Power of mercy.

BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL

FEIGEN CONTEMPORARY

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

FEBRUARY 10-APRIL 29, 2006

The exhibition "Blessed Are the Merciful," currently showing at Feigen Contemporary, is rich in its painterly materiality. This show of works by twenty-four emerging and mid-career artists was curated by Jerome Jacobs. Jacobs, the owner of the gallery Aeroplastics Contemporary in Brussels, Belgium, effectively presents his views of pop culture, politics, and power--all of which he considers to be corrupt and a potential threat to the values of mankind. In reference to the collection of works, he has recently stated that they stand at "the intersection of latent violence and fear that highlights the need to treasure respect for human dignity. The individuality of the human being is of prime importance here." (1)

As the biblical title suggests, the show aims to heighten awareness of humanity and compassion. The stylistic affinities with the European tradition are evident in a number of the artists shown. For example, photographer Carlos Aires, from Spain, draws his inspiration from Spanish royal court imagery. He appropriates some of the marginalized characters such as dwarfs and Catholic nuns, who inhabit paintings by Francisco Goya, Jose Ribera, and Diego Velasquez.

In addition to these historical allusions, Aires's photo installation "In a Glass Darkly" (2005), comprised of lambda prints with polyurethane frames, reflects re-use of existing contemporary imagery. The portraits of ordinary people and their pop culture idols face each other in a corridor-like space. Each of the walls have been painted a dark green color to give the impression of a domestic ambience, in which these photographs might be conventionally seen. The images, however, are tightly hung and identically framed so they appear to mirror each other. The effect reinforces the self-referential and narcissistic character of pop culture.

From profundity to an exploitation of the human condition, human foibles can be witnessed in nearly every work present in the show. However, they are most apparent in David Nicholson's powerfully charged, bawdy, theatrical, and oversized oil on canvas Reason and Fury (2006). In this allegory to war in the twenty-first century, the artist negates humanity where the raging nemesis of winged demons and chimeras are star performers amid the devastation and misery of this apocalyptic scene. The artist has used the most intense and shocking imagery to emphasize how destructive the forces of war can be.

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Just as impressive is Ronald Ophuis's enormous oil on canvas Srebrenica (2003-2005). His depiction of Bosnian prisoners of war gathered in a barn minutes before their execution is cutting in its cold harsh realism. This image evokes an association with the Public Broadcst Service documentary A Cry from the Grave (1999), an account of the brutal murder of 7,000 men in Srebrenica in 1995. Both the film and the painting reveal the horror of a massacre in the name of reactionary conflict. Like other artists in the show, Ophuis pleads for compassion.

Another form of conflict is evident in the work of Ryan McNamara, exposing the potential that maternal love also has for evil. His works Face Flash (C-print), Where Babies Should Be (C-print), Mom Hand Plat (embossed plate), Zombies are Angels, too (video), and The Mortises (video) (all 2006) are arranged in the corner of the gallery space in a way that resembles an altar or shrine. It includes and exploits cinematic imagery of devil possession, in which the artist, through filmed performance, assumes the key role. His photo album-like still images present a parental relationship that is literally a "blood" connection of two bodies. In one C-print a mother points to the very place Where Babies Should Be, as the title suggests, while probing into her child's body through an aperture in his stomach to exert power over him.

This installation corresponds with an assemblage by Stephen j Shanabrook. The artist's work comprises various surgical scalpels and razors, randomly affixed with plasters and bandages. Subversively titled L.O.V.E. as a List of Vicarious Edges (2006), the work has an appealing immediacy but a more sinister message to impart. Simultaneously, it highlights both healing and bodily abuse, pain and recovery.

A video work by Nezaket Ekici, a Turkish-born artist, also has a body focus. Ekici deals with bodily transformation similar to a religious trance. During her video performance, Schleierkampf/Veil Fight (2004), she quickly veils and unveils her traditional burka. Her repetitive energy alludes to religious fanaticism and becomes a subversive act against an ethos of conservatism. Here, the veil is a manifestation of the power of the husband to own his wife's body. Equally, the suppression of knowledge has a potential to ultimately incite rebellion.

Like Ekici, the pioneering Iranian woman photographer Shadi Ghadirian questions the position and treatment of women in Islamic society. This is depicted by placing women in contrived nineteenth-century oriental studio settings. In the sepia photo series "Qajar" (2001) the women are awkwardly posed with modern domestic objects. This suggests that although they live in the twenty-first century, Eastern tradition has imprisoned them in the past. In her series of C-prints "Like Everyday (Domestic Life)" (2001), Ghadirian substitutes the women's faces with kitchen utensils. By doing this she objectifies her subjects and carries them into a realm of domestic subservience. These images reflect on the idolatry of the sacred. This challenging of morality is a reaction to the corrupt nature of religion that is subverted by the critical language of the artist.

"Blessed are the Merciful" exemplifies strategies of resistance to the world through diverse means including video, painting, sculpture, photography, and installation. The juxtaposition of these media emphasizes the dialectics of the curatorial premise that is concerned with the corruption of money, power, and religion. These themes are exposed from a geopolitical standpoint and presented as contingent and provisional, whereby compassion might be seen as a way of universal communication. In effect, the overall message is one of hope--that with kindness, understanding, and humanity, all will not be lost.

YULIA TIKHONOVA is a freelance writer living in New York City.