Arnold Mesches “Next In Line: The FBI Series”
Life on Mars Gallery
This event has ended.
Originally presented in 2002 at MoMA PS1, the works in The FBI Series was Mesches’ reaction to a series of events beginning with the 1950s-era theft of paintings he made as a response to the Rosenberg trials. Mesches suspected the FBI of the theft. In 1999, Mesches discovered and gained access to 760 pages of FBI files covering intelligence about his activities in protests, and his personal life and work between 1945 and 1972. Mesches was inspired by the aesthetic beauty of the typed pages, on which large portions of text were obscured with black marker. He integrated actual pages from the files with newspaper clippings, photographs, paintings, drawings and hand-written texts to create vividly-colored, “contemporary illuminated manuscripts”. Mesches’ work, informed by world history, is included in a number of major museum collections worldwide.
Our belief in and support for Arnold Mesches as one of America’s great painters is only heightened in today’s political climate of increased NSA surveillance and a steady decrease in personal privacy. Life on Mars is proud to present another look at this crucial, prescient and relevant body of work.
We will also be exhibiting, for the first time, Mesches’ most recent work, a large-scale collage of portraits entitled, “Next In Line”. This masterwork of drawing and collage is based on photographs Mesches took during his most recent exhibition at Life on Mars, and features images of artists, critics and the audience that passed through the exhibition. The portraits are nameless and searching, posing the question, “How does one remain an individual in a society of ever-increasing surveillance, where we never know who is watching who?” They extend the questions posed in The FBI Series (without referring to Mesches’ own personal experience) by creating a visual dystopia - Next in Line… Is it you?.. Is it us?
Media
Schedule
from October 02, 2014 to November 02, 2014
Opening Reception on 2014-10-02 from 18:00 to 21:00