As Bryan Miller Gallery's press release on Jamal Cyrus' DKONKR says, the show is "like an elaborately prepared puzzle with clues to the artist's intent spanning eras and epochs." Except for several parchment works in the back gallery, the pieces in the show are puzzle pieces that stand not only physically but compositionally apart. At first glance, no two are obviously alike or even related.
Opposite the door, an oversized stencil of a plant leaf greets you. It's flanked by several potted plants from the plant species Ipomoea, John the Conqueror, from which the show derives its name and a whole lot of its mojo.
Stepping into the main gallery, a large photograph of a dead dog printed on leather hangs to the left. The word "Birmingham" runs down its left side. I assumed the image is from the Birmingham freedom marches. In speaking with Cyrus, he revealed that the image is actually from Afghanistan, which in my mind immediately equated civil rights marchers and Afghan "freedom fighters".
A few feet a way is what looks like a gelatinous blob covered in Cream O' Wheat. Closer inspection and a hint from the title and list of materials tells me it's a pig made of ballistic gel, which is used to discover/predict the "effect" of a ballistic projectile on a flesh-like object. It's also covered in grits. I get an odd sensation of breakfast, gunpowder, and the scientific approach of killing and maiming. This piece shoots into my brain the thought of a sheriff or a staff sergeant in a southern slang ordering me to eat up because we had a "big job" ahead of us and we'd need the strength.
Bo Lee Ballistic gel, grits 8.5" x 4.5" x 4.5" |
FA / TA / HA, 2011 Archival digitial print on reflective substrate, wood 37" x 37" x 28" |
Untitled, 2011 Mylar over digital print on hardboard 14" x 20" photo courtesy of Bryan Miller Gallery |
Eroding Witness (Episode #203), 2011 Laser cut papyrus 24" x 17" photo courtesy of Bryan Miller Gallery |
Cyrus studiously removes enough of the context to force us toward abstraction and generalization. Are the protesters in Egypt's Tahir Square or in Yemen "militant anarchists" or "terrorists" who threaten the fabric of civilized society? In the eyes of an established kleptocracy, which stands to lose control and currency if power shifts, hell yes. But only in the same way that the demands of the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the Black Panthers, the Chicano movement, Native American movement were "acts of anarchy" because granting them human rights would threaten the stability of a society that profited from denying them dignity.
The mojo of the show is Jamal's handling of these images. The puzzle and its momentary disorientation is the "sugar" that gets the audience to swallow the medicine. He creates a moment where a viewer whose profited (either consciously or unconsciously) from the oppressions of others might cheer the Arab Spring only to realize that the oppressed whose rights he so passionately defended are not just over there but also right here. (Looked at any state budgets lately?) Robert Mankoff's cartoon published in the New Yorker February 28, 2011 issue sums up the conundrum quite succinctly. "I'm thrilled that the aspirations of the oppressed might be fulfilled over there but very concerned that it might spread to over here."
Walk the maze and work the puzzle of the show if you dare to confront DKONKR. The only thing missing may be a mirror.
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