Compassion or Condemnation?
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
On one wall of Raymond Pettibon’s new show at David Zwirner Gallery are the words “Israel Is Moral,” painted in light blue, with a caret inserting the letter “t” between the “r” and “a” of the final word, so that it also reads as “Mortal.” An expression of compassion or one of condemnation? You might think you know the answer; you might think you know what he’s really getting at. But to the extent that this is an art installation and not just a piece of political sloganeering, the only conclusion you can draw is that Mr. Pettibon wants you to think.
Mr. Pettibon likely feels “think” is a verb that has fallen into desuetude in this country, and as an example he might point to the surprising dearth of political art in the last four or more years. Needless to say, he does not suffer from the art world’s general quietude. “Here’s Your Irony Back (The Big Picture)” uses heartfelt and dazzling artistry to bellow its rage, embarrassment, disgust, and frustration at the current presidential administration, as well as the government and populace that have enabled it.
The title, which plays on the notion that the best political art is ironic, can be taken in a number of ways. It is a show of small pictures, works on paper usually combining graphite, gouache, ink, and acrylics in the artist’s widely celebrated array of comic-book styles. Attached directly to the wall, unframed, the sheets are grouped under three headings. The first is mentioned above. The others are “Two Cheers For The Red, White, and Blue” and “Tokio Hotel,” which is also the name of a German rock band. The former is obviously sardonic, the latter somewhat inscrutable, except perhaps that it takes us back to Mr. Pettibon’s roots in the LA punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he designed album covers and flyers for the band Black Flag.
The least interesting sheets on view here are those merely charged with the adolescent anger of the punk era, not because they are wrong or right in the views expressed but because those views add little to debate. An image of a robed figure leading a young soldier across a highway, under the phrase “How Did The Chickenhawk Cross The Road?” left me perplexed but not likely to ponder it further.
Most of the work here, however, combines Mr. Pettibon’s energetic, affecting, yet chilly draftsmanship with penetrating darts of humor. Not surprisingly, quite a few pieces are inflammatory. President Bush — in a business suit rather than flight suit — raises his arms in triumph under a Mission Accomplished sign, surrounded by hands clapping as well as snippets of text: “If Tom Cruise Can Play Ladykiller, Then I’m A War Hero,” “Skunked Em, Did We?,” “The Ivy League Is Back (The Crimson Tide),” and “Game Over” among them. The president treats war as a game, many sheets suggest. In another, white men in Yale sweaters cram into, and around, a telephone booth; one resembling Mr. Bush holds a baseball. The caption: “A Surge That Worked.”
In “No Title (Mano-a-Mano)” — a work, like others here, with the power and mordancy of an etching from Goya’s “Disasters of War” series — bent nude figures in pointy black hoods are herded in a human chain, head to buttocks. Their muscles strain as they grope forward, their faces obscured by the slashes of black ink representing the hoods. “Suits vs. Skins” reads one bit of text in red ink. Across from it, a series of questions: “Who Calls The Plays? Who Runs The Offense? Who Writes The Playbook?” etc.
Still, Goya knew that when it comes to text in art, less tends to do more. Too many of these sheets are marred by long stretches of writing that carry little punch; it often feels like Mr. Pettibon doubts the strength of his considerable graphic abilities. He is better off with the gnomic one- or two-liners, such as “They Have Been Seen Over NY Lately” topping a drawing of an eagle soaring above the Empire State Building, while below is printed: “We Call Them Our California Condors.” And his abilities are limited not just to the graphic. Nodding at Cubism without descending into pastiche, a multi-colored, collaged still life of a bountifully replete table — watermelon, pears, apples, and a fish — offers the promise that “Nobody Is Turned Away.”
The irony in Mr. Pettibon’s “Big Picture” is at times slippery though, to his credit, rarely ungraspable. The show’s title, for instance, can be taken to mean that this is no time for sentimentality — one of the better sheets here offers a 1950s-era girl kneeling by her bed below the words, “We Grew Up In A Mattel World.” Or it can be taken as invective, thrusting ironies back in our faces — the naked, hooded prisoner seen throughout the show has become the international symbol of our land of liberty.
They might not be pretty, but these little pictures speak in a loud and lashing voice. Stand close and you’ll feel their spittle.
Until October 20 (519 W. 19th St., between Tenth and Eleventh avenues, 212-727-2070).