LOVE/WAR/SEX
December 1, 2007-January 26, 2008
Opening: Saturday, December 1, 7-10 pm
Jakob Boeskov, Margot Herster, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Fawad Khan, Ellen Lake,
Rebecca Loyche, Guerra de la Paz, Francesco Simeti, Nick Waplington
Exit Art wants to tell you war stories through the vision of nine international artists. Love/War/Sex considers memory, history, ornaments, weapons and personal stories. This exhibition connects longing with violence and love with war, imagining the business of war in all its sexual manifestations. As a cultural space, we want to respond to current global conflicts by presenting this exhibition Love/War/Sex, a comment on our culture’s fascination with, and addiction to, war.
Love/War/Sex considers the conflation of those basic human instincts—a toxic combination manifested in images and stories coming out of Iraq. The works relate disparate issues such as weapon infatuation, war nostalgia, and the sexualization of violence to form an overall image of war as a perversely necessary part of our culture.
The exhibition incorporates video, sculpture, wallpaper, and a selection of weapons and military vehicles - the very tools that perpetuate societal shifts and make war possible —on loan from the Military Museum of Southern New England. The walls of the gallery will be papered with personal stories, imagining war conjured from texts.
Jakob Boeskov’s apocalyptic video "War Wizard" depicts lustful soldiers and their “wizard” enemy as they invade a little boy’s dreams. The “wizard”, who embodies at once Jesus, Osama bin Laden and an Iraqi prisoner, is tortured with sex and violence by dancing soldiers. Margot Herster presents an insider view of Guantanamo politics with "This is an introduction tape", a video of the families of detainees telling their relatives to trust the lawyers representing them. Referencing sports and porn as stimulants, Tessa Hughes-Freeland’s ‘educational’ video "Watch Out!" explains how explicit films can warp the minds of young men. Fawad Khan fuses car culture with war imagery to create a sexy but violent wall painting that evokes the chaos of a suicide bombing. Ellen Lake’s short film "Betty + Johnny" combines digital video and home movies shot in the 1930s and 40s to tell the story of a love lost during World War II. Rebecca Loyche’s three-channel video installation, "All’s Fair in Love and War", is a disturbing portrait of a weapons specialist who teaches military personnel how to kill. The unnamed subject of the short videos describes in detail the tools and methods employed to kill during combat. Guerra de la Paz presents "Crawl", a cloth sculpture of a dying soldier, and "The Kiss", an intimate photograph of toy army men in an embrace. Francesco Simeti’s "Watching the War" combines explosion clouds and images of the war in Afghanistan to create deceptively ornate wallpaper. Juxtaposing images of war and the Iraqi landscape with keg parties and families in America, Nick Waplington’s photographs offer a telling glimpse into life at the war front and back at home.
This exhibition has been curated by Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo.
ABOUT EXIT ART
Exit Art is an independent vision of contemporary culture. We are prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives. We do experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues. We absorb cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions. We are a center for multiple disciplines. Exit Art is a 25 year old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo, that has grown from a pioneering alternative art space, into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture. Exit Art is internationally recognized for its unmatched spirit of inventiveness and consistent ability to anticipate the newest trends in the culture. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art is always on the verge of change.
EXHIBITION SUPPORT
General exhibition support provided by Carnegie Corporation, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Starry Night Fund at The Tides Foundation, Exit Art’s Board of Trustees and our members. Public programs support provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Special thanks to Sam Johnson and the Military Museum of Southern New England in Danbury, Connecticut.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Exit Art is located at 475 Tenth Avenue, corner of 36th Street. Exit Art is open each Tuesday through Thursday, 10 am - 6 pm; Friday, 10 am - 8 pm; Saturday, noon - 8 pm. Closed Sunday and Monday. There is a suggested donation of $5. For more information please call 212-966-7745 or visit www.exitart.org.
