Romulo Sans “Between Heaven and Hell”
WHITE BOX
This event has ended.
WhiteBox Project Room presents the solo exhibition of Romulo Sans titled Romulo Sans: Between Heaven and Hell. Like the Catholic posthumous, impure state of the soul in a nether region between salvation and damnation, the exhibition explores the liminal space of other dichotomies including sacred/profane, religiosity/secularism, orthodoxy/heterodoxy, individual/collective, spirit/corporeality, and East/West.
Whereas in previous works Sans created narrative sagas that ran the gamut of gritty urban New York street culture to impeccably staged mise-en-scenes that converge haute couture with memento mori, Romulo Sans: Between Heaven and Hell is more topical by indirectly citing events within the context of social violence, Religious authoritarianism, political corruption, corporate greed, media collusion, and consumerism. Exemplifying this is a photograph of what appears to be a runway model casually smoking a cigarette with a blue recycling bag over her head filled with environmentally toxic products. Is this some avant-garde fashion accessory or a poignant eco-political work about the complacency of culture and the culture of complacency?
In another work, the word Caliphate is written in typography used in Coca-Cola advertisements. On the one hand, the work mines Western Islamophobia and its perception of terror groups wanting to become ubiquitous and inevitably corporatized. On the other hand, it also alludes to shadow economies and vulture capitalism evinced, for instance, in Western multinational corporations with subsidiaries who indirectly fund religious and political violence to create economic opportunities in their pathological desire for global power.
Proceeds will benefit Whitebox Project Room’s new programming.
Media
Schedule
from May 20, 2015 to June 10, 2015
Opening Reception on 2015-05-20 from 19:00 to 21:00