For That Which is Sacred
Works by Giancarlo Impiglia and Jasper White
Exhibition: April 23 - May 31, 2015
gallery nine5 is proud to unveil works by Giancarlo Impiglia and Jasper White in our latest exhibition, For That Which is Sacred. The two-person exhibition seeks to examine and expose the impact of war on our society. It is a decisive moment for the United States and the world at large, as we seek to understand the implications of violence domestically and abroad. With For That Which is Sacred, gallery nine5 hopes to highlight artists who are documenting the force of society’s tragedies using different mediums and methodologies, and achieve deeper contemplation of destructive human nature and our inherent ability to neutralize acts of war. Giancarlo Impiglia, hailing from a background of Italian Futurism, creates oil works on canvas that draw inspiration from classical motifs of the Italian Renaissance. Painting traditional scenes from works by artists such as Caravaggio, Impiglia comments on the pervasiveness of war and violence as a never-ending struggle of humanity. His camouflage canvas serves as a material reminder of the constant military backdrop of all interactions; we are all tinged with the masked hostility inherent in camouflage fabric. Regardless of era, Impiglia calls focus to the underlying current of extremism, relevant whether in the 17th century or the 21st. His work, Sacrifice, which depicts the Biblical story of Abraham being ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac, calls into question issues surrounding the measures people who go to in order to appease figures of authority. Though the religious implications of the work are clearly defined, with a lamb on the right representing the religious ultimate sacrifice of God’s own son, Jesus, the scene also accentuates the individual pains of each character it portrays – an agony that modern day soldiers can relate to, regardless of religious leaning. It is Impiglia’s ability to showcase human emotion that renders classical motifs hauntingly contemporary. Another of Impiglia’s works, Bacchus (Oblivion), a seemingly harmless portrait of the Greek god of debauchery, Bacchus, conveys a different set of emotions. Here, the artist criticizes the apathy of those content to ignore the tribulations of the world around them. Cloyingly oblivious, Bacchus represents a disinterested community, noncombatant in their enjoyment of the spoils of war.
Jasper White draws our attention to another aspect of unconsciousness with his Young Guns series. Photographing the bedrooms of young Israeli soldiers, White, with stunning vibrancy, lays out the facts of compulsory conscription for adolescents. His photographs serve as documentation of the nonchalance with which we subject our youth to weapons of murderous power. Strewn casually about in young men’s bedrooms are guns that equip them with violence. The heartbreak of the situation lies in the inherent indifference of these young men towards their weapons. The guns serve as merely another focal point on the landscape of their bedrooms, as much a part of their lives as posters and stuffed animals. White’s vivid imagery shows the guns as another object in a messy teenager’s room. Despite the detachedness of documentation, White has created beautiful and tragic imagery that seeks out deeper truths. The obvious emotions of Impiglia’s work enter into dialogue with White’s photojournalistic images; traditional painting confronts technological representations; gold-leaf frames contrast with simple white ones. Yet, despite the visual contradictions in the two artists’ works, both artists are grappling with a topic that confronts everyone in today’s world, artist and viewer alike. How are we to understand our long-term relationship with war, particularly as it appears to escalate exponentially as evidenced by current day events? Are there remedies to our apathy toward violence, or are we too far gone down the road to turn back? The two artists in That Which is Sacred show how we, as a society, are at a critical juncture; we can no longer afford to turn away. Maureen Chung Exhibitions Manager
Giancarlo Impiglia
Fear (Medusa), 2014 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 51 x 51 1/4 in | 129.5 x 130.2 cm Price upon request
Martyrdom (St. Sebastian), 2015 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 48 1/4 x 37 in | 122.6 x 94 cm Price upon request
