CURRENT

I Support The War / The War Supports Me

Monday May 19, 2008


UPCOMING EXHIBITION

BH-mayshow-front

View work in progress

Burtonwood & Holmes
“I Support the War / The War Supports Me (ISTW / TWSM)”
GARDENfresh Gallery, Chicago, IL

...Also in the other half of the gallery Alain Douglas Park presents “Pedestal” an exhibition of new work

Artists reception: Friday May 30th, 6 – 10pm
Exhibition continues through June 28th
Gallery hours Fri + Sat noon – 5pm
or by appointment

“… the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals… True war is a celebration of markets.” —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

Just over five years on since President Bush announced “Mission Accomplished” on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, artists Burtonwood and Holmes present a new exhibition I Support the War / The War Supports Me (ISTW/TWSM). With this exhibition the artists mark a return to heroic scale painting combined with an all-encompassing installation to assault the viewer with an all over experience of consumption and excess.

“…Logistics is the procedure following which a nation’s potential is transferred to its armed forces, in times of peace as in times of war…” –Paul Virilio, Pure War

For this exhibition at GARDENfresh Gallery the artists split their exhibition space in half.

The first section presents a new installation (Zeitgeist) MMIII – MMVIII that draws upon contributions from over twenty visual artists from the Chicago area. B+H have painted scenes from the Iraq war on directly on the walls of the gallery and invited artists to hang their own art works on top of these painted areas. The images of warfare and violence provide a lens through which we can re-interpret the art works displayed as products of a nation at war.

The artists will wall paper the second section in their trade mark junk mail and sales fliers, to surround the viewer on all sides with everyday images from the grocery store. In this environment B & H have placed interventions in the form of inflatable decoy balloons coupled with small scale diorama pieces all camouflaged with the same marketing material.

Over 5 years ago in the run up to the Iraq war artists Holly Holmes and Tom Burtonwood began a body of work to protest the upcoming conflict and explore the wider implications of materiel culture. In 2006 the artists produced a 3/4 scale sculpture of an Abrams battle tank at the Open Studio Residency in downtown Chicago, an old store front across from the new ABC 7 TV studio. Recent exhibitions include Consuming War at the Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago) curated by Barbara Koenen, Capla Kesting Fine Art (Brooklyn) and Subtle Combat at Around the Coyote (Chicago) curated by Alison Stites.

GARDENfresh is an artist run space in Chicago.

Artists reception: Friday May 30th, 6 – 10pm
Exhibition continues through June 28th
Gallery hours Fri + Sat noon – 5pm
or by appointment


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