back to exhibition of Paul Petro Contemporary Arts, 2004
ABOUT THIS EXHIBITION |
For a mail art piece "use a bicycle"2004 sent from New York City before the show, I have used postcards that show and commemoratie the World Trade Center. In stead of the usual US postal stamps I glued self made stamps from drawings of mine that are based on the terminology characterizing the Bush admininistration: 9/11, Al Queda, Operation Enduring Freedom, Homeland Security, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Shock and Awe, Axis of Evil and others. The postcards simply display the address and the words "use a bicycle" words that can be read and interpreted in a variety of ways. This work with it legal ambivalence is playing with the notion of symbolic civil disobidience. To my relief, with the exception of one all cards sent arrived. The two "news paintings" Forbes.com, Reuters World News Higlights 1900 GMT, 1/9/04, 2004,and Newsday.com, bicycle bomb, 1/6/04, 2004 bring a reality to the notion of the bicylce that is shocking and traumatic: bicyle bombigs that occured only a couple of months ago. I noticed these bombings in the news and incuded these news items in my "more news" series. This series is made up of realistic paintings on canvas of news content taken from mainstream US news web sites, and all other periferal information including advertisments. The bicycle is usually associated with non aggression and environmental friendliness. In these paintings, bicycles are involved in the most horrific and unsetteling crimes that parade our news horrizons in these days. The (suicide) bombings that have become so frequent in the last couple of years are associated with issues of religious fundamentalism, the Middle East, national self-dertermination and oil. The interpretion and representation of this theatrics of death and total distruction in the media is as contested as the complexity of the political, economic, social, religiouis, historical and ideological problems that create the context for these incomprehensible and self-annihilating acts of absolute violence. As it is the case with all of my news releated art works, I only reproduce mains stream news reports as they are fludding us, the active and passive consumers of media. I see this freeze framing of news content that changes on the internet by the second and on the news stand by the day in the tradition of European history paintings. It is ironic tha the taste of t "Old Europe"'s for history paintings partially coincidedwith the onset of its imperialist interests and colonial actions. Since I have the bicycle as my axis of reference I also include two works on papers from my study series "My first 500 Hours Basic Arabic" and "My second 500 Hours Basic Chinese" that show somewhere in their midst the word bicycle: Basic Arabic, (study sheet), New York 1/29/04, 2004, Basic Chinese, (study sheet), New York 2/19/04, 2004
WORKLIST: Forbes.com, Reuters World News Higlights 1900 GMT, 1/9/04, 2004 acrylic paint on canvas, certificate of authenticity, apprx. 88 x 62 inches (220 cm x 160 cm) Newsday.com, bicycle bomb, 1/6/04, 2004 acrylic paint on canvas, certificate of authenticity, apprx. 84 x 64 inches (220 cm x 160 cm) In Poor Albania, Mercedes Rules Road, by Daniel Simpson, The New York Times, 10 November 2002, 2003 paper, certificate of authenticity,19 x 23 3/4 4 inches (220 cm x 160 cm) Bicycling Tirana, 2003 video approx. 8 min E-mail error, Monday, December 1, 2003, 7:40 PM pencil drawing, graphite on paper, 110 x 75 cm Basic Chinese, (study sheet),2/19/04, 2004 work on paper, 9 x 12 inches Basic Arabic, (study sheet), 1/29/04, 2004 work on paper, 9 x 12 inches Bicycling, 2004 use a bicycle, mail art project with self made stamps, 2004 16 postcards (8 sent one and 8 empty one for reference) - certificate of authenticity these postcards were sent in the mail and have arrived - one with the stamp'homeland security' has not made it yet through the mail system.
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