Mother and Child, 2014 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 43 x 41 3/4 in | 109.2 x 106 cm Price upon request
Oblivion (Bacchus), 2015 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 32 3/4 x 46 in | 83.2 x 116.8 cm Price upon request
Pride Cast Down, 2013 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 40 x 52 1/2 in | 102 x 133.4 cm Price upon request
Since having established himself in the ‘70s with the re-invention of the Art Deco style, Giancarlo Impiglia’s vision has continued to evolve, dictated by the creative impetus that demands change and new modes of expression. His lifelong career has seen everything from assemblages of blue jeans to faceless, satirical figures at elegant parties, and geometric nudes dissolving into abstract landscapes. However, despite the breadth of his imagery, all of his work has been linked together by its critique of the contemporary socio-political landscape. The same can be said of Impiglia’s new series, For That Which is Sacred, even if such a critique strikes far more aggressively than ever before through a drastic stylistic departure. This change was essential, as Impiglia notes, brought by his anger, his fear, and his concern about today’s world. “My conscience and duty as an artist would not allow me to continue with the more pleasant, decorative paintings that I am known for,” the Rome-born artist says. This desire gave birth to his new, ferocious oil paintings where he revisits his classical artistic background, returning to life the brushstrokes of Renaissance and Baroque masters Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Reni with his own color, composition, and powerful vision. Such a return to the past immediately reminds the viewer of the timeless nature of violence and brutality as archaic, contorted, agonized figures juxtapose sharply with vivid camouflage–a clear symbol of modern warfare. But so too does this retrospection delve deeper: like Impiglia, the forbearers he draws upon also sought to bring to light contemporary issues with their art. However, they were largely restricted to the use of enduring Biblical stories in order to do so, creating a tradition that bridged the gap between the spiritual and secular worlds. In all of his recent works, such a tradition is one Impiglia continues and expands, layering his own, modern commentary on the shoulders of the ancient.
Take, for example, “Pride Cast Down.” According to the Bible, the originator of all sins is pride. It is pride that drives tyrants and the war and suffering they bring. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods–a time of numerous tyrants–the Biblical story of Judith and Holofernes was thus a popular subject among artists such as Caravaggio, used in order to speak out against oppression. The story tells of a beautiful widow named Judith who seduces the Assyrian general Holofernes–the personification of pride–eventually decapitating him and liberating the land. In his depiction of the story, Impiglia acknowledges that, although hundreds of years have passed since absolute monarchs ruled, people still suffer under the governments of tyrants, wishing to rise up like Judith to decapitate the heads of their state (and in some cases succeeding). But in the end, one tyrant is replaced by another, their rise and fall dictated by the faceless operators of organizations and governments. This is reflected in Impiglia’s appropriation of Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, where all that remains of Judith is a mysterious hand that wields a sword. So too does this hand reflect the modern world where killing is a detached, impersonal affair guided by pride and executed by the camouflaged military. Ultimately, in the absence of Judith, the viewer is also forced to sympathize with the tyrant, for he becomes a symbol of the simple horrors of murder, emphasized by the realism Caravaggio brings. Similarly, in “Defeat,” appropriated from Guido Reni’s masterpiece The Archangel Michael, empathy is shifted to the figure being banished by the angel–removed of its tail and wings, the figure becomes but an archetype of the ordinary, mortal man existing in an earthly, fiery hell, struck down by the glorified personification of victory. History may very well be written by the victors, and it is therefore easy to forget the lives of the conquered and what they endured for a fleeting territorial gain. In “Defeat,” Impiglia thus reminds the viewer of the forgotten.
