BUSH-WHACK!
October 1 – November 2, 2004
From October 1st through Election Day November 2nd, the George Adams Gallery will present a group invitational exhibition titled “Bush-Whack!” Featuring politically responsive work by 14 artists Bush-Whack! is unapologetically partisan and expresses the views of the George Adams Gallery. The exhibition includes new works by gallery and invited artists critical of President George W. Bush as well as historical works that address the presidency of George Bush Sr. Participating artists include Robert Arneson, James Barsness, Yoan Capote, Enrique Chagoya, Sue Coe, Patricia Dahlman, Bart de Koning Gans and Mitchell Marco, Lesley Dill, Diane Edison, Jon Haddock, Rajkamal Kahlon, Anthony Kulig, Andrew Lenaghan, Trong Nguyen, David Sandlin, Peter Saul, and Erika Wanenmacher.
The Kennedy’s, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan (as Governor of California) all figured prominently in Peter Saul’s paintings of the 1960s, and Saul later reprised his depiction of Reagan as president during the 1980s. While he opted out of artistically skewering George Bush Sr. (“Too boring”), this past year Saul completed a painting of George W. Bush, which depicts Salvador Dali urinating in the President’s ear, will be on view in “Bush-Whack!”
During the 1980s and 1990s, both Robert Arneson and Enrique Chagoya produced works critical of presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. In 1991, for example, Robert Arneson responded to the first Gulf War with a series of images caricaturizing then-President Bush, focusing on his oil interests as the true motivation for the war in Kuwait. “Wimp Dip,” for example, a large-scale painting included in the current exhibition, shows the ex-president covered in oil. With similar sentiments, in 1989 Chagoya produced “Double Agent,” (included in the current exhibition), a billboard size drawing of George Bush, Sr. as Superman with x-ray vision, a reference to the ex-president’s CIA affiliations. And in his recent series entitled “Poor George (After Philip Guston),” Chagoya updated Guston’s 1971 series by replacing Nixon with the equally hapless figure of George W. Bush.
Santa Fe based artist, Erika Wanenmacher has also created work critiquing both Bush presidents. “Warhead”(1992), an intricately wood carved portrait of Bush Sr. with a smiling grimace plastered on his face, opens up to reveal a violent, war-torn scene. More recently, Wanenmacher has integrated her political sentiments into the piece “Manifest Destiny,”(included in the current exhibition) a two-part work with a framed hand-colored print of Jesus guiding a young ship captain juxtaposed with a wood carved and fimo sculpted shipwreck.
Other artists have created new work specifically for the exhibition. For example, Andrew Lenaghan’s “Portrait of GWB” is based on a photograph of the president using a chainsaw at his Crawford Ranch. Rendered in a style similar to the Saddam Hussein propaganda paintings done during the dictator’s reign, the large-scale painting subverts any notion of homage with the prominent addition of an earplug in Bush’s ear.
The exhibition will be on view October 1 – November 2. The gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6:00pm. Images can be viewed on the gallery's website at www.artnet.com/gadams.html and on the Art Dealers Association website, www.artdealers.org.
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS :
NOVEMBER – DECEMBER Yoan Capote: Young Cuban artist’s first one-man show in the U.S.
JANUARY-FEBRUARY Arneson and the Object: Organized by the Palmer Museum of Art, Pennsylvania State University. Featuring sculptures and drawings by Robert Arneson (1930-92), the exhibition explores the importance of the everyday object in the artist’s work. A 48-page color catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
