Catharine Clark Gallery continues its Spring 2019 program with White House, a group exhibition featuring new and recent work by Chester Arnold, Sandow Birk, Al Farrow, Michael Hall, Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport, and Stephanie Syjuco. The expansive presentation – which encompasses the main galleries, as well as the media and viewing rooms – considers the impact of institutional power on our civic consciousness, while offering space to critically reflect upon the “iconic” structures and symbols associated with American democracy.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is Al Farrow’s The White House (2018) – the artist’s first secular structure in his “Reliquary” series – which originally debuted at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco, as part of the traveling survey exhibition Al Farrow: Divine Ammunition. Farrow began plans for a structure based on the White House in 2001, during George W. Bush’s first term in office. The Bush administration’s responses to September 11th – armed conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and intrusion on citizens’ rights by legislation such as the Patriot Act – provoked Farrow to consider the impact of the Executive Office on American’s lives. In the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election, Farrow decided to revisit plans to build a structure that reflected on the presidency itself and its relationship with violent interventions across history.
The exhibition is complemented by a Viewing Room presentation of the complete suite of Sandow Birk’s gravures from the Imaginary Monuments series, co-published by Catharine Clark Gallery and Mullowney Printing, San Francisco. White House opens with a reception on Saturday, May 18, 2019 from 4 – 6pm, with artist talks at 4:30pm.
Click here to read the full exhibition press release
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