The mortal man is once again represented in “The Wound” by a Christ made unidentifiable, headless, and bleeding from Caravaggio’s original work The Incredulity of St. Thomas. Wearing camouflage, Christ furthermore becomes a stark representation of the countless soldiers sent to their deaths, and is ultimately therefore given a secular role to play. He is followed down this path by St. Thomas, who becomes a reflection of society’s inherent fascination with war. Instead of gawking incredulously at what he is seeing, the saint points and inspects the gruesome wound in a gesture of both awe and curiosity. “St Sebastian,” appropriated from Guido Reni’s masterpiece of the same name, further emphasizes society’s obsession with war. The martyr, dressed in camouflage, brings into context the usage of camouflage in all of Impiglia’s other pieces. Civilian fashion has adopted the very patterns that were originally intended solely for the military, the culture of war becoming further ingrained in the culture of peace as objects intended for the battlefield continue to be merchandised for the everyday consumer. And yet above all this, still the saint represents the ability to persevere despite both pain and suffering, and in his modern attire he looks not so much towards the heavens, but to some hope that society as a whole might spare him. An unfortunate reality, however, is that society is inherently flawed, built on the foundation of the flawed human condition. People still send men, women, and children to their deaths, still is famine, war, and conflict promoted throughout the world. And yet despite this, and despite the accessibility to witnessing the world’s horrors, still many choose to ignore the plight of the suffering. Thus, in “The Damned,” Impiglia wishes to remind the viewer of how all must eventually attest for their actions in this life–not the next–actions that affect not only the victim but also the culprit. Appropriated from Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, the figure covers his face, displaying pure sadness and fear in the realization of this truth and its consequences. Recognizing his own failures, he submits to the background that slowly envelops him, the bloody camouflage symbolic of the conflict he created.
In “The Sacrifice,” Impiglia’s application Biblical iconography is taken a step further by ultimately being used to criticize religion with the realization that faith has been the cause of conflict and violence since the first god was exalted. The Old Testament tale appropriated for this purpose–once again from Caravaggio–demonstrates how faith can cause someone to do the unthinkable; Abraham is willing to kill his own son on God’s orders. The horrifying truth of faith’s power is enhanced by a composition that focusing on the knife and the suffering depicted on Isaac’s face. Juxtaposed with the placid innocence of the lamb, Isaac thus becomes a symbol of all children–his horror our horror, his pain our pain, the hand that restrains the knife a sign of hope to prevent such a terrible action. In “Prisoners,” Impiglia then trusts aside all religious content when choosing to appropriate the original Ruben’s painting The Obsequies of Decius Mus, depicting only a minute detail of the Flemish master’s work. In this detail, the three bound and beaten figures are shown against a flowing backdrop of red near a chalice of gold–greed inseparable from bloodshed and enslavement. A grasping hand is the only visible presence of the captor–a foreboding symbol of the society that imprisons us all. Acting as the ultimate testament to a career that has never ceased to develop, Impiglia redefines himself in his new series For That Which is Sacred. Questioning the purpose of his art and that of the art in general, Impiglia draws upon his very foundations, bringing together the ancient and the modern in order to create dynamic new works that harness both classical and contemporary aesthetic values, offering commentary both compelling and unsettling.
Christopher Impiglia
Prisoners, 2015 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 47 1/4 x 68 in | 120 x 172.7 cm Price upon request
Sacrifice, 2015 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 38 x 57 1/2 in | 96.5 x 146.1 cm Price upon request
The Damned, 2014 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 43 x 50 1/2 in | 109.2 x 128.3 cm Price upon request
The Wound, 2014 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 34 x 44 1/2 in | 86.4 x 113 cm Price upon request
The Defeat, 2015 Oil on camouflage canvas Framed: 74 x 55 in | 188 x 139.7 cm Price upon request
Jasper White
Young Guns Young people are the guardians of Israel’s security. Compulsory conscription at the age of 18 in many ways has a positive influence on young people, giving them a sense of belonging, responsibility and purpose. For some its a calling, for others it’s not a choice they can make, though most look back on it positively – friends are made for life in the army. All fighters, as they are commonly referred to, are issued with guns which they have to keep with them at all times – the rationale being it shows the enemy you are always ready to defend. Guns are such a normal sight in the lives of Israelis, an accepted part of everyday life and all but ignored. For some soldiers, status is derived from having the most modern gun, the latest sites or attachments, it shows time served and rank to have these upgrades. A condition of active antagonism exists in Israel. Although conflict situations are rare for most conscripts, for the most part, the gun is a heavy object which they are required to carry for two or three years during service.
Young Guns 1, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 2, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 3, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 4, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 5, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 6, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 7, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 8, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 9, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
Young Guns 10, 2013 Editions of 6 + 3 Artist Proofs Lambda print Framed: 40 x 52 in | 101.6 x 132.1 cm Price upon request
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