of a wall or balcony." The true battles will be in how we consume the information of death and destruction.
Nicholas Hayes
Useless Weapons
Until February 16
Green Lantern
1511 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60622-2009
T: +1 773.235.0936
www.thegreenlantern.org
Nicholas Hayes holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His creative work includes fiction, poetry and an occasional piece of criticism and has appeared in various journals including Bloom, 5_trope, queerPhilosophy, Lodestar Quarterly, Eleven Eleven and Suspect Thoughts. He is currently collaborating on queerly contemporary re-tellings of Greek myths with Terri Griffith.
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