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| Courtesy Sideshow Gallery |
Quivers
Prints at Sideshow gallery by Richard Mock and the 'Taller de Grafica Popular' draw a comparison in 'Matching Two Points in History.'
By DAVID HATCHETT
Offoffoff.com
Richard Mock's linocuts attempt to influence the political maelstrom of a polarized nation. As an editorial printmaker, his images accompanied articles in the op-ed page of the New York Times from 1978-1996, and are currently distributed worldwide through the Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate. Mock taps the subversive nature of printmaking, outside of the rarified context of art, and uses it to engage political dialogue through the public media.
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| | | RICHARD MOCK | Exhibition: Matching Two Points in History.
Works by: Richard Mock.
| | SCHEDULE | October 23 - November 22, 2004
Gallery: Sideshow Gallery
319 Bedford Ave.
Brooklyn NY
Phone: (718) 786-8180
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The prints' are a continuous field of marking, a cartooned impressionism. The Wolf is wearing a bonnet in bed under the American flag in "Trust Me". His headboard is a replica of the White House. In "Bush Knew," Mock depicts the President playing a shell game with airliners. One miniature plane is crashing under the table, another has crashed in Bush's brain, and a third has been uncovered under one of the shells. In "CIA-FBI," Mock depicts two toads with their tongues tied, as three airliners take off in different directions with military jets in the air around them, recalling the morning of 9/11. This collection of prints makes a courageous stance for freedom of speech. Mock directly reflects a climate effected by Iraq, Enron, Osama and the Deficit. In his big fisted, carved drawing, black and white, American funk delivery, Mock smashes images together as signifiers to be decoded.
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| A single quiver carries an arsenal of arrows. | |
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'Matching Two Points In History' is a two-part show. An adjacent room features Mexican prints by Jose Guadalupe Posada, circa 1910 and the Taller de Grafica Popular (Workshop of the People's Graphics) from 1937. Posada's satirical skeleton imagery inspired Leopoldo Mendez and the Taller artists. The group of sixteen, including Raul Angiano, Angel Brach, and Alfred Zalce, were unequivocally anti-fascist in the 1930's when Fascism was striving for world domination. Sideshow director Richard Timperio presents a comparison between the use of printmaking by the Taller Group in the fight against fascism in the 30's and the prints by Richard Mock today.
In our media-driven, hyper-visual environment, where we are told to fear terrorists, liberals and above all, to fear change of any sort, after an election where fear undermined reason, pictures can have more impact than words. Richard Mock calls the series of prints in this show 'Quivers.' A single quiver carries an arsenal of arrows.
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NOVEMBER 20, 2004
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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