The Great White

The Great White

Curated by Srdjan Loncar

Opening Reception: Saturday July 12, 6p.m. - 9p.m.
Exhibition Dates: July 12th - July 31th, 2008
Gallery Hours: Saturday and Sunday 12p.m. - 5p.m.

Press Release: by Thomasine Bartlett

Silent. Eloquent. Disturbing. Crossed-out faces of Balkan dead. Naked Japanese men surrendering at the close of World War II. Whimsical drawings of torture, distortion, grotesque mutilation and mutation - a world gone awry. Anti-political. Pro-human.

The July show at Good Children Gallery, curated by Croatian artist and gallery partner Srdjan Loncar, focuses on the de-humanization caused by institutionalized violence and war. Loncar's global perspective is reflected by the choice of artists invited to participate: Ukrainian artist Yevgeniy Ampleyev, Croatian artist Rajko Radovanovic and the Japanese collaborative team, Taro Hatori and Mayumi Hamanaka. Collectively titled The Great White, the invitation for the show features an all-white American flag: white - the symbol of peace -- the color of surrender. On the verso, each artist's name is placed beside a black-and-white image of the flag of his/her country.

According to Rajko Radovanovic, modern political establishments "create the notion of 'other,' the modern word for enemy. It is through this concept of 'difference' that they [political establishments] seek to provide a moral justification for harming fellow human beings." Radovanovic was born in Yugoslavia, "a country which now no longer exists." He currently "lives and works in Great Britain and in that portion of the world which currently carries the political definition of 'Croatia.'" His art reflects his political convictions; the right-hand panel of the work for this show bears the title of the piece: The precondition to doing violence to any group of people or nation is to make them less than human. The left-hand panel is a snapshot of officers from the JNA - the now-defunct Yugoslavian People's Army - with red faces obliterated by black crosses.

"'Surrender' is a contract. 'Surrender' is a contract of unstable power relationships at a catastrophic point," states Taro Hatori in reference to Japanese Males Surrender, one of several collaborative works with Mayumi Hamanaka. The pair found a "dynamic relationship" between the ideas of"surrender" in war zones and "stereotyped masulinity (sexuality) of Japanese males," when viewed through an "investigation of the U.S.-Japan political relationship" after WWII. Mayumi Hamanaka feels that "War is a monster, and we are part of it, being responsible for the creation of this monster." Hamanaka symbolically buries human bodies in her artwork: "...human bodies accumulate themselves, become the soil and create more layers on the ground. This is how the landscape begins and how we progress in our history." Japanese Males Surrender consists of scrolls bearing life-size images of nude Japanese men in positions of surrender. The scrolls form a circle around the viewer, confronting him/her from every angle. The scrolls are accompanied by a book of actual WWII photographs of surrender.

Yevgeniy Ampleyev works from his imagination, suggesting that "some images and events depicted should be regarded as visual metaphors rather than literal representations." The viewer should sigh with relief - the images are often of unimaginable horrors of distortion, mutation, amputation and torture. Drawn in pencil on white paper, the style is both whimsical and lyrical, pulling the viewer into a closer inspection - which reveals the not-so-pleasant reality of missing hands replaced by hooks, missing legs replaced by tree stumps and heavy black boots sinking into soft, white flesh. Women's bodies partially emerge from boxes; hooks and chains manipulate a mad marionette as he clubs specimens of other species; birds soar while trailing entrails from their beaks, and human bodies sport animal heads. While birthday cakes rest atop pedestals of bisected human bodies, the celebration continues: life as usual, in a world of power gone haywire.

Altogether, The Great White promises to be a dazzling moment in the on-going excitement of the new St. Claude Avenue Arts District. As New Orleans re-shuffles, re-defines, and re-builds itself in the wake of its war with nature, the show will give us all the opportunity to re-think the injustices of any war - of all human indignity - and to work together accordingly.