|
  
|
Cover of The Stranger, August 7 - 13, 2003
From the Stranger, Thursday, August 7, 2003:
Picks: Jack Daws and William Kentridge (ART)
Jack Daws is wildly irreverent, but he's never without a point: The objects he fabricates veer a few degrees away from normal, and in those few degrees is a world of meaning. This, his first solo show, features sculpture and photographs, and includes a playpen bounded by barbed wire, a windmill sculpted out of coal, the twin towers built of French fries (pardon me, Freedom fries), and other items that carry his nutty political charge. By way of excellent contrast, Greg Kucera is also showing new drawings and prints by South African artist William Kentridge, one of the few political artists who doesn't make me yawn. - EMILY HALL
|
|
|
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 9, 2002:
When talk is exhausted, artists turn to their craft, creating fresh experience
by REGINA HACKETT
"American flags pickled like pigs' feet, used motor oil filling a U.S.-shaped container, stuffed animals on the march, the American dream as a military zone: These are some of the ways visual artists have responded to the national disaster known by its date, 9/11. "Everything is different now, but nothing has changed," said Seattle artist Jack Daws. He is one of the artists appearing in "States of the Union: Before and After" at the Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave. S.
Visually stark, beautiful even, his flags pickled in glass jars suggest a fluid range of meanings. We pickle what we want to save, a homespun American tradition. On the other hand, pickling the flag suggests it suffered a fatal blow. What part of being American can we protect from those who want so desperately to destroy us? When talk is exhausted, we turn to art.
Cliches cling to tragedies, and art peels them off, letting us see fresh facets of the experience. For a good reason, no other major Seattle gallery and no art museum chose to confront this particular experience head on. Artists aren't known for sparing anybody's feelings, and feelings run high on the subject of airplanes full of people turned into bombs that killed thousands. Artists can't be counted on for solace. Since the birth of the modern era, they have insisted on the freedom to examine freely any ideas and emotions, which is why art flourishes (when allowed to) in democracies and dies under dictatorships. The Kucera exhibit is the best but far from the only thing happening in visual art circles to commemorate 9/11."
|
